"Worthy" films currently in oblivion

[Diable Rouge]

There was a period during the Eighties and Nineties when the Academy would honour films that it considered to be intrinsically "worthy" in terms of production values and/or perceived content, yet which would promptly disappear from public consciousness without ever threatening a TV airing. The most notorious example, of course, would be The Last Emperor, while Amadeus, The Killing Fields, Out of Africa, and Gandhi (bar an occasional lazy Christmas scheduler) also fall into this bracket. Nineties films perhaps haven't fallen into the trap to the same extent, but it seems Dances With Wolves, Unforgiven and Philadelphia are beginning to fall into that category, along with (mercifully) Shakespeare In Love.

[tee rex]

Another measure of obscurity is the references in other genres (AKA "the Simpsons test"). So Amadeus lives on, but Out of Africa? I can't recall any impact there at all.*

(*cue mentions of some indy band paying tribute with their track "Meryl, Meryl", and a bar in Copenhagen, or something ...).

But then I liked Shakespeare in Love, so what do I know? (Paltrow grates, but the costumes were great).

[San Bernardhinault]

The Artist vanished into this oblivion hole very quickly. Not that I - or anyone else - actually saw it.

[ad hoc]

Philadelphia seems to be on TV regularly. Certainly is here. Plus I've seen The Killing Fields at least twice on TV.

[Southport Zeb]

The final question on Pointless yesterday was about Best Picture winners of pairs of decades (20s and 30s, 50s and 60s, 80s and 90s). As would be expected the fewest Pointless answers came for the latter group with just three - Amadeus, The Last Emperor and Unforgiven. There were quite a few more that scored one point - American Beauty, Ordinary People, Driving Miss Daisy, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Dances with Wolves, Platoon.

[Gangster Octopus]

Both Gandhi and Philadelphia turn up regularly on one or other of the Freeview channels.

[Benjm]

I recorded Terms of Endearment recently. Should I watch it? I like Debra Winger but not, generally, Jack Nicholson and it looks like pretty heavy going.

[Ginger Yellow]

The Last Emperor was on TV all the time when I were a young 'un, as I recall, though I'm not sure it's any good. And Amadeus is currently in my DVD rental queue. And I have no idea what you're on about with Unforgiven, which is still very highly regarded (and one I rewatched fairly recently). The others, yeah, not so much, at least in terms of popular consciousness. The Oscars are shit, at the end of the day.

[elguapo4]

I just looked up the best picture Oscar nominations for 1980, chosen at random.

Apocalypse Now still turns up as the late night movie. As does Kramer v Kramer on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I'd be surprised if I ever saw All that Jazz, Norma Rae or Breaking Away on the regular TV schedule again.

[3 Colours Red]

Has anyone seen Crash seen 2006? It seems like a "shoved out at 11pm on Film4" job these days.

[Benjm]

I noticed that Crash was on recently but that is a long way from sitting down to watch it.

[Various Artist]

The Artist vanished into this oblivion hole very quickly. Not that I - or anyone else - actually saw it.

The Artist is a brilliant film. Funny, bittersweet, gloriously well executed. And the dog is fantastic.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I just looked up the best picture Oscar nominations for 1980, chosen at random.

Apocalypse Now still turns up as the late night movie. As does Kramer v Kramer on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I'd be surprised if I ever saw All that Jazz, Norma Rae or Breaking Away on the regular TV schedule again.

Breaking Away turned up within the last year or two, probably on Talking Pictures or if not that then TCM. I saw it at the cinema back in the day, "opening for" Chariots of Fire.

[Patrick Thistle]

There's a reason why American Beauty doesn't get shown much these days. Or any other Kevin Spacey films.

[Hot Pepsi]

The Artist is a brilliant film. Funny, bittersweet, gloriously well executed. And the dog is fantastic.

I agree. A lot of people hated it but they’re wrong.

I also liked The King’s Speech and The Shape of Water and those are widely criticized and don’t seem to have had a long life in the popular imagination.

The only BP winners I can recall really not liking are Gladiator and The English Patient but I may need to revisit them.

I liked Crash ok, but didn’t give much thought to it’s “message.” I didn’t think it really had one.

