... is flat out wrong. There are tens of millions of people that still think that Titanic was a brilliant movie, it has a healthy rental market, and it is highly rated when it is on TV.
Not sure that's necissarily the case.
Can't get the link to work, here's a cap of the pageHere's the relevant passage pertaining to Titanic.
BBC1 won more viewers over the day, although its wisdom in spending an estimated ?6 million to show Titanic looked questionable when the three-hour film attracted 9.9 million viewers. It was beaten by Coronation Street, EastEnders, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and even the ITV news.
Although a BBC spokesman claimed that they were delighted by Titanic's performance, ITV insiders said the BBC1 had almost as many viewers at the same time last year when it showed the film Jumanji, but paid only ?1 million for it. Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC1, said: "Success is not just about ratings, it's about a rich and varied schedule that all generations can enjoy. It's good that BBC1 and ITV offered different viewing experiences which together provided something for everyone."
The academy is crap at picking popular movies, but that seems to me to be because they seem to be "uber-critics", and critics never seem to like the same films that the public do. Thus they pretend that popularity is vulgar, and the public don't understand what makes a good movie (see cheap's post above - )
I pretty much agree with this. I don't think a high grossing film should automatically be included in the nominations because it grosses well at the box office any more than I think good box office should discount it.
This is (for me) a fallacy - movie makers make movies for the public, not for each other.
Is sort of true. They make movies to make money. Appealing to the public is more a means to an end. Appealing to critics (and the Academy) is also another route to making money. The Hurt Locker just about broke even at the box office, yet I suspect DVD sales (and the price TV stations will have to pay to show it) will receive a healthy boost due to it's Oscar success.
Titanic (or Avatar) wasn't seen just by people that believed the hype - it was massively popular with a multitude of folks, and had a very high repeat viewership - you don't watch a movie several times because of the hype, you watch it again and again because you like it.
Also true, but a hugely hyped film will get much greater first time viewers than a low key one, increasing it's chances of capturing people in it's net who like it enough to view it multiple times who may otherwise not have seen it at all.
even if everything that you say is true, and I am simply being argumentative (always a possibility) what does that say about "best" - what do you consider the criterion (or criteria) by which the "best" motion picture is/ should be judged?
I think the best film should be judged on which has the better story, acting, direction, score, special effects etc. Certainly not necessarily the one that earns the most money - although the highest grossing one could just as easily be the best one as well.
