The Oscars controversy - again .

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Bit of controversy over an Oscar nomination this year. Normally the Oscar nominated movies are tactically released just before - or after - Christmas so the critics, not the public so much, get to decide who is nominated by the January deadline and so wins in March, a contradictory approach to movie promotion you would think. Surely the public should decide, and so guide The Academy to whats best? Nope, the movie and broadsheet press tend to lead the 5000 Academy voters to the water and they vote for what the press like, rarely watching the nominated movies in question, somewhat lazy, why we have so many drab Best Picture winners these days. This year Andrea Riseborough was nominated for 'To Leslie', the story of a Texan alcoholic mom who blows her lottery winnings. The movie press was aghast that this had somehow been nominated by The Academy, the same way the BBC were when Brexit happened, not what they had expected, or wanted. The little known film has only done $39,345 dollars in American cinemas. The accusation was it was an underground lobbying operation to get it in the mix , plugged by unexpected people, against the rules - the same rues that allowed Universal to spend $30 million dollars prompting their films for Oscars.This film production company did not have $30 million dollars. The black cinema advocates are up-in-arms as they say Andrea pushed out black actors from the main nomination list, the perennial Viola Davis and Oscar darling one of them for yet another black empowerment movie. In recent years Hollywood has been under pressure to nominate black issues movie and black actors and that has pushed out worthy white actors. I think black cinema has exploited that , knowing if they make a Civil Rights movie, say ,The Academy will have to vote for it. That proved the case with boring films like Selma, 12-Years A-Slave, Judas and the Black Messiah and the run of the mill Marvel film Black Panther. Clearly that bias is over now and they will have to start being more original with their movies to win awards, like the excellent Get Out and The BlackKlansman etc..