At long last, the day has finally arrived. In a matter of hours, Hollywood’s finest will descend upon the Dolby Theater for the 92nd Academy Awards celebrating the best in cinema of the past year. At this year’s awards, no movie has received more nominations than Todd Phillips’ Joker, an adaptation featuring Joaquin Phoenix in the titular villainous role. One of those nominations includes Best Picture, the créme de la créme of cinematic achievements.
Since Joker is the lowest-rated movie to ever been nominated for Best Picture, we’ve got to ask the question — in a field of worthy competitors, does it deserve to take away the top award of the night?
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Before we go any further, we should remind you like any forms of art, the response and criticism of films is subjective. You might feel strongly about a movie one way in which the rest of the world sees opposite and that’s totally alright. You get to enjoy the movies you want to enjoy while others should be able to do the same.
Now that we’ve gotten out of that out of way, you’re probably no longer holding your breath. In no surprise, this writer believes that no, Joker doesn’t deserve Best Picture. In fact, I wouldn’t have even have given Joker a Best Picture nod in the first place.
First of all, let’s look at the other films in the race. Right off the bat, you’ve got both Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman, both some of the strongest films ever released by Tarantino and Scorsese, respectively. Then there’s Jojo Rabbit and Parasite, a pair of revered films by some of Hollywood’s hottest filmmakers and that’s not even considering 1917, Ford V. Ferrari, or Little Women.
Then there’s the plethora of movies that didn’t get a Best Picture nod I still enjoyed more than Joker — films like Uncut Gems, Honey Boy, The Farewell, or Dolemite Is My Name. Hell, throw The Peanut Butter Falcon up there too, just so Shia LaBeouf gets some recognition for a killer 2019.
Joker is a movie that thrived because of the divisiveness surrounding it. People loved to hate it and others loved it to spite those who disliked it. The content within was far from ground breaking and in a world of cluttered comic book movies, Joker hardly rose to the occasion to separate it from the dozens of other street-level gangster flicks we’ve seen before. It was just another face in a crowd of “Eh, maybe I’ll catch this on streaming sometime” entries.
Joaquin Phoenix will likely win Best Actor tonight and on that front, it’s well deserved. After all, he had a brilliant performance in an otherwise downer of a movie. But does Joker deserve a shot at Best Picture? I sure hope not, because it shouldn’t have even gotten the chance for it in the first place.
Joker is now available wherever movies are sold.
How many Oscars do you think the flick will win tonight? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
