Eager to piece together any reason for the lack of a clear frontrunner for this year’s Oscar race, Variety’s Peter Bart has put out a thesis: it’s because movie critics like bummer movies that Academy voters don’t.
“I would argue that filmgoers by and large go to the movies to be entertained. The same applies to Academy voters. The big entertainment offerings today, however, tend to be franchise films aimed at young foreign audiences — movies that don’t get nominated, and probably never will. Indeed, “Gravity” is the only widely nominated film that is earning the kind of money that franchise hits generally do.”
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