The Oscar nominations have been announced, so let the mad dash begin. It seems every year the great race to catch up on all the Oscar titles that I missed kicks off within hours of the nominations being unveiled. This year 17 titles, which received at least one nomination and are somewhat easy to track down, immediately jumped out as films I should see before the Oscars. Scanning the list of films, which included the likes of Blue Jasmine, Cutie and the Boxer, and The Great Beauty, I could not help but question why I put myself through such a task year after year?
It has only been a few weeks since I tackled a similar push to squeeze in as many of the 2013 films I wanted to see prior to year’s end. What are the benefits of attempting another catch up crunch prior to the Oscars? To be honest, I could not think of a good reason. While it is easy to convince myself that it is important to see all the films in order to make an informed judgment on the final results; the fact of the matter is that the winners will be taking home their statues regardless of what I think. For all the bitching I could do on twitter about who should have won what, it ultimately changes nothing. At the end of the day, it is what the majority of the academy thought should win, not necessarily a definitive X is superior then Y. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to get a consensus from the thousands of individuals who make up the academy.
Taking away the sense of self-importance, there still remains the problem of binge watching a chunk of films through blurred lenses. Whether or not we are conscious of it, one of the downsides of playing Oscar catch up is that we may lose our objectivity with certain films. I have been guilty of this in the past, and will probably be guilty of it again in the future. The “well the film was good, but not THAT good” line of thought manages to slip into the back of our mind when viewing films after the nominations have been announced. I will always point to my experience seeing Slumdog Millionaire at TIFF, prior to it winning the festival’s People’s Choice award and the Oscar for Best Picture a few months later, as being vastly different to those who saw it during the Oscar hype. To this day I still stand by my love for Slumdog, and The Artist for that matter, because I was able to watch it without that filter of importance. I wish I could have said the same thing about films like Moneyball and Amour that I just did not connect with during the Oscar flurries.
So this year I am going to take a different approach to the Oscar crunch. I am going to throwaway that need to see everything I can under the sun. I will get to films like Jackass presents Bad Grampa, Lone Survivor and the entire animated category at some point in the future. I am pretty sure I will enjoy something like The Croods far better without the “is it better than Frozen or The Wind Rises?” question nagging in my head. Instead I am going to focus my time and energy on the films that I have been procrastinating on seeing (e.g. Blue Jasmine, Philomena and The Hunt) and the ones that slipped under my radar, but sound intriguing (e.g. Dirty Wars, Cutie and the Boxer and The Square).
I am also going to strive to view them simply for what they are and not for the sense of importance that their Oscar nominations force on them. This might be a result of age, maturity, or simply a lack of time, but I no longer have that desire to tear apart a film simply because a film I loved got snubbed. I am still going to love Stories We Tell regardless of its lack of a nomination. 12 Years a Slave will still be my favourite film of the year regardless of whether American Hustle or Gravity takes home the Best Picture award. If anything, I want to use this year’s edition of the Oscar crunch as a time of exploration and discovery.
No sense in unfairly short-changing the impact of a film, that was never a priority on my “to see list” to begin with, by squeezing it in simply because the “academy” deems it important in a particular category. One of the strengths of the cinematic art form is the sense of wonder and emotion that comes with uncovering a particular film, director, story, etc. It is time for me to embrace that mentality again as I embark on my own Oscar crunch this year.
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I think that’s a really healthy and sane way to look at this. I always contemplate doing a “Let’s go see everything nominated” rush and I very rarely do it. I might get to a couple that looked interesting to me before the nominations came out, but I’ll wait and let everything die down, I think.
It’s a good point about Slumdog–it’s another flim (Titanic, Crash, The King’s Speech) that suffered a tremendous backlash simply because it won and beat a more “consensus deserving” or favorite film or because it became so ubiquitous that one couldn’t get away from it (as was the case with Titanic).
Not enough people view their own consumption of film with that level of introspection. I think it makes you a smarter film viewer…but what do I know?
Titanic, Crash and The King’s Speech are all great examples of the backlash. I think people tend to forget that the awards are not the final word on a film’s worth. It really comes down to how did the individual film impact us personally? Whether or not the consensus agrees with our assessment is not as important as we often make it out to be.
While I sometimes do get my expectations too high for a film and get the “good but not that good” feeling, I don’t from Oscar nominations. It may be because I am a little cynical about them since my number 1 film of the year is often not what wins Best Picture. I look at the nominations as an excuse to get me to watch a bunch of films that the percentages say I’m probably going to like more than another random film.
I don’t try to see all nominees in the various categories, other than Best Picture so I can review them. I actually loved both Slumdog Millioaire and The Artist and didn’t see either until afte rthey were nominated. They were each my best films fo those years, too.
If the percentages lead you to one or two films that you end up enjoying then that is a good way to approach it. I know several people who went into films like The Artist with a chip on their shoulder simply because it was the frontrunner to win.
I agree with you on the downsides of viewing them through such a skewed lens, but these days, most projects have “Oscar” tattooed on their foreheads from development. What makes the difference for me in the end is that seeing as much as I can allows me to make a more informed opinion on the race and determine trends in the industry.
The “Oscar” tattoo is an interesting point. I have always found it puzzling how speculation for the awards start in March based solely on casting and subject matter. The majority of the time the “potential Oscar film” buzz places unreasonable expectations on both the film and the viewer.
Courtney, I’m also a fan of this approach. I was going to do a marathon in early February of Best Picture nominees, then I just decided to open it up. I’m just going to watch a bunch of movies that were nominated. Some of the documentaries like The Square and The Act of Killing are on my list, along with a few of the bigger ones. I feel like that should make it more interesting and less like work.
At the end of the day, you have to go with the approach that keeps things fresh and interesting for you. Unless you are getting paid to watch everything under the sun, viewing films should not feel like a chore.