Technologi

So, the nominees for the various awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have been released for 2013. As usual, it's a big groan.

But really, what's the big news? Anyone who follows this stuff is well aware of the necessity to not confuse the Oscar nominees with the actual best films of the year. The truth is that very often the real best movies of the year are those limited release, independent productions which hardly anybody ever sees. Those are disqualified more or less automatically.

Remember though that many of such films are created by actors and technical staff that are working for free or well below union rates. And the Academy, if nothing else, is a union - and one that fiercely defends its privileges. So don't expect any "scabs" to be honored.

That's not the only limiting factor, though. The constricted group of movies that pass that hurdle still must overcome other kinds of biases. The main two issues at work here can be described as Politics and politics.

By Politics, using the upper case, I'm pointing to the ideological commitments that form the attitudes of most members of the Academy. These are attitudes not unexpected among union members. Those movies that depict capitalists and business men in a bad light, those that rail against the evils of war (unless of course the war is patriotic and "just"), those that depict the struggle of supposedly oppressed minorities and of course those with inspirational messages about the triumph of the human spirit, are always going to be front-runners.

And with the lower case, politics, I'm addressing the unwritten pecking order rules that are ubiquitous. You can't win an award too young/early (though there is an occasional break on this in the acting category); you have to earn your spurs. Many Oscar watchers have that moment when they just threw up their hands and could never take it seriously again.

For me, that was in 1995 when they gave the best director award to Zemeckis for Forrest Gump. After all, it was Quentin Tarrantino's first nomination! Pulp Fiction wasn't just the best (and best directed) movie of the previous year. It was arguably the best of the previous decade. That was just laughable. But it happens all the time. A similar thing happened when Peter Jackson apparently couldn't be given the director's award for the first - as it turned out, by far the best - installment of Lord of the Rings. No, he had to wait.

Plus, there's another side to these unwritten rules, that the elders must be honored, whether deserving or not. (Don't they have lifetime achievement awards for just this sort of thing?) You can make a dinner party game out of citing what one considers the most ridiculous injustice arising from this bit of intra-union politics. My vote goes to the passing over of Dustin Hoffman's tour de force portrayal of Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy to pat John Wayne on the back for yet another banal cookie-cutter performance in True Grit. But he was getting old you know...and had never won. (Yeah, maybe because he never deserved to win?)

And, sometimes, it seems, the Academy just doesn't want to nominate some people too often - maybe they're afraid of them getting too big for their britches. (Though Meryl Streep seems oddly exempt from this attitude.) I can only assume that something like this explains the exclusion of yet another brilliant, moving performance by Tom Hanks in Captain Russell. (Is it time to finally say it: Tom Hanks is the greatest film actor of all time? Could be. Watch Best Movies of 2013 for an upcoming piece on this topic.)

Taking all this into account, then, I am led, as ever, to conclude that as another year passes and my pick for best of the best movies of 2013 (or any other year) fails to be even nominated by the stately old Academy, nothing less could have been expected. Indeed, a commitment to integrity and quality in the movies somewhere remains. It just isn't anywhere near Hollywood Boulevard.