Academy Awards may be hooked on ‘Oscar bait’

There are many factors behind what has led to two straight years of all-white acting nominees, but one is the stifling limitation of what gets considered an “Oscar movie.” What frequently guides a movie toward a Best Picture nomination or a star toward an acting award nod is a confluence of factors that have only so much to do with quality. Influential factors include how a movie is released (a prominent festival rollout can pay big dividends), how much support a movie has from its distributor (the parties and advertisements that go into Oscar campaigns are expensive) and how willing the talents are to promote themselves.

It’s a racket. The nomination process is essentially run by — dictated by — money and public relations maneuvering. And so that’s why every year, there are only a handful of, in my opinion, deserving and enduring nominees of enduring quality.

Viggo Mortensen, who was nominated in 2008 for David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises.”

Many of the films that could have put a charge into this year’s awards show didn’t fit the limited confines of Oscar bait. Taste plays a part, but the playing field is uneven. Yet despite the fact that the Academy Awards often rewards mediocre films that fit a narrow standard, the Oscars matter. Outside of a Nobel or a Pulitzer, no award is more affixed to a person’s legacy; “Oscar winner” is a tag that lasts past death. But it’s worth remembering that the lack of an award didn’t dull the luster of Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Fred Astaire, Joseph Cotten or Marilyn Monroe.

Oscars