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Why do the crappiest movies always seem to win the Oscars?

Take for instance, movies that wanna make me slit my own throat, like The Reader, Benjammin Button, or that awful movie, The English Patient. What gives? Who decides what movies are nominated or win?

Public Comments

1. In your opinion those movies were bad...but the majority of people liked it...that's why it was nominated.
2. I liked Benjamin Button more than Slumdog, personally, but the Reader---yikes. Last years winner, no country for old men, was torture for me. The Departed the year before that kicked ass though. The way it works is, all the people in a certain field vote to nominate people within that field. Therefore, directors who are members of the Academy nominate directors, but they can't nominate actors or screenwriters. Then once all the nominations are in, all members of the academy can vote in all the categories and actors can vote for cinematographers, special effects people, etc. For this reason, some say the nominations are better indicators than the winners, because only experts in that particular field decide.
3. The nominations are voted on by members of the Academy working in the specific field - editors for film editing, cinematographers for cinematography, etc. Then all members of the Academy vote for the winners. Some categories such as short films, documentaries, and foreign language film have different requirements. Would you care to list some examples of films you believe should have been nominated for and/or received Oscars? The thing you have to remember is the Oscars are supposed to be about recognizing quality in film making, not popular choices. If you think movies like Iron Man or The Matrix deserve more recognition, then you should be watching the MTV movie awards, the people's choice awards, or the teen choice awards. For what it's worth, I thought The Reader was an amazing movie. It was very well made and well acted. The story was very complex and provocative.
4. Because nobody but the crappy writers and awards comittee sees them! Um the English Patient was horrible, Slumdog Millionaire; give me a yawning break! Monster's Ball, omg, Halle sucks as an actress! once hollywood have given its approval, its a sure fire win for an award and those award shows only give big nods to those who probably paid them well!