![]() ![]() Science fiction and fantasy have been making up ground over the past decade or so, with The Martian, Gravity, Inception, Avatar, Arrival, Her, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Shape of Water and others earning best picture nominations, if not wins. Those genres that have had the hardest time breaking out of the tech-category gulag are also, not coincidentally, the newest: science fiction, fantasy … and superhero. So it’s not genre, per se, that the academy disdains. In fact, the academy has handed out plenty of best picture statues to musicals, Westerns, romances, crime stories and thrillers. That was followed by Broadway Melody (a musical), All Quiet on the Western Front (another war film), and Cimarron (a Western). The very first film to win best picture was Wings in 1929 - a war film. That is simply not borne out by a look at the awards’ long history. Superhero movies are a genre, and while it might seem that Hollywood, as represented by the academy, has been reluctant to embrace hugely popular genre work. It feels significant that a film in a genre that currently dominates the box office - a genre that attracts vocal detractors both because of and in spite of its omnipresence - should get recognized for the strength of its story.īut does it signal anything? Is it a fundamental change in how superhero films are regarded aesthetically or artistically? Or is it just a one-off, specific to this particular screenplay, at this particular time? and Herb Trimpe and the film’s story features characters created by (deep breath): John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Jack Kirby, Craig Kyle, Stan Lee, Marc Silvestri and Christopher Yost. The reason it’s competing in the adapted screenplay slot is because the film is loosely based on the comics story arc Old Man Logan, by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven the character of Wolverine was created by Len Wein, Roy Thomas, John Romita Sr. No, it was Logan, for adapted screenplay - which was written by Scott Frank, Michael Green and director James Mangold, from a story by Mangold. (A lot of us were betting that Patty Jenkins’ critically praised and widely loved tale of the Amazing Amazon would rack up technical award nominations and had hoped against hope for recognition of Jenkins’ directorial work or Matthew Jensen’s cinematography or Allan Heinberg’s screenplay. It was equally surprising that the nomination in question didn’t go to Wonder Woman. But let’s stick to live-action superhero films, you and me.) (One more: The Incredibles, arguably the best superhero film of all time, won best animated feature in 2005. (A less-grim caveat: I’m talking superhero movies specifically, not comics-based films Ghost World and A History Of Violence, based on graphic novels, earned adapted screenplay nominations.) ![]() * (A grim caveat, here: Heath Ledger was posthumously nominated for, and won, the Academy Award for best supporting actor for The Dark Knight. What was unusual - unique, as it turns out - was that when the Academy Award nominations were announced Tuesday, a superhero film got a nod outside of the tech categories, for the first time* in 39 years. They’re integral to the suspension of disbelief that fuels these movies: For any superhero story to work on screen, we gotta believe a man (and a woman, and the odd space-raccoon) can fly. After all, it’s only because of developments in the tech fields - in visual effects especially - and all the dedicated work of those tech Oscar winners that the superhero film genre can exist at all. I don’t mean to minimize those achievements. (See the bottom of this post for a rundown of the superhero films that have received Oscar nods over the years.) Which is to say: the technical categories. The superhero film genre has been with us for almost 40 years now - dating from that momentous December 1978 day when Superman: The Movie busted its very first blocks - and superhero movies have racked up lots of nominations, and a few wins, over that time.įor sound editing and/or mixing (LOTS of those). Eastern Time - a superhero film earned itself an Oscar nomination. In the not-so-wee, not-so-small hours of the morning Tuesday - 8:30-ish a.m. Ben Rothstein/Twentieth Century Fox From Fastball Special to Early Bird Special: In Logan, Hugh Jackman plays a long-in-the-tooth Wolverine. ![]()
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