[I exaggerate *slightly* hoping to make a clearer impression.]
I’ve not been keeping up with recent movies. I haven’t even heard of eight of the 2013 Best Picture nominees. Trying to make amends I watched most of the 2014 Best Picture nominees. Only Selma and Imitation Game appealed much, and that was mainly because they replayed historic events that interested me. 2015 was even worse. Among the 2016 nominees I watched only Manchester by the Sea. It made such little impression I’d have to watch it again to comment on it.
And now 2017. I’ve seen two nominees. Dunkirk ? — one of the most boring war films ever. Three Billboards ? — a brand new genre: slapstick noir.
In the old days, there were only five nominees for the Best Picture Oscar. At some point this was increased to nine — I guess the hope was that with nine films to choose from, one might appear that was qualified to be called ‘Best Picture.’ But this was a forlorn hope.
Compare recent nominees with some of the slates from a half-century ago:
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
12 Angry Men
Peyton Place
Sayonara
Witness for the Prosecution
1962
*Lawrence of Arabia
The Longest Day
The Music Man
Mutiny on the Bounty
To Kill a Mockingbird *
1964 My Fair Lady
Becket
Dr. Strangelove
Mary Poppins
Zorba the Greek
1966 A Man for All Seasons
Alfie
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
The Sand Pebbles
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Twenty films: Twenty great classics.
Am I right or am I right? Or am I a fuddly oldtimer acting like Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard? (“I’m still a big movie fan — it’s the movies that got small!”)
Mods — I expect my viewpoint to be highly unpopular; please wait a day or two and then move the thread to the BBQ Pit
Setting aside the debate of relative quality to the films of bygone eras, it’s “Best Picture” of the year. Just like someone is going to win a race, even if you all have limps and are wearing clown shoes, one of the 2017 films was the supposed best film in 2017.
My experience this year is exactly the opposite. I can’t remember when I’ve been so interested in so many Oscar nominated films. I’m really looking forward to the award show; nothing will disappoint me.
I don’t think ANYTHING can top last year’s odd pick for Best Picture: ‘Moonlight’. I admit I haven’t seen it (NO, I HAVE NOT SEEN IT. SUE ME), and I don’t know anyone who has, and it must be of some merit to win Best Picture, but…REALLY? That was the cream of the crop? Just reading the synopsis makes me scratch my head. I suppose in an ongoing tsunami of superhero remakes, it’s a struggle for any old school films to even be made. Talk about limping in clown shoes!
I think the fact that the 20 films you cite as all “great classics” means you have the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia on. Brando’s Bounty is turgid and he’s absurdly miscast, and Sayonara isn’t much better. Witness is second-tier Agatha Christie that’s fluffy but slight (and almost fatuous once you know the “twist”). Russians is well-meaning but Cold War sentimentality writ large and I personally think My Fair Lady is almost unbearable (Lerner & Loewe were never done true justice on film), though its reputation still has weathered the years.
All you have to do is remember that these were the years of Paths of Glory, Sweet Smell of Success, Lolita, The Manchurian Candidate, A Hard Day’s Night, Blow-Up, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (not to mention countless legendary foreign language films)–almost all of which I would take over most the films you cited–to remember that the Academy was not always the best judge of artistry back then either.
If I had to list my 10 favorite films of this year, only a couple (Get Out and Phantom Thread) made their way onto the Best Picture list. But the slate is still fairly good, relatively speaking, and a far cry from meriting the hand-wringing over the “Good Old Days” that were not always as good as they’re made out to be.
Yes, the Coen Bros. movies are outstanding at black comedy. Take the best scenes or best lines of dialog from Fargo and come up with anything remotely as good in Three Billboards. See? Can’t do it!
Thanks for the trailers. But they mostly confirm my antipathy. I don’t like horror films; is that what Get Out is? Another two films look horrorish. I do like historical drama (and didn’t realize there were TWO Dunkirk stories nominated) but don’t like them a lot. Lady Bird and Call Me by Your Name may be good for their genres, but I’m afraid they’re not my genres.
Perhaps I’ll just keep watching 60’s-era movies. :o
Once again, it is worth repeating - it is not what a movie is “about”, it is how it is made that garners accolades. If all you are going to do is judge a movie based on what it is about (it’s a horror movie? Ugh! It’s historical drama? Geez?), then please realize you are basically comparing AM Radio to HDTV. (Bad analogy, I know, but it gets to the depth of the argument.)
Moonlight won because of how well it was made, not because it was “about” a young black man struggling with his sexuality. The writing, the acting, the cinematography, the pacing, the score, the color palette choices.
All that said, yes, there are many films nominated over the years that probably weren’t the best 5, or 9 or 10, as there is some level of celebrating the successful and familiar in Hollywood. But they also weren’t abject stinkers either.
Actually, if you like movies from the '60s, you probably won’t like movies today very much at all. Movies have undergone some pretty radical changes in how they are written, composed, acted, shot, etc. A modern movie shares very little with a movie from 50 years ago beyond the fact that we still call them movies. They often don’t even use the same medium any more in their presentation! Why you cannot always call them “films” anymore
But the same thing is true of films of the '60s compared with films from the early days of movies. I’m reminded when watching films of the '20s and '30s that they were essentially an extension of plays, which were filmed. You had sets, you had acts (with scenes), and you had very, very play-like blocking in many cases, even when the movie was ostensibly about something happening outside, like a war movie, or a western. I love movies from that era, and generally dislike much of what came out in the late '50s and '60s, because movies had changed stylistically.
For me, the biggest indictment of modern movies comes from the fact that I can’t be arsed to get out of the house and go see most of them. Nor do I spend my afternoons watching re-runs of the movies, even though it’s ridiculously simple to do so, given modern streaming services. Every time I stand in front of a Redbox, I see almost nothing that appeals to me. But I do not make the mistake of assuming that, just because modern movies don’t meet my tastes, that means that there aren’t any really good movies being made.
Maybe you’re under the impression that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is a public organization, or that it’s nominations and voting are available to the general public. Only the AMPAS voting members select the nominees, and only they select the winners in each category. The public is invited to enjoy the show, and the nominated shows, but they have no say in who/what is nominated, or who/what wins.
As of the most recent tally for 2014 voting, the Academy had 6,124 voting members.
Get Out operates on at at least 2 levels. On the surface, yes, it’s a horror film. But it’s also a social commentary about race in America today. I very much enjoyed it, but don’t get all the oohing and ahing that folks are doing about it. I would not call it a “great film”.
But they mostly confirm my antipathy. 
I don’t like horror films; is that what Get Out is? Another two films look horrorish. I do like historical drama (and didn’t realize there were TWO Dunkirk stories nominated) but don’t like them a lot. Lady Bird and Call Me by Your Name may be good for their genres, but I’m afraid they’re not my genres.