This past weekend, I watched The Tree of Life. Everything I heard about this film led me to believe that I would love it. The problem is, this led to expectations that the film would have to live up to in order to be considered a success. It did.
A better example might be another Pitt film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, somehow). The previews made this film look right up my alley. I went into it with the expectation of enjoying it immensely. I hated it.
In other words, expectation plays a huge role in how much we enjoy a film.
The fact that The Tree of Life did meet and exceed my expectations made it truly exceptional in my eyes, perhaps even worthy of a Best Picture nomination.
You might ask, what makes me qualified to say that? Nothing. However, last year I completed my quest to watch every Best Picture, from 1927/28’s Wings to 2010’s The King’s Speech. Through this quest, I’ve seen some truly wonderful movies like 1934’s It Happened One Night, 1940’s Rebecca and 2006’s The Departed.
But there is another type of cinema. Films that actually are rewarded for their sheer badness.
In 1981, Hollywood copywriter and publicist John J.B. Wilson created the Golden Raspberry Award, celebrating the worst in cinema. Today Razzies, as the award came to be known, are given out every year. The award received its highest level of prominence in 2009, when Sandra Bullock appeared to accept the award for Worst Actress, for All About Steve (the name is a play on 1950′s Best Picture winner All About Eve, a wonderful film), the night before she’d win the Oscar for Best Actress, for The Blind Side (don‘t get me started).
During my Oscar quest, I saw some very good movies and a few truly awful ones, 1941’s How Green Was My Valley (doubly embarrassing because Citizen Kane was nominated that year), 1996’s Titanic and 2005’s Crash come to mind. So it would seem to reason that if the Oscars could make such big mistakes, so could the Razzies.
Well, dear reader, fear not. I will watch every Razzie Worst Picture winner to determine if any are salvageable, from 1980’s Can’t Stop the Music to 2010’s The Last Airbender.
Perhaps, going into these films with the expectation they will be bad, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps I will even like a few of them. It remains to be seen. I hope you join me by reading along.
This is Hollywood Trash Heap…
Next week: 1980′s Can’t Stop the Music.
