Is the Oscars losing its awareness?

Today the oscars were announced with an A-List star there at 5AM to read out the list of nominees. This being the first year that there are ten nominees means that the field was slightly more open than is usually possible meaning that an animated feature and a Science Fiction film that can be classed as a Blockbuster made it in. Is this a good thing?

Last year I would have said yes. The Dark Knight and Wall.E were shut out of the major awards due to their mainstream popularity rather than their huge box office successes and audience awareness that usually the Academy tries to highlight. Both were argued as being contenders for Best Picture nominations, if not win, although instead the final nominations went in favour of more 'academy-friendly' movies (a term I loathe). Now, The Dark Knight was not The Godfather but it was a hugely ambitious film that broke a lot of boundaries in having a genre taken seriously by an audience that usually attends a film of that kind to simply be entertained by pretty visuals and explosions. Instead it was relegated to its usual place of technical awards, which is where blockbusters are almost always recognised. It was probably better than just about every movie this year that is nominated.

District 9's nomination is something of a surprise in a category surrounded in blandness (with the exception of The Hurt Locker and A Serious Man). Inglourious Basterds while a good film is nothing short of reminding people that Quentin Tarantino can make great movies (a tag that Inglourious Basterds isn't quite worhty of when looking at previous works such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction). Christoph Waltz is entirely deserving of his nomination for the oscar. Like Heath Ledger's nomination a year earlier Waltz arguably positions the film higher than the accolades truly deserved although The Dark Knight has a lot more to say than Basterds.

While District 9 is something of an original idea (although to put it bluntly it's Blair Witch meets Alien meets Lethal Weapon) is it truly that good. It's surprise success at the box office is probably why it is being recognised. Is this the academy saying 'Hey we recognise smaller, more subversive films?' or is this them saying 'Hey we're down with Sci-Fi?'. If the former is the case then it's not entirely true as filmmakers like David Lynch and Terry Gilliam have always retained Academy support. If it's the latter then why not recognise Moon (which more in the vein that the Academy is known for voting) or Star Trek (which is a more successful film in terms of both box office and content).

For those that are now reading this and saying that box office is irrelevant, well you're wrong. Why is Avatar nominated for Best Picture? A far smarter friend guessed that it is to simply thank Cameron for saving the film industry and showing audiences what cinema is still capable of. He is right I fear. Cameron is a great filmmaker but neither Titanic (his previous awards winner) nor Avatar is indicative of what the man is capable of. And the technology thing is perhaps a moot point given T2, The Abyss and Aliens (his masterpiece) did not garner Best Picture nomiantions.

An Education, Precious, Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker and presumably The Blind Side all meet a fair few Academy criteria and so without writing off their individual achievements is it fair to say that these films were always going to be nominated.

Up is the only one that am truly happy to see nominated. It was a good film simply put. In a genre that far too often is overlooked because it is supposedly not as acceptable an art form. And yet even this nomination is a sullen experience. It won't win. It will win the Best Animated Oscar as compensation. Furthermore it has taken an increase in nominations for the Best Picture category to accept a Pixar film as a contender. Up, while brilliant, was not The Incredibles or Ratatouille, and more importantly it was never a Toy Story or Wall.E.

My analysis of these nominations leads me to an important thought. Is this the fault of the Academy or film in general. Was this year weak in film? So weak that substandard films are getting nominated? I don't think so. I love film. I think that's pretty obvious from just reading the blog and I will always go the cinema, buy DVDs, watch the Oscars/BAFTAs/etc and encourage everyone I know to see films but this last year was there anything I thought warranted an award I consider to be the pinnacle of filmmaking clout?

No. Then again there's yet another year to prove me wrong and I truly hope that the film industry the world over does prove me wrong.