Comments | boffo: Why the Oscars Are Irrelevant

boffo

Why the Oscars Are Irrelevant

Mar 08, 2010 11:10

30,000,000 people were foolish enough to waste their Sunday evening watching a self-congratulatory wankfest where a bunch of people worship themselves for their belief that they're better than you. Ostensibly this was to determine the best movies of the year ( Read more... )

Comments 17

integreillumine March 8 2010, 19:30:31 UTC

Point's well-taken.

Though I'll probably be willing to watch Aviator again in 20 years, and I still haven't seen/have little interest in seeing Transformers or Passion of the Christ, maybe even Cars. (It looks like the weakest of the Pixar films, and I somehow haven't managed it.) I want to see Milk.

I suspect historical films, where video isn't kept, may retain some interest. (Like Frost/Nixon, etc. Even if they're obviously biased?)

boffo March 8 2010, 19:41:49 UTC

I personally never had any interest in seeing Passion of the Christ either. But I think people will still be watching it in decades. Just as people still watch The Ten Commandments 54 years after it came out.

I agree that Cars is the weakest of the Pixar movies, but I think animated films tend to hold up. Kids will still like cars and anthropomorphic things in 20 years. And Disney's marketing machine will keep it from falling into obscurity.

I don't think bias has much to do with how well a movie holds up. But people need to see a movie for it to be remembered. So stuff like Milk and Frost/Nixon will be forgotten.

phanatic March 8 2010, 19:44:43 UTC

Just as people still watch The Ten Commandments 54 years after it came out.

Do they? I remember it playing on the television an an annual basis when I was a little kid, but that was before people had cable, and back when I went to Church.

boffo March 8 2010, 20:02:19 UTC

It wouldn't play on TV every year if people weren't watching it.

Thread 8

(The comment has been removed)

boffo March 8 2010, 19:51:53 UTC

Fair enough. Perhaps I would have more respect for the Academy's ability to judge movies if they weren't so consistently bad at it.

phanatic March 8 2010, 19:38:53 UTC

The first list of won't-be-talked about, I mostly agree with, but there are a few. The Departed is Scorsese, and will be talked about on that basis, in the same sense that people still watch and talk about Mean Streets and Taxi Driver today. Pretty much the same for No Country for Old Men; it's a safe bet that people will still be reading Cormac McCarthy in 20 years, and the film will retain an audience in his penumbra.

The second list? No way will Transformers be watched in 20 years. None. The special effects will be ridiculously dated (and weren't all that great to begin with, although part of that problem was Bay's complete lack of directing talent that made the robot-on-robot fights visually resemble a tangle of two different colors of steel wool), the box office was driven mainly by Gen Xish nostalgia, and once you take those two factors away what have you got left? Turturro playing a role that's a dozen stories beneath him and a robot pee joke ( ... )

coderay March 8 2010, 19:55:43 UTC

Heh, despite anything I may think about its quality, everyone today still remembers Home Alone and it is still the source of an occasional joke or pop-culture reference. (same with Total Recall).

boffo March 8 2010, 20:00:42 UTC

I think the Oscars were a lot more relevant 20 years ago, because they mostly nominated movies people saw. Note that three of the nominees were also in the top five for the box office. (And the other two are a movie that's been completely forgotten, and a movie that's only remembered as a shitty sequel nobody should see.)

Transformers was on the borderline of movies I thought would be remembered. I don't have a lot of confidence in that prediction, and certainly see your arguments against it.

coderay March 8 2010, 19:52:38 UTC

A few thoughts come to mind about your post ( ... )

madbard March 8 2010, 20:28:46 UTC

The Academy Awards has never portrayed itself as anything other than an internal survey of industry professionals. It's natural to expect the more "artsy" judgement calls to reflect the political/philosophical biases of the voting members. Said voters have very different vested emotional interests than the moviegoing public - for instance, they may feel a deep-seated need to validate the idea of a dreary antiwar film as artistically significant, so they can continue to feel good about making them. Hence, it's almost a given that Academy votes will reflect a different set of aesthetic priorities than that of the moviegoing public ( ... )