Sunday, September 7, 2008

Late Oscar Commentary

Old magazines are fun to read. One I keep coming back to is the Oscar edition of Entertainment Weekly, and besides the Oscar minute-by-minute recap, something else caught my eye. Apparently now, the Oscars are boring, and, mark my words, you are not a true movie lover if you can't appreciate awards night. I admit, it wasn't the speediest of years, but it was still suspenseful, especially that Best Supporting Actor race that featured the five heavyweights: Bardem, Seymour Hoffman, Holbrook, Wilkinson, and Affleck. One thing I do agree on, though, is to stop campaigning movies and actors/actresses so much for certain honors, such as Daniel Day-Lewis for "There Will Be Blood" or Javier Bardem for "No Country for Old Men" or even "No Country" itself. Why? Some frontrunner victories are okay, but to have a truly predictable year at the Oscars is like having a Super Bowl victory of 50 points. One of these years was 2003, when "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", won so many awards, it was embarrassing. It was such a predictable ceremony, also because Sean Penn was sure to beat Bill Murray despite a lot of attention given to Murray, Tim Robbins held off two great actors in Djimon Hounsou and Ken Watanabe, Charlize Theron beat Keisha Castle-Hughes, and Renee Zellweger captured Supporting Actress easily. So, I admit, some years can be kind of downers, but that's no reason to tune out, as apparently 82% has done from now on. So then, Hollywood cooks up crappier movies because they think due to the popularity of the ceremony that the films sucked and then viewers/critics like myself are forced to watch these less-than-top-notch movies to stay connected. Take, for example, "Crash." "Million-Dollar Baby" was really quite good, but no, Hollywood obviously doesn't think so, as they promote "Crash," an absolute mess that didn't deserve any nominations, over such greats as "Capote" and "Brokeback Mountain." How dare they? Well, this year seems to be one of those years, because although there seems like good pickings this year (refer to my Fall movie preview blog), it seems like the Academy is going to award the film that seems to be creating the most buzz among fans.

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