Do you guys even bite at Oscar bait movies anymore?

CR you are a focal point on opinions here at this site. Sometimes I want to make the assumption that you are older and out of touch but realize that you are a aged morale beacon to film exploration and a source to be reasoned with.

I hope to evolve to this.

I like that I'm not sure what you mean but it sounded good!

Sometimes we're compelled to do things because of outside influences, I guess no one is really free of that. Though I was reading about Veronica Lake this morning and it sounded like she strove to be free of life's usual conventions. Veronica Lake article An interesting read.

Fortunately, I'm mainly amused at all of the hoo-raw at the Oscar show. I usually like a few choices, don't like some, but don't get bothered about who does or does not win, I really could not care less about the women's expensive dresses and my eyes glaze over when actors get preachy. I'm generally good for about an hour and then, it's time for a couple of Law and Order re-runs.

Oscars come, Oscars go.

I still check what the nominees/winners are, but I don't prioritize watching Oscar nominated films. I have some issues with the kinds of countries/genres which the Academy generally ignores and much prefer using Sight & Sounds' yearly top 50's instead since that aligns closer with my tastes. Though there are, of course, some exceptions here and there, I typically consider the Academy to be a good source of gateway films which can lead you to much better sources to use.

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I don't think there are such films that are Oscar bait anymore. Oscar bait sounds derogatory. There may be films that are geared up to be released at the right time of the year and have the right elements for Oscar picks, but I'm not sure this really counts. Films like 'The Iron Claw' is an exmple of one of these that totally missed out. But I watched it nonetheless. I wouldn't not watch a film because it's a heavy drama released from December to February.

I tend to watch the 'best international films' as they normally serve up some good ones. But stuff like 'American Fiction' being nominated for best pictire is utterly laughable when there are about 40 films better than it I could name in the last year. The Holdovers? Come on man, it's a decent feelgood film but one of the best of the year? Give me a break.

The films nominated for oscars are the ones that have bribed the academy voters. They are the ones that have spent millions of dollars on lavish parties, freebies and schmoozing; getting their film in the frame for best picture. Once in a blue moon you get an outlier like 'To Leslie' last year which was just weird.

Take no notice of the oscars. They mean sh*t in terms of a films quality. Unfortunately they have now got a grip on filmgoers who put far too much importance on them. Such a shame.

I believe "Oscar bait" stopped being a thing, or less so, when the Weinsteins went away. But anyway, I take a chance with them because there's always the possibility that they'll have something in them that reminds me why I love movies. The Holdovers, for instance, has Oscar bait packaging and it ended up being one of my very favorites from last year.

Oscar bait biopics, on the other hand, do not interest me any more, mostly because they're just so formulaic and bereft of creativity. Thank you, Walk Hard, for how well you chewed up that format and spit it out.

Show me a Biopic and I'll show you a movie I will never see.

The original post seems to conflate "Oscar Bait" with any and all films that have garnered actual Oscar nominations, which is a flawed premise from the start. If every movie that receives an Oscar nomination is "Oscar Bait", that is a pretty wide net. Barbie can be called a lot of things, but if you think when it was greenlit anybody involved thought, 'Oh, yeah, this has eight Oscar nominations in the bag!' you are fooling yourself. They hoped it had plenty of commercial viability, but any prestigious awards it might happen to be nominated for would be gravy. Is the question really meant to be asking, 'Do you bother to see all the movies that get nominations?' or rather is it a more nebulous attraction to or repulsion from the sorts of prestige studio and arthouse fare than can be broadly labeled "Oscar Bait"?

If the question is the former, most of the films that wind up getting nominations for Best Picture, Director, and in the acting and writing categories I have already seen before they are nominated. But yes, I do tend to fill the gaps - if there are any - before the actual ceremony.

As for what "Oscar Bait" even means anymore, you could argue very generally that any project that isn't a comedy, sci-fi, or horror movie can be seen as "Oscar Bait". The way I always took that pejorative, which seemed to really catch fire in the '80s and definitely in the 1990s during the Harvey Weinstein campaigning era, is they are productions that rather cynically are made or at the very least marketed with the main purpose of attracting Oscar voters. Almost always released at the end of the calendar year, with subject matter and a pedigree of actors and filmmakers that might draw attention at the exact moment ballots were being circulated. Biopics or period pieces adapted from classic literature filled with British accents was the sort of basic template, which then expanded to the Indie sort of issue movie, stories about addicts and homosexuals and racists and rape victims. They would start crowding the multiplexes in the Fall, and by Christmas you might not be able to even tell them all apart. And when a movie like that triumphs at the Academy Awards, things like Gandhi or Driving Miss Daisy and The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love and The King's Speech and Green Book, it is easy to say, 'Ahhh, of course that kind of Oscar Bait always wins.' Of course it doesn't, but if that is the narrative you want to reinforce there are plenty of examples. For every one of those "Oscar Bait" movies that win the big awards there are dozens that win nothing and aren't even nominated for any major Oscars, like this season's The Boys in the Boat, Napoleon, Ferrari, Memory, and Origin. And then how many Oscar winners that do not fit in that box are called Oscar Bait in retrospect, even though there is no way The Shape of Water or The Silence of the Lambs or Parasite seemed anything like Best Picture inevitabilities even after their releases?

If any "serious" movie can be labeled "Oscar Bait", then that term has no meaning. It's all silly. I see many movies a year, of all kinds, some of which wind up with Oscar nominations. If that's taking the bait, so be it.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I rarely bite at movies now, let alone Oscar bait.

That's the only good thing about the Oscars now. Well, the pretty women in them anyway.

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Same for me. I would never think to watch each year’s nominations. I would spend all my time just doing that.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

It was meant to say that I was having a bad day and david o Russell, despite what filmmaking talents he may possess, always had a slappable face when his movie didn't win best picture. Like all the things one would make jokes about a perceived known director not winning. Very slappable. Plus, I was having a bad day and outside of maybe two of these BP nominees I didn't feel like watching any of them for personal enjoyment or completism.

Holden's post is on point here with respect to asking what you mean by your question. If you are asking whether I make an effort to see all the movies that are nominated for Best Picture, for example, I think that was much easier to do when there were five nominees. I'm personally not going to watch 10 movies every year that are nominated for Best Picture just because they were nominated. I also think that within the past number of years the movies that are nominated for Oscar have diverged further away from the types of movies that I generally want to see and as they've become increasingly more niche in their choices, I've felt less of a desire to see them. If a film that is nominated for Best Picture has an actor or director that I like, and the story is interesting to me, or within a genre that I typically appreciate, I will make more of an effort to see it. But, if a film that is nominated for Best Picture doesn't have components within it that I think I'll enjoy, I typically won't. The only exception to this is if a film becomes a huge cultural phenomenon and I feel like I want to see why it has become so popular when it didn't appeal to me initially. Many times when I have done this, I don't like the movie, but I'm happy to have watched it for my own cultural awareness.

Okay. I cheat. I watch the two or maybe three that have a chance at winning BP for completist reasons. I feel like this is becoming a personal deconstruction for me as a poster.

I have never watched a movie solely because it's an Oscar nominee, and hopefully never will.

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I used to love the end of summer when the grown-up movies would begin to come out. Now I could care less.

An old saying about producers in Hollywood: "They can't buy an Oscar, but they have to sell to get one"