Last edited Thu Apr 16, 2020, 03:39 PM - Edit history (1)
The Academy just does its own thing. The winners now usually are about some social issue (and if not a social issue, then they're about the movie industry itself). The last one of these winning Best Pic that I thought might actually have been the year's best was Spotlight, about the Boston Globe uncovering large numbers of pedophile priests. A really excellent movie.
But the notion of ONE Best Picture is absurd anyway.
I've never understood why they refuse to break it out more like the Golden Globes do. IMO there should be at least 3 "bests" beyond Documentary, Foreign Language, Short, Animated, and just "Picture." "Picture" should be at least 3:
Best Drama
Best Comedy or Musical
Best Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Action or Horror film
There's always been a need for categories for movies like Planet Of The Apes (1969?), Alien (1979), Aliens (1986?), Pulp Fiction (1994?), Mulholland Drive (2000?), The Dark Knight (2008), Moon, or horror/suspense like It Follows, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Babadook or The Witch to win a picture category, and not just costumes, set, or special effects. But they don't, because dramas dominate the Oscar's Best Picture, and it's almost unheard of for Best Picture to be within reach of films like these regardless of how good they are. Well, unless it's based on Tolkien, or by Guillermo del Toro. But even The Wizard of Oz, a musical fantasy, didn't win Best Picture.
As for Shape Of Water, I got around to it only a couple of months ago myself. I've found most of del Toro's films, which are fantastical allegories about outsiders and alienation, and often social injustices too, to be over-rated by the critics. And this, for me, was no exception.
As for this year's winner, I'm happy for a foreign film to win, and enjoyed that director's The Host some time back. But I saw Parasite, and I appreciated the themes, but wasn't blown away by that, either.
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