A Question Answered

Glenn from Stale Popcorn posed an interesting question, and I am more than happy to oblige.

When the Oscar nominations were announced, two things immediately caught my attention. First is the obvious omission of The Dark Knight in the Best Picture category and the second is the inclusion of the worst Best Picture nominee since Chocolat...Frost/Nixon. Plenty of people, including Glenn posed the question of why people are bashing The Reader and praising The Dark Knight with the WWII/genre-film paradox and how he compared it to Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan back in 1998.

Now, on a personal level, I have both The Dark Knight and The Reader in my Top 10 of the year and will most likely stay there barring some amazing developments. That being said, how many people have Frost/Nixon as the best film of the year. On a personal Top 10, not a critics choice list or something along those lines.

The question I want to ask is, what did Frost/Nixon bring to the table that was so magnificent? Did it have a great impact? Or an incredibly original story? Or genre-defining? The question I really want to ask, does anything from Frost/Nixon stay in your mind longer than 5 minutes after you leave the theater. I'm not including Rebecca Hall and her general attractiveness, because that will ring like a bell.

There are three things that had any resonating thought besides the curves of Ms. Hall's body. First, was how Michael Sheen seemed to act the pants off of Frank Langella. Nixon might have gotten all the accolades, but Frost had the juicier part and did more with it.

Second, was the fact that no supporting players had any effect on the entirety of the film. It's too bad talent like Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt was wasted on a lack of characterization.

Third, and most importantly, that film should have been the most riveting thing I'd seen all year, but it was a struggle to stay interested. It was one of the most riveting interviews, one of the most riveting plays, but the film turned into a history lesson that bordered on boredom. Who is to blame? Ron Howard.

A more talented auteur would have taken some risks and done something more dynamic with the film as a whole, but Howard was too conservative and took zero chance in anything the film did.

So, it's not that I'm upset that The Dark Knight lost a Best Picture slot to The Reader, but it's a freaking travesty that Frost/Nixon got the bump over it.

(Steps down from soapbox, takes a bow)