But I think the “Oscar bait” thing is more of a legend than anything else. Anyone who creates a film of certain quality has hopes of winning awards, that’s life. But I doubt that they’re “shameless designed to win Oscars” (maybe the closest attempt is the release date).
And The Pianist, really? Roman Polanski may be all that you want, but his election of that film (truly based on a real story) is completely honest and has its roots on his own life in Poland. Besides, the final product has outstanding quality.
A more adequate candidate to the parody would be Crash, a film that wouldn’t stand the test of time.
PS: By the way, I found the “dying to win the Oscar” part kind of pointless and potentially disrespectful. Only TWO actors won an Oscar posthumously. Hardly an Oscar trend.
Yeah, nobody ‘chooses’ to die before a major awards season. Perhaps they were making a comment on how films with posthumous actors tend to garner more pre-publicity fame.
I think they also spoofed ‘My Left Foot’, a film I remembered seeing my parents watching as a kid.
If you observe recent release dates, WWII films like Valkyrie, Defiance, Inglorious Basterds… Westerns like 3:10 to Yuma, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and True Grit… films set in foreign countries like Syriana, The Kingdom, Hotel Rwanda… films with homosexual characters like Brokeback Mountain, Little Miss Sunshine, The Kids Are All RIght, Black Swan…
All are released in the fall/winter season. Months from the usual February/March Academy Awards event. And all are ‘Oscar-friendly’ films.
This is obvious ‘market timing’. As to whether directors purposely set out to make these kinds of films is debatable, as SoA has said. That’s not a bad thing, but the Academy has to give mainstream and animated films a chance too.
TDIT: That’s why I hate Shrek. I agree that that’s why it won, but being a spoof doesn’t make a movie great, IMO. Everyone except me probably thinks Shrek deserved to win, but I’ll never let go of that. Thanks for the responding, man. It’s always good to discuss things without the big argument that seems to follow me everywhere. I’m like Tigger when the storm cloud follows him everywhere.
definedancing: I agree entirely!! Those are the movies that have the best chances. I mean, occasionally they surprise us, but that’s rare.
And I’m sorry if I upset anyone. I’m not being general about the political message or the “usual suspect” winners. I was just making a general observation.
If I remember correctly, there was a joke in Shrek 2 poking fun at Starbucks’ expansion or something at the time. I thought it was funny when I watched it, but like you said…the kind of jokes in those movies aren’t relevant anymore. They don’t age well.
If the point of DW films from the last decade were to have lasting impact than I’d have just as much problem with their use of pop-culture jokes as you guys do. But I think they were just trying to produce films that are genuinely entertaining that could make money.
Sure this often doesn’t make for great filmmaking, but I don’t need every film to be top quality. People love steak, but sometimes people just want Mickey D’s. And Dreamworks was the Mickey’s of last decade.
Now they have their sights on being that fancy Mickey’s in Times Square. And there’s nothing wrong with that. As long as there is high-quality to be had in as many places as possible, there’s no reason to completely hate on junk food.
I’ll be eating at the new, very proper,cinematic M. Donald’s and enjoying the large fries as well as the filet mignon.
high-five I seriously thought I was alone on that. 
