Movies I finished ‘Milk’ recently and it got me to thinking

[SaysWho?]

Wtf Those academy members suck for not putting WALL·E/TDK s as best picture nominees! I’ve watched Slumdog, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and Milk and besides the obvious “they didn’t want comic book/animated movies in the top 5,” I can’t find any reason why those four are better films.

 

Whether it’s overall craft, script, pacing, cinematography, performances, NONE OF THE FIRST FOUR HAVE THE SAME LASTING IMPRESSIONS.

 

I always wanted to see Milk and finally got around to it, and it was a good movie. But it reminded me in some ways of Frost/Nixon - a competently made film about real people. 

[TheLeon]

“a competently made film about real people” is traditional Oscar catnip. Long term though, this is the year that “broke” the Oscars in certain ways. The next year is when they expanded the Best Picture to include up to 10 nominees, which has allowed for some pretty interesting lineups. 

[Fizzzzle]

I think it was the year that Crash won that the system started breaking. Like, that movie is fine, I guess, but it checked all of the "Oscar" boxes (slow pacing, vague pluralities about racism, ensemble cast, etc) and people afterwards were like "... hol'up"

[Keyser_Soze]

It's homophobic to not give this movie an Oscar!

[SaysWho?]

9 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I think it was the year that Crash won that the system started breaking. Like, that movie is fine, I guess, but it checked all of the "Oscar" boxes (slow pacing, vague pluralities about racism, ensemble cast, etc) and people afterwards were like "... hol'up"

 

It's not even like the Academy making the "wrong" choice was new (How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane, for example), but it did feel like 2005/2008 attracted more controversy than normal in the modern age of the Academy. I think their nominees after Crash were more interesting in 2006/2007, and the winners ended up being movies that I feel are classic films.

[Brick]

Don't forget that 2008 was also the year of The Reader, the film that finally won Kate Winslet her Oscar...for doing a Holocaust movie which she had joked about on an episode of Extras a few years prior. 

[TwinIon]

I think of 2008 as being a backlash after several years of almost entirely honoring movies that no-one saw, even if that feeling wasn't entirely justified.

 

Look back at the prior decade, and there are a lot of nominees and winners that were huge draws. Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Return of the King; all of them winners that a lot of people had actually saw in theaters. Many of those movies also had competition that had drawn in crowds. In 2000, of the nominees for best picture, only Chocolat didn't make $100M, and it wasn't too far off.

 

Then, in 2004 you didn't have huge hits, but both Aviator and Million Dollar Baby made $100M. In 2005 Brokeback was the highest grossing Best Pic Nom with only $85M. In 06 The Departed made decent money, but the rest of the noms were hardly seen. By 2007, as good as those movies were, they weren't exactly hits, with only Juno making over $100M.

 

Oddly enough, 2008 was actually a return of blockbusters to the Best Picture race, with both Slumdog and Benjamin Button making the list, but the narrative had been set that the Oscars were increasingly elitist and out of touch. So when Wall-E and especially TDK didn't make the cut, there was quite a backlash, resulting in changing the rules to give a chance for more big movies to at least get nominated.

 

I also find it funny that while 2008 spurred this outrage that popular movies weren't being considered for Best Picture, we haven't had a really popular movie actually win the award since. We've usually gotten at least one big film in the nominations, but I'm pretty sure that Slumdog sold more tickets than any winner since.

[CitizenVectron]

I always view oscar winners the same as literary fiction: it's fine, but 50% of the reason they are celebrated is to look down on genre fiction/movies (which are far more popular, and often just as good).

[SaysWho?]

17 hours ago, TwinIon said:

I think of 2008 as being a backlash after several years of almost entirely honoring movies that no-one saw, even if that feeling wasn't entirely justified.

 

Look back at the prior decade, and there are a lot of nominees and winners that were huge draws. Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Return of the King; all of them winners that a lot of people had actually saw in theaters. Many of those movies also had competition that had drawn in crowds. In 2000, of the nominees for best picture, only Chocolat didn't make $100M, and it wasn't too far off.

 

Then, in 2004 you didn't have huge hits, but both Aviator and Million Dollar Baby made $100M. In 2005 Brokeback was the highest grossing Best Pic Nom with only $85M. In 06 The Departed made decent money, but the rest of the noms were hardly seen. By 2007, as good as those movies were, they weren't exactly hits, with only Juno making over $100M.

 

Oddly enough, 2008 was actually a return of blockbusters to the Best Picture race, with both Slumdog and Benjamin Button making the list, but the narrative had been set that the Oscars were increasingly elitist and out of touch. So when Wall-E and especially TDK didn't make the cut, there was quite a backlash, resulting in changing the rules to give a chance for more big movies to at least get nominated.

 

I also find it funny that while 2008 spurred this outrage that popular movies weren't being considered for Best Picture, we haven't had a really popular movie actually win the award since. We've usually gotten at least one big film in the nominations, but I'm pretty sure that Slumdog sold more tickets than any winner since.

Comparing the 2010s to the 1990s is insane as far as movies with wide appeal. I gotta give them credit for 2007, though, because as much as the movies weren’t hits, No Country and There Will Be Blood penetrated pop culture in their own ways.

 

08 just seemed like elitists who were too good for animation and superheroes.