LOS ANGELES // It may be oddly appropriate that the film with the most Oscar nominations this year, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is about a man who grows progressively younger as the woman he loves follows her life's trajectory in the opposite direction. Benjamin Button has been nominated for 13 awards, including best picture, best actor (Brad Pitt), and best director (David Fincher).
That's good news for the filmmakers and for Paramount Studios and Warner Bros, which collectively lavished US$167 million (Dh613m) on the production. In a sense, though, the film's plot is a metaphor for the sad fate of the awards themselves: as Hollywood's annual orgy of self-congratulation grows older, the audience for film grows younger and thirstier for innovation. This year's awards line-up does not deliver anything new. By common consent, the 2009 awards roster is weaker than usual.
It is also unfortunate - but far from unprecedented - that Benjamin Button is the only major studio production to get a best picture nomination. The rest - Milk, The Reader, Frost/Nixon and the film that remains the favourite to take the top prize, Slumdog Millionaire - are all modest independent movies whose total audience was only a small fraction of the numbers who rushed to see Iron Man or the latest Batman instalment The Dark Knight.
That, in turn, is likely to have an effect on viewing figures for Oscar night on Feb 22. Last year's show attracted the smallest ever US Oscar TV audience, 32 million The quality of the films last year was not the problem - the best picture winner, No Country For Old Men, was hailed as a masterpiece. But, as in many recent years, there was a big disparity between the acclaim showered on the nominated films and the number of people who went to see them.
That is a problem, not only for the Oscar organisers who strive each year to freshen up the format, but also for the studios, who rely on the Oscars to sell tickets. In the age before entertainment channels on cable television a best picture Oscar was a huge financial coup. By the 1990s, the key was not to win but just get nominated. The month or so between nominations and awards ceremony became a whirl of promotional activity.
Even that, though, is showing signs of wearing thin. The industrial strife and cutbacks of the past couple of years appear to have widened the gulf between critical success and popular appeal. And that will never be a ratings winner. * The National
