Throwing cold water on the WALL•E Oscar parade…in July?
The Gold Derby’s Oscar pundit extraordinaire Tom O’Neil is already out shouting to the heavens that WALL•E won’t get a Best Picture nomination. Let’s give credit where credit is due. He is one of the original predictors of Crash over Brokeback Mountain. He knows his stuff.
So what’s his logic?
Can we have two Oscar reality checks, please? WALL•E is not only a cartoon, it’s sci-fi.
He goes on to point out that the best reviewed film of last year was Ratatouille. It didn’t receive a nomination.
I agree it’s to early in the game to predict it one way or another. The box office receipts are still coming in. The merchandise isn’t even sold yet. We don’t know how well the American public likes the little robot. My guess, though, is people are going to love this robot as much as they loved E.T. Reviewers have already called the film “Spielbergian.” E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, a “sci-fi” film, nabbed itself on Oscar nod for Best Picture, as well as eight other nominations.
The Academy definitely has an aversion to genre pictures. (Well, ones that aren’t westerns or war movies.) WALL•E, however, is hardly a genre picture. It’s animated, sure. It’s sci-fi, no doubt. But it transcends. Like The Lord of the Rings (winner) or Star Wars (nominee), it is bigger than genre.
Let’s talk more Oscar history for a second. Forty years ago, the Academy latched onto a genre picture in the middle of one of the most turbulent times in our nation’s existence. Oliver!, a musical, won Best Picture the same year Dr. King and RFK were assassinated. In these times, we need something to love. The Academy had their 1967 last year. Now it’s time for another 1968.
That shouldn’t imply that WALL•E will win in February. Nor should anyone believe the Academy today is the Academy of yesteryear. The organization seems more politically astute than ever, though. And the inconvenient truth is that WALL•E‘s “greenness” puts it at the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist.
As I said in my last post on the subject, we’ll see what happens when the nomination are announced. But for now, I’m betting on a Best Picture nod for everyone’s favorite robot.
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