Derek Johnson Muses

Last night, the snobbishness of the Hollywood critics reached an all-time high when a film that I hadn’t even heard of before the academy awards was named best pictured. Never mind that last years clear top pic The Social Network was passed for an art house  movie and went straight to a list that includes Saving Private Ryan and Brokeback Mountain. The academy’s insistence on choosing the movies that are made for critics over popular movies.

I’m not talking about The Dark Knight or Inception winning best picture, although Christopher Nolan has done enough work to show his films should be taken seriously. I’m talking about the Academy Awards becoming the Marry Rieppa Ross Theater Awards: virtually all the winners are artsy-Meryl Streep-Alexander Payne films, tailor-made to the .01% of Americans who actually vote in the academy award, lazy film critics who’ve grown fat on cruddy popcorn. If the film academy was like this twenty years ago, The Silence of the Lambs never would have won best picture.

Last years’ snub of The Social Network defines how self-absorbed the critics are. Never mind that the film came out in October: the critics snubbed it in favor of the proper Colin Firth-Helena Bonaham Carter film that was made for them. Yes, it was a film about a man during the most important period in history the last hundred year, but The Social Network was a just as Shakespearean with its themes of betrayal and pain. It just happened that the film was about young people, starring a Zombieland co-star, a 90′s boy band figure, and the next Spiderman, which made it the kind of film the Academy doesn’t wish to flatter.

I’m not one to say that the Academy owes us better best pictures, just a few that the public can embrace more. Sure, there are some years were Gandhi might be a better movie than E.T., which will have longer staying power, but that doesn’t have to be every year. While I don’t expect every single best pic to be accessible to the masses, it would be nice if some were. What’s wrong with giving it to War Horse? It’s not an epic, is it?

After writing this, I watched the trailer for the aforementioned Best Picture for 2012. I don’t need to see it. Yes, I’m sure it’s a very good film in its own right. But it’s not a Best Picture-it’s a pic that exemplifies film critics’ love affair with the past. Enough said.