And then the sun itself will turn us all to sand

[sovay]

Spurred by a gloomy desire to know what the hell movie Spike Lee's era-defining Do the Right Thing (1989) lost Best Original Screenplay to at the 62nd Academy Awards, spatch and I just spent the last hour reading Oscar nominations and results from 1990 onward, an activity punctuated by frequent cries of "[X] was robbed!" "[Y] should have been nominated!" and "That was poop!" I had forgotten how many years I had opinions about. I've seen even more of those movies now. I have more opinions.

The answer to our original question, by the way, was Dead Poets Society. My opinion about that is: "That was poop!"

Comments

[drwex]

Why is Dead Poets Society "poop"?

I agree that DtRT is a better movie, and that to some degree Williams's death has caused post-mortem elevation of his movies but at the time DPS was well-regarded. I thought it was particularly resonant, appearing at the end of the Reagan era (nightmare) as an allegory about what the last decade had been like in America. Do you think it just didn't age well?

[sovay]

Why is Dead Poets Society "poop"?

Dead Poets Society itself is an inspirational teacher story that I bounced off in high school; I have no especial animus against it, though I do prefer The Browning Version (1951). It is poop that Do the Right Thing received almost no Oscar attention and it is poop in the extreme that it lost what should have been its one no-brainer nomination to a movie that, whether I think it aged well or not, was neither as politically nor personally complex as Spike Lee's film to begin with and I certainly don't think defined its year in the same way as Do the Right Thing. They're not even competitive for me. Do the Right Thing should have been up for Best Picture. If the Academy wasn't able to stretch that far in 1990, it should at least have walked away with the screenplay award.

[drwex]

Ah, so the assertion is that the Academy were poop. I can agree with this.

[sovay]

Ah, so the assertion is that the Academy were poop.

I didn't like Dead Poets Society, but I would probably categorize it as "schmaltz" rather than "poop" if we had to get technical.

[drwex]

I would agree that it's very dramatic, but I experienced the decade that way. I don't know how others felt, but it seemed in tune with its times and my experience. De gustibus non disputandem est, I suppose.

[sovay]

De gustibus non disputandem est, I suppose.

I believe that it resonated with you. It didn't for me. Everyone's different.