Coming soon: the Pop Oscars

Raise your hand if this has happened to you: On the day the Oscar nominations come out, you haul your bleary arse out of your East Coast bed to watch the live telecast. And as Mr. Executive Graybeard and Ms. Perky Sunshine list the nominees, you say out loud: "Um, who?" Then you slap yourself in the face a few times (to shake the early morning cobwebs), rewind the DVR, and you still have no clue who these people are.

Well, AMPAS wants to change all that. It wants Iron Man to get a Metal Man.

The New York Times reports today that studios are sick of seeing their least-viewed films nominated for Academy Awards. They don't mind the prestige, and the nominations definitely give these otherwise-straight-to-DVD performances some much-deserved attention. But they also know that Oscar ratings have been in the crapper since Titanic won Best Picture in 2003. So what's the answer? Push your most successful films for Oscar nods!

This is not a uniformly horrible idea. If Heath Ledger doesn't get nominated for The Joker, then the nominating committee is high on paint fumes. Truly. And Robert Downey Jr. elevates everything he stars in, and Iron Man is no exception. But nominate WALL-E for Best Picture? Against these heavyweights? Puh-leeze.

Summer tentpole films aren't meant to be Oscar-worthy. They're overblown, escapist fluff designed to make you forget that you lost four pounds of sweat on the way to the theater. Oscars are about character development, all layers and nuance. I'm not judging here; I like both types of films equally, and I like them SEPARATE.

When you wake up on January 29, 2009, there still might be a lot of people viewing the nominations and slapping themselves silly. Only this time, it could be in disbelief.

Comments

[kdiddy]

mmm...but the blockbusters that you mentioned weren't just escapist fluff. The Dark Knight, Wall-E, and Iron Man all had extremely layered stories and metaphorical development and were visually stunning. These flicks aren't Bad Boys or some Jerry Bruckheimer ejaculate. Hollywood studios are actually putting some artistic vision into their moneymakers and the results are pretty awesome. and many of the predictable Oscar flicks are just that...predictable. if there are corsets or Angelina Jolie emoting, you have a good chance of sauntering across that stage and I think audiences are starting to notice that a lot of these movies are pretty phoned in. I think it's pretty interesting that the artistry of summer blockbusters are starting to match their budgets.

[DianaCLT]

Jerry Bruckheimer ejaculate - you simultaneously gave me an unwanted visual and left a bad taste in my mouth. har har! ;)