The Dark Knight Strikes at the Academy Awards a Little Too Late
The general consensus about 2008 in cinema was The Dark Knight was one of (if not) the best films of the year. Sure there were capes and cowls and lavishly dressed antagonists but at its core it was a crime story. A classic detective film with the classic formula, although instead of a down on his luck private eye or a no nonsense police officer, we got Batman.
And after the movie came and went, there was a little something called “the Oscar buzz” snapping at The Dark Knight’s heels. It had everything going for it, the second highest grossing film domestically (until Avatar dropped it to third just a couple of weeks ago), nigh-unanimous good reviews and numerous appearances at the top tiers of countless “best of” lists. YES, The Dark Knight is that good of a movie. It was a shoe-in for a Best Picture nod right?
Well, the Academy thought otherwise.
You see, the Academy tends to look down on films of an unusual genre. And while i hold a whole lot more respect to the Academy as compared to the Hollywood Foreign Press (organizers of The Golden Globes). Some of their past nominations have been questionable at best. “But Los Dangerous, didn’t Return of the King win best picture?” Indeed it has and while that may be true, the third LOTR film had a lot of things going for it. One thing that helped it gain a little Oscar push was that the first two movies in the trilogy did amazingly well, critics lauded it and it also was a box-office smash. And let’s not forget that those two prior movies were also nominated for best picture. So the Academy had no choice but to give it “an apology award” (an act the Academy is notorious for). An apology award is basically the Academy’s way of saying “Gee, sorry you lost for a stellar performance, but hey we didn’t forget about you”.
Back to the point…
It could be a stretch to say that it was merely because of The Dark Knight that the Academy took it upon themselves to expand the nominations of the Best Picture category from five films to a massive TEN. People can’t deny that the backlash of the snub was controversial to say the least. And while there were certainly more than 10 great films last year, a quick look at the nominations reveal that the Academy is once again apologizing to the critics and the audience. The Ten Nominated films are
- Avatar
- The Blind Side
- District 9
- An Education
- The Hurt Locker
- Inglorious Basterds
- Precious
- A Serious Man
- Up
- Up in the Air
It’s blatantly obvious that the Academy is reaching out to the casual movie goer with this list. And while i have no real complaints about the nominations except maybe Inglorious Basterds. The films deserving of a nod are pretty much spot on This year’s crop covers a wide spectrum of genre’s, science fiction, animated and the biopic among others. And while i’m ecstatic that District 9 is nominated, we’ll have to wait and see if it has enough push to actually win.
Clue: IT WONT
So The Dark Knight has done it’s duty. Make a movie good enough to entertain the people and extract so much passion from them and maybe you can open minds to the fact that cinema is not the same as it was before. We’re in the age of the blockbuster movie and while most of them are nothing but special effects bonanza’s some of them hold enough clout to actually deserve an award. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, 2009 was a fantastic year for film and even though the usual “for your consideration” movies have been quite weak (what? NO Clint Eastwood?!?!). The doubling of the best picture nomination could not have come at a more opportune time. Great movies aren’t just released from November to January, there are fantastic films all year round, We, like the Academy, just need to know where to look.
