Frustrating Oscars fumble balance of commerce, art

Frustrating Oscars fumble balance of commerce, art

by Sara Michelle Fetters - SGN Contributing Writer Did you watch the 80th Academy Awards this past Sunday? Apparently neither did anyone else, the crowing of Joel and Ethan Coen's electrifying No Country for Old Men as Best Picture drawing the lowest ratings (roughly 32 million viewers) for the telecast since records started being kept in 1974. Reasons for this abound, of course, the chief one being almost no one in the ticket-buying public bothered to see any of the major nominees. Michael Clayton? There Will Be Blood? Atonement? Great films all, but combined they've made less than $150 million at the box office. Heck, the Coen's Oscar-winning spectacle (in addition to Picture it also took home trophies for Best Supporting Actor Javier Bardem, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director), while their biggest hit to date, has made a bit less than $70 million - not exactly numbers suggesting moviegoers are flocking in droves to the multiplex. Only Juno, the tiny independent darling (and winner for former exotic dancer Diablo Cody's Original Screenplay) has proven itself to be a hit, the film crossing the $130 million mark and remaining in the top ten at the weekly box office every week since its release. But even it isn't exactly an easy sell, the comedy of teenage pregnancy full or ironic wit and lacerating verbal gymnastics tending to make most of your middlebrow filmgoers blushingly uncomfortable. So what does this mean? Should the Oscars transform themselves into the People's Choice Awards or the MTV Movie Awards and start taking into consideration what the massive hits of the day are when figuring out their nominations? Should the Independent Spirit Awards be the home for the lesser-known features and the Oscars the purview of the major studios and their big-budget releases only? No, no, and hell no. If I were to suddenly wake up in a world were Spider-Man 3 and Alvin and the Chipmunks were the films receiving Oscar nominations I think I might curl up and die. Seriously, was Transformers the film of the year? Was Shrek the Third the greatest animated feature since sliced bread? Did I Am Legend or Wild Hogs change your life for having seen them? I think not, and anyone who froths at the mouth and tries to tell you otherwise needs to be committed immediately. That doesn't mean the Academy Awards can't take (or hasn't taken) popularity into consideration. The Bourne Ultimatum (winner of three technical Oscars) was on over 100 critics' top ten lists this past year while also making over $220 million at the box office, while Pixar/Disney's Ratatouille (winner of Best Animated Feature) was the third best-reviewed entertainment of 2007 right behind Once and No Country for Old Men. Both were worthy of Best Picture consideration, neither made the cut, and had either of them been there I can't help but think viewers might have been a bit more interested in seeing things play out. But the reality is that the Oscars should not be about crowning the sensation of the hour (although past wins - whether justified or not - by films like Gentleman's Agreement, Around the World in 80 Days, Rocky, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances with Wolves, Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Crash certainly call that statement into question). They should, in fact, be about trying to - gasp! - honor quality films, not just the ones the teenage boys and girls of America flock to again and again ad nauseam. None of which probably has anything to do with how to make the actual Academy Awards telecast more interesting. I'm not sure what can be done on that front; it isn't exactly like the Oscars can just suddenly morph into something young, hip and relevant overnight. It's an award show, after all, and they do tend to be sluggish, pretentious and, yes, long, not exactly traits making for good television. Not that I care, really, as I'm going to keep watching no matter how silly the production numbers get, how stupid the clip montages become, how awful the teleprompter copy is or how many times the producers forget to include relevant figures during the In Memoriam segment (by the way, shame on you, Gil Cates, for axing Brad Renfro - a sin even more inexcusable then forgetting about Whoopi). For those who love and adore film the Oscars are almost our reason for breathing. After all, what else would we have to complain about for the following year if not for them? (Stupid frickin' Academy & forgetting Zodiac & giving an award to the bad Elizabeth sequel & not giving the award to Brokeback Mountain two years ago& nominating the gawd-awful Norbit & stupid frickin' Academy &)