Wikipedia, unsurprisingly, has a list of all the Best Movie Oscar winners. For no readily apparent reason I decided to look them all up and see how many I’ve watched. Starting in the forties (because why not):
40s: 4
50s: 5
60s: 4
70s: 7
80s: 8
90s: 9
00s: 4
10s: 2
20s: 0 (out of three)
Hmmm. Seventies through the 90’s seemed to make movies I actually wanted to watch. But how about just the movies that were nominated?
40s: 16/50 (32%)
50s: 15/50 (30%)
60s: 21/50 (42%)
70s: 27/50 (54%)
80s: 27/50 (54%)
90s: 32/50 (64%)
00s: 14/55 (25.5%)
10s: 27/88 (30.7%)
20s: 2/28 (7.1%)
It’s less stark here, but again the 70s through 90s won. The outlier is the 20’s… so far it’s looking like a big pile of yawn.
One could argue that the older movies have the advantage, as I’ve had more time to watch them. But in the age of streaming, DVD, Blu Ray, 4k… any movie I *want* to watch, I can. If I haven’t by now, it’s most likely because I’ve seen the trailer or read the propaganda… and it’s just not interesting. Granted, not every movie is for everyone; I’m never going to be a big fan of “chick flicks” or artsy indie flicks about gay cowboys eating pudding any more than some people are never going to be fans of science fiction. But the fact that there seems to be a decline in movies I give a crap about might mean something to someone, I dunno.
Hell, here’s the list of nominees from the 2020’s:
Nomadland
The Father
Judas and the Black Messiah
Mank
Minari
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7
CODA
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
Everything Everywhere All at Once
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
The Fabelmans
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking
How many have you actually even *heard* of? And how many, when you look them up, look like unwatchable preachy or artsy garbage?
7 responses to “Oscars: I don’t know if this means anything…”
The lions share of modern movies are hot garbage.
I guess Dune was bearable and Top Gun 2 was okay, but Oscar Material???
The cartoon Puss N Boots was one of the few movies I’ve been to a theater for, and that was because our youngest had never been to an actual “movie.”
The rest are non-entities. D was being charitable by calling them “Hot Garbage”
“The Oscars” … Are those still around? >scratches head, searches memories< Didn't they used to be something that people cared about?
Sadly, their viewership was up about 12% this year over last. That’s what the headline said, I’m not going to dignify it by opening the link.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a good, quirky sci-fi flick and the only one I’d say worth watching from this year’s nominees (apart from Top Gun Maverick, but as stated above hardly Oscar-worthy)
Polti and Gozzi held that there are only 36 dramatic situations-all touched on. Winterset forgotten as a Hamlet pastiche for example.
People pass on movies as friends drift apart-when there is nothing left to say….
The future will wonder why American film collapsed in this era, and will call it “The Age of Lead.”