With the Golden Globes a little over a week ago and the Oscar nominees being announced on February 15th, we, as a nation of moviegoers, have officially entered Award Season. Most of the organizations that give awards that count (aside from MTV) have given them. Now the bets are on for the Oscar race. But what do these awards all really mean?
Ostensibly, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives out their coveted Oscar awards to those films, performers and behind-the-scenes workers that rise above the rest to be the best of the year. Of course, reality intervenes in this ideal.
Academy Awards have come to mean much more to studios than mere confirmation of a job well done. Oscars equal dollars, both in theatrical release and in video revenues. Moreover, a Best Picture Oscar can confer instant classic status on a movie that would otherwise go down in history as good, not great.
Thus, the race for Oscar gold has become a high stakes contest in which studios will spend large amounts of money trying to persuade Academy voters that their movie deserves recognition.
Variety, Hollywood's premier trade magazine, is littered with the "For Your Consideration" ads that trumpet everyone from the shoo-in nominee to the "Deuce Bigalows" of the world.
The studios have become unsure that Academy members even see their movies in the theater now, so videos (and now, DVDs) are sent to the homes of every single member, providing them copies to view at their leisure. Once a sign of going the extra mile, this tactic is now de rigeur.
This has complicated the Oscar process, hindering the big epics that should only be seen in a proper theater. Many pundits believe that last year's unlikely triumph of "Shakespeare in Love" over "Saving Private Ryan" was at least partially due to the former's easier transition to the small screen.
The process is further complicated by Academy politics. The Academy tends to reward those who have not been rewarded before. Especially Oscar-friendly are movies that the Academy considers "serious" ("Shakespeare in Love" was the first comedy winner since 1978's "Annie Hall.").
The Academy doesn't like to give Oscars to bombs, but neither does it like to give them to movies that make gobs of money. All these tendencies detract from the Academy's absolute authority over what is "Best."
Despite these complaints, I believe the Academy does a decent job. While a movie can get unfair treatment every once in a while, the nominees are generally quite good. Most of the Best Picture recipients that I have seen over the years have been excellent. For such a money-oriented town, the Oscars do a good job of honoring deserving films.
When I look at the Oscar winners of the 1990s, however, I see two glaring errors.
The first occurred at the 1995 Oscars. I'm not going to say that "Forrest Gump" isn't a great movie. Indeed it is. Still, five years hence, it seems obvious that "Pulp Fiction" would have been a far superior choice. With a young director and a cast lacking the kind of wholesome superstar A-list talent the Academy loves to lavish attention on, "Pulp Fiction" missed the Oscar it so clearly should have attained.
A more questionable call is 1998's mistake, "Titanic." I'm no "Titanic" hater, and indeed, I'm a huge fan of director James Cameron. Still, "LA Confidential" was by far the superior movie. I may just be showing my love of crime movies, but I feel like the complicated and perfectly filmed "Confidential" blew the big, slow-moving boat out of the water.
Sometimes the Academy is blinded and it is always overly pompous, but in the end, the Oscar tends to go to a pretty damn good movie. With a few notable mistakes, their record remains quite respectable. This year's contest is said to be one of the most wide open in history. We'll see if Oscar can rise above concentrated marketing and the limits of televisions to maintain its high batting average.
