Some time ago I wrote an article about the top movies that did not win an Oscar in the best motion picture category and I had to do some research about it. What really struck me was the quality of movies that used to come up to the big screen say 20 years ago. Let’s take 1994 for example. Some of the greatest movies of all time were created in that year –Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption both did not win the Oscar at the expense of Forrest Gump! Wow, what a year for movie goers this must have been!
Today the situation is much different. Don’t get me wrong – I think Birdman and The Theory of Everything are decent movies. But that’s the right term to describe them – decent. Nothing more, nothing less. You go to the theatre, you watch the movie and then you have forgotten about it in two weeks.
What was the last movie that was really worth watching? A movie that moved you to tears, that kept you on the edge of your seat? I would probably have to go as far back as Batman: The Dark Knight. And that was in 2008, almost six years ago!
Me and a friend of mine went to see 300: Rise of an Empire last year. The movie was an abomination – but guess what, there was nothing better to watch! And there will probably be nothing better to watch until the next Oscar-award season.
I would not go as far as saying that Hollywood’s quality is in terminal decline. But decline there is, and it is visible. Yes, there are sparks of hope like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or Inglorious Basterds, Gone Girl or The Imitation Game. But they are rather exceptions to the rule.
TV series in stark contrast have dramatically improved their quality and profile. Let me give you just a few examples.
Netflix House of Cards features Hollywood heavyweights Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Spacey is one of the very few multiple-Oscar winners and Wright is a household name in Hollywood’s A-list, an embodiment of class and quality of acting. They both work with one of the best scripts I have seen in a long while; David Fincher and Joel Schumacher are among the directors. You would expect these names to deliver an Oscar contender on the big screen. Instead they work on one of the most impressive TV shows of the last two years.
HBO’s Game of Thrones is quickly becoming a pop-culture icon, not only because A Song of Ice and Fire is one of the most successful fantasy series of all time. It has much to do with the stunning quality of the production, multiple sets in countries like Croatia and Iceland, big movie stars like Sean Bean, Lena Headey, Charles Dance, great visual effects and costumes, masterful directing and editing. Again – you would expect to find all these qualities in a Hollywood mega production, but they are all aimed at the TV screen.
And the most recent and perhaps best example of them all – again on the account of HBO. True Detective is possibly the most successful and original TV series of the last decade. To make it even more impressive – one of the leading co-stars just won the Oscar for a Male leading performance. And while The Dallas Buyers Club is definitely worth watching, Matthew McConaughey delivers even better and more profound performance as the misanthropic Rust Cohle. The screenplay is impeccable – in fact it is better than anything I have seen on the big screen in a very long while. Woody Harrelson is no less brilliant than his friend and Oscar-winning colleague. The series is dark, tense, brutal, bleak, sour. Oh yes – and brilliant.
Another pack of Hollywood stars including Colin Farrell and Rachel McAddams have joined the cast for Season Two. This no longer shocks anybody. It is obvious that the biggest movie stars do not consider TV a forbidden ground any more. And if you want to see something really worth watching – don’t bother going to the cinema! You have a much better chance with the remote at home!
