Oscar madness

Entertainment | With the Academy of Motion Pictures set to vote on this year's Oscars, odds are against the movies most moviegoers like | Megan Basham

Do Americans have bad taste in movies? If the movies that make money compared to the movies that win awards are any gauge to go by, the answer is apparently yes. Our taste is dreadful.

We like big, bold movies—movies filled with adventure, romance, heartache, heroism, and tender family feeling. Movies like The Perfect Storm, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Passion of the Christ, and Spiderman represent a wide range of films that, despite their differences in terms of genre, all made it to the top in terms of ticket sales. And believe it or not, once upon a time, Oscars actually went to films like these.

In 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for Best Picture but was beat out by the uplifting Chariots of Fire. Though they were both defeated by Ghandi, in 1982 Tootsie and ET: The Extraterrestrial were also nominated for the big award. Even as recently as 1997 box-office heavyweights like As Good as It Gets and Titanic were not only nominated but also drew in the largest audiences.