amateur-reviews:

- Written by Benjamin -

This weekend, the film industry’s biggest and most grandiose awards ceremony will take place. Legends will be established and awards will be handed out to the year’s … best films … right?

… WRONG. A resounding wrong to be exact.

Why am I taking such a strong stance? Because I’m tired of being told which movies are ‘the best’. I’m tired of movies that get fantastic reviews shunned from even being nominated. It’s a joke, and I’m done with it.

Angie Han, a writer for Slashfilm wrote an article this week summarizing who represents a majority of the nearly 5,800 voters for the Academy. No surprise, 94% of voters are Caucasian and 77% are male. Most importantly, the median voter age is 62, with only 14% of voters under the age of 50.

So why does this matter? How many people do you know over the age of 62 that even watched HALF of the movies you did last year? It’s no wonder why the Oscar winners are so predictable & why movies like “The Dark Knight” or “The Muppets” aren’t even nominated for Best Picture despite their excellent overall critical reviews!

Let’s look at two examples. “The Dark Knight” has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This means that out of 283 nationwide critic reviews, 265 gave the film a positive review. If you can remember, “The Dark Knight” wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture. To be fair however, it was nominated for a few other awards - but not for the big one.

In 2008, there were five films nominated for Best Picture. Here’s the Rotten Tomato scores for each film:

• The Reader, 60%
• Slumdog Millionaire 94% (winner)
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 71%
• Milk, 93%
• Frost/Nixon, 91%

(Full disclosure: Slumdog Millionaire was also one of my favorites from 2008).

So how does “The Reader” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” get nominated over “The Dark Knight”? Go back and read about the voter statistics and you’ll get my point. I could come up with this scenario each and every year.

Lastly, consider my favorite film this year, “The Muppets”. It earned a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which means that out of 190 nationwide critic reviews, only 7 gave the film a negative review. 7 critics across the US gave the film a bad review - yet no Best Picture nomination.

I’ve given up on the Academy Awards. I will probably watch the ceremony this year but the awards will be (mostly) meaningless.

(Source: macguffins)