And the Oscar for Best Comedy/Musical Goes to…

Juno!

The 2008 Oscar nominations were announced today. And there’s a clear pattern. Almost every year for the past decade or so, the Academy has picked a comedy or musical to be nominated for Best Picture. It’s the unofficial Oscar, and the only one that we can unofficially congratulate the winner on winning as soon as the nominations are announced. This year, congratulations to Juno!

Previous winners:

  • 2006: Little Miss Sunshine (a clear Comedy winner)
  • 2005: Nothing (aww, sad). Nothing funny about Crash, Capote, Brokeback, Munich, or Goodnight and Good Luck.
  • 2004: Sideways (again, big comedy win)
  • 2003: Lost in Translation (yes, it’s a comedy, with a little drama thrown in)
  • 2002: Chicago (and it won Best Picture! Slow year for dramas, or they just weren’t willing to give it to Scorsese yet)
  • 2001: Moulin Rouge (musical again)
  • 2000: Chocolat (I didn’t see this one, but IMDB calls it a comedy)
  • 1999: American Beauty (Hmm. Probably more of a drama, and it won Best Picture, but it was also nominated for Funniest Motion Picture at the American Comedy Awards)
  • 1998: Not much. Funniest one was Shakespeare in Love, which won Best Picture.
  • 1997: The Full Monty
  • 1996: Jerry Maguire (Not quite laugh-out-loud funny, but definitely a comedy first, a drama second, or so says IMDB)
  • 1995: Babe (a family comedy)
  • 1994: Four Weddings and a Funeral (a romantic comedy)

…and it pretty much stops there. Interesting when you consider how official the Oscar is for best animated movie, and how snubbed the action/adventure movie genre gets when the Oscars come around. The special effects award doesn’t quite seem like a good consolation prize, and that’s like an award for “most believable scene,” not what makes the best overall exciting movie.

What was the best action/adventure movie this year? I think probably the Bourne Ultimatum, of the ones I saw. Others might be: I am Legend, Spider-Man 3, 300, Live Free or Die Hard, and Transformers. I didn’t see most of those. I bet my brother Daniel would know…