The last few weeks of the year are here and it’s time for Hollywood to roll out their finest stuff in hopes the Academy will take notice and bestow an Oscar on these films. There are a lot of them out there. Doubt is getting a lot of hype. Milk and Gran Torino promise career performances from Sean Penn and Clint Eastwood respectively. The much talked about reverse-aging epic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is out there as well. There’s also Will Smith in Seven Pounds, Tom Cruise in Valkyrie, the animated Waltz with Bashir from Ari Folman and Revolutionary Road from Sam Mendes.
Like I said, there are a lot of them, and this is the way it’s been at the end of the year for the last couple decades. The studios want their Oscar hopefuls in the Academy’s faces right before nomination time, and for the most part, this simple ploy usually works. Mark my words, most of the above flicks will make up the majority of the noms this year.
This is bullshit in my opinion. Time of year shouldn’t matter. A good movie, an Oscar-worthy movie, is Oscar-worthy no matter what time of year it is released. If these studios had any reall balls they would release all of these in January. If a flick is really that good, the Academy will remember it come December. And if not, if the Academy is that dim-witted and memory-handicapped, why are they allowed to vote?
I agree wholeheartedly .
ReplyDeleteWe went to see "Yes Man" over the Christmas break. Not my first choice (the one I was most drawn to, "Happy-Go-Lucky," was already gone) but it was fun and I got my share of holiday laffs.
As we watched the shorts, they seemed to go on almost as long as the main feature. While it's nice to have so many choices, I don't have time to go to the movies every day to see all the latest and greatest stuff while it's still on the screen.
Are the needs or wants of moviegoers factored into these Oscar-positioning decisions at any stage?
Dumb question, I know.