written by Mike Shea on 27 March 2000
Last night I had the chance to watch the last two hours of the Academy Awards and overall I was pretty happy with the results. The highlights included Warren Beatty who talked longer than most of his movies, American Beauty picking up a well deserved 5 Oscars and a lot of Roberto Benigni jokes, but the biggest highlight came with The Matrix.
Not only did the Matrix win four Oscars, for best sound, best visual effects, best sound effects (yep, they have two of these) and best editing, but in three of those, it beat out Star Wars Episode 1! Truly a victory for all that is good in movie land. Sure Episode 1 had some good stuff, but it was nothing short of a disappointment when compared to the last 20 years of hype. The Matrix on the other hand is truly a unique movie that had a lot more going for it and will surly be known as a classic science fiction film for years to come.
While chatting with my friend Mark over grilled swiss burgers at his beautiful house in Jasonville Indiana, a theory about this victory and its relation to DVD came to mind. I am going to do some further research, but here is the theory so far. The way that the Oscar voters see the movies right before their vote is on tape. They are all given VHS copies of the nominees before they cast their vote. Now, let us suppose that many of these voters had the option to watch the Matrix on DVD instead of crappy old tape. That would mean that while they are watching horrible scratchy dolby pro-logic copies of Episode 1, they are watching pristine Anamorphic transfers and powerful Dolby Digital versions of the Matrix. Which one do you think would give you a better sense of the incredible special audio and video effects? Yep, the DVD. So, following this line, it isn't unreasonable to state that a big reason that the Matrix won over Episode 1 is the fact that it was on DVD and not tape. Let Lucas chew on that one for a while.
So now that the Oscars are over, here are a few movies I am really looking forward to on DVD and their rumored release dates: Note, these are rumored dates from The Digital Bits.
From: spank ( spank@thecheese.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Not That Type of Advertising
Its not the advertising spent on the release and subsequent pull ads. Its the advertising that goes on in LA (mostly in the trades) around the time of the vote. Its targeted to the Academy.
From: Mike ( mshea@liquidtheater.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Oscar hype or real?
I would have to disagree. Considering how much money Pokeman did, it will never win an oscar. My experience has been that nine times out of ten, good movies are up for oscars and crappy movies are tossed aside regardless of the hype or advertising. One exception is probably Titanic.
From: spank ( spank@thecheese.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Oscars
The Oscars are won by advertising and hype - not the quality of the media the reviewers are given.
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From: Mike ( mshea@liquidtheater.com ) on 8 April 2000
Subject: Are Oscar's Legit?
All I know is that good movies win Oscars and bad movies don't. Like I said, this isn't always the case, but whatever the politics are in LA it is usually the case.