One of my most delightful memories of an otherwise hit-or-miss 2009 at the movies was how much August had going for it for a change. Sure, Hollywood dumped plenty of stinkers in the late-summer wasteland, but for a change, it also unveiled some of the year's most acclaimed releases in a month customarily left for dead while America is presumably on vacation. And now, in an unprecedented turn of events, three of those movies will compete next month for Academy Awards. Coincidence? Or is it actually realistic to ask the film industry: "More like this, please?"
Boasting District 9, Inglourious Basterds and Julie & Julia, August 2009 accounts for 13 Oscar nominations this year -- the most for any August in generations, if ever. Not since the 1967 tandem Bonnie & Clyde and In the Heat of the Night have two August releases dueled for Best Picture; you'd have to go back to 1999 to find just one August movie -- The Sixth Sense -- to earn a Best Picture nomination before District 9 and Basterds. And in the 10 years before that, only four such films -- The Full Monty (1997), Babe (1995), The Fugitive (1993) and Unforgiven (1992) -- enjoyed the same distinction.
Oscar purists will obviously argue that the expansion to 10 Best Picture nominees tilted the scale in terms of what doldrums-season fare might have made the final cut. But come on: District 9 and Inglourious Basterds were among the best-reviewed and most commercially successful films of any month in 2009, and good luck finding (or mounting) a credible argument against either film being included for Academy consideration. The same mostly goes for Julie & Julia, at least in the category where it's nominated. So let's keep it up in 2010! May studios and distributors congest less and less of our fall movie seasons with shameless awards bait, may the Academy continue to be more outgoing with its selections, and may August finally be safe for films worth a conversation. Next: Somebody please do something about January.