2013 Oscars

The 2013 Oscars will be remembered as the awards ceremony that spread the wealth.  The top six categories--Best Picture, Best Director, and the four acting awards--all went to different films.  That generosity is fitting for an Academy that doesn't especially care about quality anyway.

By now, it's well-known that "Argo" is the first Best Picture winner in 23 years to not even be nominated for Best Director.  And it's pretty crazy to think about that discrepancy: it would be very difficult for a movie to truly be the best picture of the year without boasting at least one of the five best directorial efforts.

But as the Academy proves time and again, the voters aren't really interested in recognizing the Best Picture of the year.  They just want to reward the movie they like the most.  To me, the conversation for Best Picture of 2013 basically begins and ends with "The Master" and "Zero Dark Thirty."  (Though if you want to make an argument for "Amour," I wouldn't stop you.)  You could argue that that's just my opinion.  But you could hardly argue that "Argo" represents the best of movies in 2012; I saw a lot of critics' top-10 lists at the end of the year, and I can't think of any that even gave "Argo" an Honorable Mention.

And looking at Oscar history, the case becomes pretty obvious.  No one argues that "Ordinary People" is better than "Raging Bull," that "Shakespeare in Love" is better than "Saving Private Ryan."  I could rattle off Oscar injustices all day, but the point is that the Best Picture award should really be called the "Best Picture" award.  And this delegitimizes all the other awards; I could easily give examples of travesties in other categories as well.

So if you aren't going to seriously attempt to reward quality, you might as well spread the awards around.  There isn't a huge difference in quality between "Argo," "Lincoln," "Django," "Silver Linings Playbook" and some of the other nominated films.  So why not recognize them all?

In a few years, no one will care who won at these Oscars.  They'll go for movies of high quality.  Cinephiles will study every detail of "The Master"; the average moviegoer will more likely check out "Zero Dark Thirty."  These things tend to work out in the end: does anyone care at all about "Ordinary People" at this point?  Heck, "The Artist" is already hazy in my memory.  The cream rises to the top; a light and fluffy film like that just dissolves.