Oscars to reflect doom and gloom
2008-02-21 16:04
Los Angeles - Maybe it was the
crippling writers' strike or the ongoing wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Or was it something in the expensive bottled water in
Beverly Hills where Oscar organisers are based.
But whatever it is, Hollywood's on a big downer these days,
and this year's nominations for the world's top film honours,
the Oscars, reflect the sombre mood that has blanketed
Tinseltown.
Want betrayal, revenge, doomed love, murder and despair? Go
see best film nominees No Country for Old Men, Atonement,
Michael Clayton and There Will Be Blood?
Prefer paralysis and disease? Try The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly, which earned Julian Schnabel a best director nod,
or documentary nominee Sicko from director Michael Moore.
Howard Suber, founding chair of Ucla's Film and Television
Producers Programme and author of The Power of Film, said he
has never seen a bleaker view of human nature in a group of
films since the French cinema of the 1960s.
Sadistic oil prospector
"A film like There Will Be Blood is decidedly
un-American," he said. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as sadistic
oil prospector in the early 20th Century who will do anything
to create wealth and gain power.
The inclusion of teen pregnancy comedy Juno in the best
picture category lightens the grim mood, and not surprisingly,
it's the only bona fide box office hit among the bunch, so far
grossing $125m in the United States and Canada.
No Country has about half that amount at $61m.
Blood has mustered only $32m, so far, and they are the
most-nominated movies with eight Oscar nods apiece.
This year's five nominees for best film look likely to score
the second-lowest box office total for the group in 20 years, with
their ticket sales equalling an anaemic 3% of the overall
2007 domestic box office of around $9.7bn.
Many of 2007's big hits - Spider-Man, Transformers,
Knocked Up and Superbad - were escapist fantasies and
raunchy comedies, "mostly aimed at 11-year-olds, like most
movies," said Los Angeles Daily News film critic Bob Strauss.
The some 5 800 voters at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, however, are adults who work in the industry and
favour serious dramas that look at complex questions of human
nature, which is why a movie like No Country, a meditation on
declining society morals, scores well with Oscar voters.
'Escape all the bad news'
But regular moviegoers, said Suber, don't want to face the
reality of the world, which right now includes the war on
terrorism, the US housing crisis and an ailing economy.
"Audiences don't want to see realistic films about the war
in Iraq. They want to escape all the bad news," Suber said.
Leonard Maltin, film critic and historian for celebrity TV
show Entertainment Tonight, said the disconnect between Oscar
voters and general movie fans - as judged by box office - is
the result of Hollywood making "safe" movies.
Films like the Spider-Man, Shrek and Pirates of the
Caribbean sequels have built-in audiences and storytelling
formulas that studios rely on to boost ticket sales.
Maltin and the Daily News' Strauss agreed that one of the
academy's roles at Oscar time is to distinguish between those
type of popcorn flicks and award-worthy artistic films.
"They're supposed to judge quality, and quality's rare,"
said Strauss, "That said, I thought Transformers really
kicked butt."