91st Academy Awards

Certainly, Awards can be functionally bought by an aggressive enough campaign, but the Oscars specifically are slightly more indicative of overall quality than just about any other award. The Academy consists of hundreds of people from all parts of the industry, and so if something gets nominated in a certain category it's likely to be a pretty good representation of that category. Other awards are generally determined by a much smaller committee. The Golden Globes is literally the Hollywood Foreign Press trying to set up an opportunity to cuddle up with the big stars of Hollywood for a night, so if you don't have a BIG actor in your independent film you're not going to be recognized. Producers Guild, SAG and smaller, more specialized awards can be a bit more telling, but are sometimes too specialized to really mean anything (it's like having a bunch of car dealerships give themselves an award).

Bare minimum, it gives everyone an opportunity to talk and discuss about the best the last year had to offer in a variety of categories.

And yet there are a bunch of categories that are treated like an afterthought or the Academy members are clearly biased against. Also, they are a lot of tropes and genres that they seem to favor dis-proportionally - like Dramatic Period Pieces set during WW 2. Plus the historic problem that, even tho they come from different parts of the industry like you say, a large proportion of the Academy members are Old White Men. If an Academy award only indicates that a film might be good, why rely on it over an online review as a measure of quality?

Edited by Xopher001 on Jan 22nd 2019 at 9:55:44 PM

Seems like a pretty weak field in what was, frankly, a pretty weak year for movies.

Burning got stiffed which means South Korea still does not have an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film, ever.

Edited by jamespolk on Jan 22nd 2019 at 1:19:03 AM

I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring and say that Vice is also pretty dang bad. I'm hoping that Black Panther wins just because it'd be really nice if a superhero movie won Best Picture instead of just for costumes or for Heath Ledger's Joker.

It's good that Black Panther got nominated, because my God, if it hadn't the takes from Woke Twitter would have gone on until the heat death of the universe.

I liked Vice, but it was not as good as Eighth Grade or Bad Times at the El Royale. I feel like the Academy just wanted to give Christian Bale an award for putting on all that weight for Dick Cheney.

My #1 of the year, Annihilation, was completely robbed. Not even any of the technical categories, really?

The Academy Awards are important because it opens up opportunities for the people who get nominated and especially for the ones who win. It is also an opportunity to shine some light on movies which would usually be overlooked.

Sidenote: I hate the word "woke". It has become some sort of swear word which is mostly used by people who waste their time raging against more diversity in the media. Currently you find it a lot under videos who explain in detail that Captain Marvel is a failure.

Probably alone in this, but I'm still disappointed the "Best Popular Film" award idea got scrapped. I really wanted to see a backlash come out of that.

I can't believe we don't have a work page for Burning.

Edited by gropcbf on Jan 22nd 2019 at 11:57:39 AM

I want The Favourite to clean up simply because it's Oscar Bait and I want the Academy to go back to honoring films that the public either ignores or dislikes.

If I could find it anywhere I'd watch it and make a page.

Last year's Oscars were really good (Science fantasy wins first prize! Horror/social-satire takes screenplay!) but it seems like things just... deflated.

@ xopher001- Any given organization will have its bias'. But in fact despite mocking some of the more vitriolic #OscarsSoWhite campaigners the Academy even admitted they could do better with diversity and representation, and outlined a plan to include more minority members. The following year the awards were practically flooded with black-centric films and talent, and Moonlight won Best Picture. The year after that some people noted that it just wasn't a great year for minority films (Get Out! was most of it), although del Toro won Best Director. This year seems to be a little bit stronger. It's functionally impossible to have perfect representation at all times, but you should always be striving.

The fact that Green Book was nominated (a film criticized for being, basically, a white guy's recollection of being friends with a famous black musician), while neither Sorry to Bother You nor Blindspotting was nominated means that the Oscars still have a long way to go.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90295228/what-happened-to-black-panthers-oscar-momentum

Apparently a lot of Academy members actively avoided watching Black Panther. That... raises a lot of questions and concerns....

Can you summarize why? I can't see the article for some reason.

Well, I hope to see Black Panther win something. In the mean time, I am hoping that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wins Best Animated Picture because it's an animation film that is so unique and great that almost every other animated film in the category feels average and "seen-it-before," not helped by the fact that Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet are sequels.

Out of all the films in that category, the only film I have not seen is Mirai (I've seen Isle of Dogs on a plane trip), so I cannot comment on that film. But I still stand by Spider-Man to be my favored contender because Best Animated Feature should be groundbreaking by technical animation standard (and story, of course) than simply whatever Disney film kids like these days.

The article implies that Black Panther was avoided by Academy members because of it being a superhero movie.

The cynic in me though thinks there was another reason they refused to watch it.

Well, it got nominated, so....

Considering that Black Panther is the first superhero movie ever to get nominated, there doesn't seem to be a need for any other reason than "Oscar doesn't like superhero movies."

I keep thinking that The Dark Knight was nominated for Best Picture, but it wasn't — it was nominated and won for Best Supporting Actor, mainly due to the fact that he died, I think.

It is, in fact, generally agreed that The Dark Knight and WALL-E both getting snubbed for Best Picture in 2009 while the mediocre tragic WWII romance The Reader did get nominated was what prompted the increase of the maximum number of BP nominees to ten the following year.

Wait even WALL-E wasn't nominated?

Man that's some old bullshit. Bias against superhero & animated flicks.

Edited by slimcoder on Jan 22nd 2019 at 7:22:44 AM