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Oscar Bait: Difference between revisions
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=== Subject matter and characters ===
* [[Biopic]] / [[Based on a True Story]] films usually have Oscar in mind. The fact that many are
** Let's name a few! ''[[Milk]]'', ''[[Frost/Nixon]]'', ''[[Into the Wild]]'', ''[[The Queen]]'', ''[[Letters From Iwo Jima]]'', ''[[Capote]]'', ''[[Walk the Line]]'', ''[[Munich]]'', ''[[Good Night and Good Luck]]'', ''[[Ray]]'', ''[[Finding Neverland]]'', ''[[The Aviator]]'', ''Seabiscuit'', ''[[Monster (film)|Monster]]'', ''[[The Hours]]'', ''[[Frida]]'', ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'', ''[[Ali]]'', ''[[Iris]]'', ''[[Erin Brockovich]]'', ''[[Before Night Falls]]'', ''[[Pollock]]''... All of these only in the last decade. On the other hand, 1999's ''[[Man on the Moon]]'' was Oscar Bait that didn't take with the Academy, possibly because the [[Comedy Ghetto]] applied to both [[Andy Kaufman|subject]] ''and'' [[Jim Carrey|actor]].
* The drive to create Oscar Bait may have been part of the undoing of the [[Disney Animated Canon]] revival. According to insider Jim Hill, when the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] worked against ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' winning Best Picture in 1991 (the first animated feature to achieve a nomination in that category, before Pixar's ''[[Up (animation)|Up]]''), ''[[Pocahontas]]'' was reworked to emphasize an interracial romance with a [[Bittersweet Ending]] and [[Anvilicious]] [[An Aesop|Aesops]] - in part to appeal to the Academy (and more adults in general). ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' and Don Bluth's ''[[Anastasia]]'' have similar serious elements. But, unwilling to cut loose entirely from the ghetto, they came across as odd mixes of [[Tastes Like Diabetes]] and [[Oscar Bait]]. ''[[Pocahontas]]'' won the music Oscars anyway, the others got nominations, but they played to audiences and critics with diminishing returns. The mega-irony? 1995 was also the year of ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'', which eschewed this and wound up getting a screenplay nomination, something no Disney canon film has accomplished. In fact, several subsequent [[Pixar]] films have pulled off the feat
* Let's not forget, we now have Paramount Vantage, a subdivision devoted to "arthouse style films". Translation, Oscar Bait. Case in point, Paramount Vantage in association with (what else) Miramax films released both ''[[No Country for Old Men]]''
* [[Oscar Bait Movies]] can ''also'' be low-budget dramas aimed more at the age group of the Academy voters, as in ''[[Away From Her]]'' and ''[[Steel Magnolias]].''
* Including ''new'' [[Movie Bonus Song]]s to a Broadway musical score when that musical is made into a
** However, the tradition of film adaptations of Broadway musicals commissioning brand-new songs from the original songwriters [[Older Than They Think|dates back]] to the earliest movie musicals, before the "Best Original Song" category existed. New songs helped differentiate the movie from the play, giving a reason for those who had already seen the play to see the movie.
* If nothing else works, make a movie set in a [[WWII]] concentration camp. It's like printing money. Even if it's a comedy (like ''[[Life Is Beautiful]]'').
** Better yet, make [[The Counterfeiters|a movie about people in a concentration camp printing money]].
** After the events of the 2009 Oscar ceremony, not only did this [[The Reader|ring true yet again]], but [[Kate Winslet]]'s appearance on ''[[Extras]]'' suddenly became [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]. [[Ricky Gervais]] did not forget to remind her of her appearance at the following [[Golden Globes]] ceremony.
** Over 1995-2000, three of the Best Documentary Feature winners directly involved the Holocaust (''[[Anne Frank Remembered]]'', ''[[The Final Days]]'', and ''[[Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport]]''), and one (''[[The Long Way Home]]'') was about post-WWII Jewish refugees.
*** ''[[Queer Duck]]:'' "And the nominees for Best Documentary are: ''Before the Holocaust'', ''After the Holocaust'', ''The Legend of Sleepy Holocaust'', and ''The Story of How Bees Make Honey During the Holocaust.''"
** It took [[Steven Spielberg]] until 1993 to win the Best Director Oscar that he so coveted. I repeat: it took ''[[Steven Spielberg]]'' 19 years and 14 movies to win his first Oscar for Best Director. The movie that finally put him over the top? ''[[Schindler's List]]''.
* The [[Inspirationally Disadvantaged|mental health and capacity department yields lots of
** William Goldman commented on this phenomenon, saying he didn't think [[Angelina Jolie]] should win Best Supporting Actress for ''Girl Interrupted'' because "It's easy to win a Oscar playing someone mentally ill."
** ''[[Rain Man]]'' arguably kicked off the mental health/capacity boom in 1988. [[Dustin Hoffman]] won Best Actor, and the film also won for Picture, Direction, and Original Screenplay. Other leading man examples include ''Shine'' (won Best Actor) and ''I Am Sam'' (Best Actor nomination).
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** Though in ''City of God'''s case, it didn't the run for Best Foreign Film the year before it went up for the major awards (then again, the AMPAS wing responsible for that category is considered the most conservative of all).
* A trend in recent years is to give nominations and awards to what is almost a sub-genre of independent films which can best be described as 'quirky'; often featuring "hip" dialogue with an emphasis placed on irony and / or the seemingly trivial, eccentric characters and a primary theme being an often sarcastic, scathing expose of the hollow, boring and pointless emptiness of everyday modern society and [[You Suck|those who inhabit it]]. See movies such as ''[[American Beauty]]'', ''[[Little Miss Sunshine]]'', ''[[Juno]]'' etc. With some of these movies, there can also be a sense that the filmmakers are striving hard to appear edgy and radical [[Rule-Abiding Rebel|without actually]] ''[[Rule-Abiding Rebel|being]]'' [[The Man Is Sticking It to the Man|edgy and radical]].
==Films (or otherwise) that come across as particularly obvious in their ambitions include...==
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