These protests, however, do not prevent us from asking whether the movies that have been nominated in this or previous Oscar cycles — white, straight, and male as they may be — are especially engaging to watch in themselves.
I cannot judge the particular nominees of 2016, since I have seen none of them in full. I can state, though, why I have made little effort to do so, despite their ever more aggressive advertising campaigns and my undiminished love of cinema: most contemporary Hollywood films are formulaic and dull, none more so than those deliberately aimed at the Oscars.
Whatever hits of the past today’s Hollywood films invoke, the common goal is earnestness. Oscar-worthy films are serious; the struggles of their characters (and, by extension, the actors who portray them) are important; they deserve our hushed reverence in the theater and imitation in our lives outside. In this way, Oscar-worthy films each deliver a message from the social, political, and artistic heights of Hollywood to audiences of plain folk below. Oscar-worthy films offer themselves as the strongest examples of art influencing life for the betterment of all. The history of cinema, therefore, becomes synonymous with the greatness of Hollywood, embodied in its self-selected elite.
Ray Greene’s Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies (2001) is an excellent place to begin plumbing greater depths of movie history and experience. Schlock! (not to be confused with John Landis’ ape-man comedy of the same name, 1973) covers a broad range of off-Hollywood genres, sub-genres, and sub-sub-genres — distinctions of taste as well as hierarchy — with talking-head interviews and abundant clips. There’s cut-rate horror and sci-fi, nudies and sexploitation, dubious “educational” shorts, black power pictures and kung fu, mish-mashes of all of the above, and other oddities beyond categorization. The appearance of the occasional woman behind the camera or in the front office may be the largest surprise, though, amidst so much juvenile, male jerk-off material. My only complaint lies with the documentary’s subtitle: here is not a “secret” history, but one nearly lost with the demise of drive-ins and locally owned and operated theaters. Place Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies in your “saved” queue of DVDs on Netflix, or invest in a used copy from Amazon or eBay.
Hartley's documentary unearths gems in other genres as well: wilderness adventures like Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971), psycho-shockers like Richard Franklin’s Patrick (1978), and unique takes on horror classics, like the vampires' blood harvest of Rod Hardy’s Thirst (1979). Have a blast watching Not Quite Hollywood instantly on Amazon and iTunes or on DVD from Netflix, then hunt down some of its highlights on the same sites.
Fear instead the Hollywood productions, especially the visually seamless, painfully earnest Oscar candidates; they present themselves as augmented realities and guides for what we ought to value and how we ought to behave..!