Oscars have gotten way too predictable.
Pretty much all of the major winners these past four years have been good films, albeit stuffy and esoteric. None of them, in my opinion, seem like classic or memorable films.
Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men and The Hurt Locker were all good films, but don't really seem to have the same longevity that past Oscar winners had to make them classic films. They just don't seem quite as worthy.
Maybe the film industry really is in a slump. When I think of Best Picture, I think of Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Shawshank Redemption (should have won), A Beautiful Mind and Silence of the Lambs. Not the stuffy fare that we've been getting for the past several years.
I'm not saying any of the winners from the past few years are bad...just not as good.
That and it's become too easy to predict who will win.
Well I hate to tell you this but Forrest Gump and Shawshank Redemption were the same year and only one could have one (it should have been Pulp Fiction btw
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I wouldn't include NCFOM on that list. It was not my choice for 2007 (I preferred There Will Be Blood and Atonement of the nominees and several films like Zodiac, Sweeney Todd and the Assassination of Jesse James which were not nominated). However, it is not that the list of movies haven't been great in recent years (other than 2009's general weak offering). It's just that the Academy picks the wrong film.
For example in 2008, I think The Dark Knight has the appeal of Jaws or Empire Strikes Back and will live on as a mainstream audience favorite. Milk will have longevity of a film that explored gay rights in a humane and non-baitish way. The LGBT community will keep that movie relevant. Slumdog Millionaire was a simple feel good movie that people will forget. The Hurt Locker was an excellent war movie that is not war defining as say Platoon, Apocalypse Now or Saving Private Ryan were....but it was timely and made a doubly politically good statement (war is bad, women directors are good). It is a perfectly fine movie. But what else came out in 2009? Inglourious Basterds, a film that will live on as if nothing else but one of Tarantino's best (which means it will be remembered for decades to come) and Christoph Waltz's iconic performance as the ultimate Nazi villain.
This year films like The Social Network, Inception and Black Swan all have elements that will cause audiences to revisit them for years to come, IMO. TSN is a cultural milestone as the first film about the Digital Generation and even if it doesn't define it, it gives it a reflective quality much the same way The Graduate, Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy were the first to really tackle the baby boomer generation in the late 1960s, even if none of them are definitive accounts. Of those, only Midnight Cowboy won a major Oscar.
Inception is a technical marvel that will be explored for its layered narrative and originality in exploring dreams in such a visceral way. If (and that is still if) Nolan becomes one of the true iconic masters this will be one of his signature films for its vision and technical prowess. Black Swan is already on its way to be a much spoofed/homaged soon-to-be clichéd allegory of the artist who killed herself for her art. Natalie Portman's performance is one for revisiting for years, if not decades, to come.
The Academy chooses movies like The King's Speech all the time. That doesn't mean it is the only great movie of the year.
. Big deal.
