Best of Oscar

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences hasn’t had it easy in recent years: public interest in their prestige event, the Oscars, is waning; TV viewership is shrinking… While it’s certainly way too early to write an eulogy for the Academy Awards, there’s the growing feeling that the academy needs to fix a few things if it wants to retain the relevance of its premier awards show.  Because Oscars’ problems are home-made: year after year, the academy nominates movies in the Best Picture category that almost nobody has heard of. Of course most summer blockbusters won’t have enough artistic merit or substance to qualify for the honors. But when even commonly held blockbuster master pieces like The Dark Knight and Wall•E get snubbed in favor of obscure titles with little exposure it’s hard to get excited for the show, let alone stay engaged through a four-hour TV marathon. That’s certainly true for Victoria and I, who hadn’t seen a single one of this year’s Best Picture contenders. All are supposedly great films, but that doesn’t count for much when you’re watching the ceremony and don’t have anybody to root for.

So this year we made a resolution to watch all five nominees before the big awards show on February 22. Our behavior is certainly debatable, because it actually feeds into Oscar’s fundamental problem: huge marketing campaigns specifically designed to sway the public’s opinion, as well as that of the voting members. The Oscar as a marketing tool, rather than a legitimate and objective acknowledgment of last year’s best work. Do we really want to reward that? But usually the nominated movies are good, and we have never tried this before. It’s a fun experiment – let’s see if we manage to squeeze all five movies into the next two weeks! I’ll post our thoughts on each movie as we go along. Up tomorrow, for the first review: The Reader, starring Kate Winslett, Ralph Fiennes and David Kross. See you then!