WHY NOW? How the Oscars could change forever (we hope).

Published January 20, 2016 | By The Blue Took

- By @folkloreart

So all the nominations have been released and there wasn’t any real surprises for the 2016 Academy Awards or was there?. If you could bet on guessing the nominations, the bookies would lose all day long as it’s that predictable. Predicting the winners though is a whole lot tougher. One movie nomination did come as a huge surprise though and that movie was George Millar’s ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’. Now before everyone starts sharpening their pitchforks in advance towards me, hear me out. The opinion whether you liked the movie or not or if you believe it deserves its nomination is irrelevant, this was the Academy throwing possibly the biggest curve-ball in their history.

Whoever the Academy is? Maybe they’re a secret sect or a strand of the illuminati in which Mulder & Scully should be investigating. They have just changed the entire dynamics of the game, so the question I ask is “Why now?”.

The Academy is a very conservative indeed and they’re shortlistings always reflect this. They just love biopics and almost every year every semi-decent biopic that’s released gets a nomination. The only time we’ve seen a shift is when the Academy increased its number of nominations to 10, thus meaning films like Django Unchained, Avatar and Inception all gained a slot for Best Picture. Ok, they didn’t win and I’m not saying they should have, but these sort of films normally don’t get a look in.

The only time in recent times the Academy dished out the Awards was to Peter Jackson and his The Retrurn of the King, which of course was the third and final part of his Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is were the Academy became not only conservative, but terribly inconsistent too. The first film The Fellowship of the Ring possibly should have won best picture and the middle segment The Two Towers was undoubtedly the best in the series, but because they didn’t get the accolades the Academy realised it was in a bit of a predicament, so saved up all the golden statues and dished them all out at once for The Return of the King which was the weakest film by far, but ended up with a grand total of 11 including Best Picture.

Since then alternative genre movies haven’t had a look in. People may argue Gravity did well, but I’m talking about science fiction, comic book movies and horror movies especially. Horror movies haven’t had a sniff since the good old days of The Exorcist, which should have walked away with the top award that year and It’s possibly the biggest injustice in the history of the Oscars.

Comic book movies suffocate the box office and have done for many years, so why haven’t any gained a nomination? Are they good enough? My personal opinion is they’re not (And I’m a massive comic book fan) with the exception of 2008’s The Dark Knight which is without doubt the single best comic book movie to date. Its direction and screenplay alone should have been rewarded, but was totally ignored. Ask yourself is The Dark Knight better than Mad Max? If your answer Yes then why wasn’t it nominated if the Academy are consistent?

SNUBBED?!

Horror films have struggled to gain a nomination also since The Silence of the Lambs swept the board, but people would argue it’s a thriller. I’d probably agree on this point to be fair. Although I adore horror I too can’t recall any of the past 5-10 that should have walked away win top honours.

So the best we can hope for with the Academy is generally science fiction or fantasy, but once again an injustice was done with no acknowledgement for The Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2 in the Harry Potter series. These two tonally different, but both brilliant movies are in my opinion better than The Return of the King & Mad Max?. Of course you may disagree and that’s fine, but you can’t doubt they deserved to be noticed.

All these questions are personal opinion and preference, that’s the beauty of cinema, but my argument is why aren’t the Academy consistent in their shortlisting and after all the fantastic alternative movies that have gone before Why Now have they decided to give Fury Road a slot? Is it on merit? And will it pave way for the more alternative genre to muscle in?

One of the all-time greatest actors?

Also Leonardo DiCaprio has quite deservedly gained a nom for his performance in Alejandro Inarritu’s stunning true story piece The Revenant. DiCaprio is unbelievable in the movie, but he is in every movie he does and this is where I become confused yet again. Is DiCaprio better in this movie than he was in The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street or especially Django Unchained? Is it me or does it feel like people are almost demanding an Oscar because he’s missed out so many times? I certainly hope this isn’t the case because this guy thoroughly deserves it on performance alone even if he hadn’t been in any other movie.

My summary & question is this: Are the Academy totally bias, who will never change their strange, conservative, inconsistent ways or are they stating that no alternative films have been good enough to be nominated? With Mad Max are they now saying they are willing to give alternative genre movies the chance to shine on the biggest stage? Or is this all in my conspiracy theory- head and is Mad Max: Fury Road truly one of the best pieces of cinema of 2016?