I didn’t see Green Book and don’t expect to. Maybe I will try Moonlight; but that looks like a tough sit.

[Hot Pepsi]

It would be more interesting if the Oscars awarded films from five or ten years prior after a lot more people have seen them and thought about them a bit.

But that wouldn’t do much to help promote the films when they’re still in the theater, and a lot of good films need that marketing boost to convince studios to make them.

The Big Picture podcast had an interesting discussion about “Oscar bait” this week. Films can be Oscar bait from the studio’s perspective and still be very worthy.

[Sits]

It would be interesting (or maybe it wouldn’t) to predict how recent winners may have fared in twenty-thirty years’ time. The Shape Of Water? Birdman?

Note: no judgement inferred, although I preferred the latter.

[Hot Pepsi]

They changed the voting system recently, which could alter the outcomes too.

I thought Birdman was extraordinary, but I guess it’s not something that lots of people want to rewatch on cable. Shape of Water was like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone, which I’m always happy to watch, but I guess a lot of people just didn’t like the “monster.”

[San Bernardhinault]

I objected to the very idea of the Artist - a film about Hollywood, made in a super ersatzy Hollywood way - to the extent that I never saw it and probably never will. Birdman was a film about actors acting, so was also a low note for me. I enjoyed most of Shape of Water, but it also had a deeply annoying unnecessary Hollywoody-musical-films tribute section. Films about films, Hollywood, actors, acting, and authors seem so immensely self-indulgent and incredibly lazy. It's all "We can't think of a single thing outside our own little closed world", and the adulation they get is from other people in the same closed world seeing their lives represented.

I think my dislike of it has now escalated in a completely irrational way...

Anyway, looking at the list of Best Picture winners, it was probably somewhere around Deer Hunter that they started giving the oscar to "serious films" or, probably more accurately, lightweight interpretations of serious stuff but with famous actors in.

[Hot Pepsi]

All art is like that. I find it irritating that authors don’t seem to know much about people who aren’t writers, but that’s just how it goes. Painters only know how to be a painter. They might have other experiences, but they’re still stuck in their own perspective.

The Oscars do like movies about movies, but so do I, so I’m ok with it.

[3 Colours Red]

Nominations will be... interesting... next time around with hardly anything being released. I'm looking forward to Sonic The Hedgehog sweeping the board.

[slackster]

This thread sent me down something of a wiki rabbit hole, checking which Oscar Best Picture nominated films in my lifetime I’ve never seen. Considering myself a bit of a Cineaste, I thought the number would be really low, but for the releases in the 48 years between 61 and 08 - when there were 5 nominations per year - there were 19 nominated films I knew nothing about and am pretty sure I’ve never seen. The last of these was The Insider from 1999.

I didn’t bother checking thoroughly from 09 when the nominations jumped to 10 each year, but from a glance I can tell there were a fair few there too I’ve no idea about, or have already forgotten about completely.

[Patrick Thistle]

All art is like that. I find it irritating that authors don’t seem to know much about people who aren’t writers, but that’s just how it goes. Painters only know how to be a painter. They might have other experiences, but they’re still stuck in their own perspective.

The Oscars do like movies about movies, but so do I, so I’m ok with it.

But the equivalent would be painters painting pictures of their studio or another artist's studio or another artist at work painting, and then that work being voted on by lots of other paint artists and the winner being trumpeted to the general public as the best painting of the year.

[Hot Pepsi]

I don’t know if painters do that, but if they did, the winners would probably sell more paintings.

[Hot Pepsi]

This thread sent me down something of a wiki rabbit hole, checking which Oscar Best Picture nominated films in my lifetime I’ve never seen. Considering myself a bit of a Cineaste, I thought the number would be really low, but for the releases in the 48 years between 61 and 08 - when there were 5 nominations per year - there were 19 nominated films I knew nothing about and am pretty sure I’ve never seen. The last of these was The Insider from 1999.

I didn’t bother checking thoroughly from 09 when the nominations jumped to 10 each year, but from a glance I can tell there were a fair few there too I’ve no idea about, or have already forgotten about completely.

The Insider is great.

I’ve given up trying to see everything. I just don’t enjoy “difficult” films as much as I used to, especially if I have to watch them at home during anxious times. Which is all the time now.