Are the Oscars As We Know Them Doomed? We Can Only Hope….

As the entire world seems to pause for a moment for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, some of regular life goes on, even in Fantasy Land, better known as Hollywood, USA. The Motion Picture Academy announces their nominees for the Oscars this week and with nothing better to do than talk out their collective asses, a fair portion of the entertainment media are squawking about whether or not the awards can survive if they don’t crown a ‘popular’ film Best Picture (read: Batman: The Dark Knight).

There’s some logic to the argument if you look at the awards in a purely television special / ratings extravaganza event. Last year’s Oscar telecast was one of the lowest rated in years and some attribute that to a lack of a popular choice among the moviegoing public, something for them to ‘root for’, as though this were a NASCAR race. I’m sure the network would love for there to be a choice like The Dark Knight among the Best Picture nominees on Thursday and they might get their wish. Fact is, Christopher Nolan made a pretty good film in a year when some of the most interesting films to come out of Hollywood were in genres traditionally ignored by the Academy. Filmmakers have finally figured out that viewers can take their heroes with some flaws, something comic readers have been able to handle since the 1960’s. The heroes of Iron Man and The Dark Knight appeal to the general public in a time when the world is viewed in ever-darkening shades of gray, making those films as relevant as any to hit screens in recent years. If Warners can manage to not completely fuck up Watchmen (which I still have my doubts about), it might even be in this conversation a year from now. But to actually state that not nominating a film like Dark Knight for Best Picture could signal the end of the Oscars as we know it is such a complete load of bullshit that you could smell the odor in Australia.

It has also been something of a banner year for the much-maligned (usually with good reason) Animated Feature Film (or, as I like to call it, “The Oscar We Just Give to Pixar Every Year They Release a Film”). Pixar, as usual, made a good showing, this time with Wall-E and proved once again that the important part of any film, animated or otherwise, is a good script. For that reason, Wall-E is even being mentioned as a potential nominee in some of the non-traditional categories for animated films, such as Best Screenplay and even as a possible longshot for Best Picture. Disney, long absent from any conversation concerning a good animated feature that wasn’t co-produced with the aforementioned Pixar, managed to release Bolt, a film that looked a whole lot like it escaped from Pixar (in some respects, that’s just what it did). Even some of the releases geared straight for the kid market weren’t as mind numbing as they’ve been in the past. Just as a bit of full disclosure, I have actively voted against some Pixar films in the past when I’ve thought another film deserved the honor more, which is why the critic’s group I was a member of at the time gave the award to Wallace & Gromit over Cars. There will be a year when an animated feature is in the mix for Best Picture but this won’t be that year. The year it does happen, that film will have to defend itself against some pretty good animated films that came before it.

First of all, the argument that the nomination & win of a “populist” film would be some sort of groundbreaking event is not only inaccurate, it’s ignorant. Titanic was a massively popular film, the highest grossing film of all time to date (Dark Knight currently sits at number two) and it took home the Best Picture award that year. So there’s the ‘blockbuster’ argument cut off at the knees. You can’t even make the ‘fantasy film’ argument any more since Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King made a pretty good showing that year, including taking that Best Picture statuette home to Hobbiton. Previously, high grossing science fiction or fantasy films would be thrown the bone of a nomination without a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. Films like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and others really just took a spot away from films that might have had a slim chance of winning Best Picture. The way the Academy is structured now, any SF / fantasy film that is good enough to get a nomination in the Best Picture category has as good a chance to win as any other film that’s nominated.

Which brings us back to The Dark Knight. I can’t remember a year when everyone from the film fans to us blowhards in the media haven’t carped on and on about how lousy the films were all year, only to be faced with a pretty tough decision when comes time to vote for the various awards. This year is no exception, with some really good films being considered as the nominations are being made. Gran Torino is possibly one of the best films Clint Eastwood has ever made. Slumdog Millionaire is this year’s “out of nowhere” film that is not only an art house choice but popular with general audiences that have seen the film. There are far more than five films that can be mentioned in this conversation but only five will be nominated. To say that Dark Knight should only be considered because of its popularity is the traditional slap in the face that these kinds of films almost always get from the ‘traditional’ press and members of the Academy who rely on the DVD screeners because their iron lungs won’t fit into the theaters. Thankfully, those contingents have been getting marginalized as time goes on, partially due to the internet but also because so many of the ‘old guard’ are either passing away or have figured out that a fantasy film no longer involves Buster Crabbe and might really be worth watching, even if the great-grandkids have a picture from the film on their lunch box or have downloaded it to their iPhone.

The Dark Knight won’t be any kind of ‘hero’ to the Oscars regardless of whether it gets a Best Picture nomination or not and it shouldn’t be. The history of the Academy Awards is full of Best Picture winners that are little more than cheap rentals (if you can find them on video at all) while the runners up have gone on to become cherished classics of the medium. I have no doubt that, a decade from now, Dark Knight will be remembered and viewed a lot more than most of the films in the Oscar discussion this year. But the Oscars shouldn’t be about what film will be best remembered a decade from now but what the voters believe is the best film now. And that’s the way it should be, regardless of ratings or any other external influence. Of course, it won’t be that way, it probably hasn’t been for a whole lot of years and may never be that way again but we can all hope.

–KJB

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