“Let’s get this thing over with” seems to be the attitude around Hollywood as the industry’s biggest night approaches, said Mark Harris in Grantland.com. Blame the sour mood on the delay caused by the Olympics if you want, but the movies contending for the big awards at the Oscar ceremony on March 2 all seem to have attracted ugly, deflating arguments. Does The Wolf of Wall Street glamorize greed? Should actress Cate Blanchett be punished because director Woody Allen has been freshly accused of a 1992 sexual assault? Most every question gains fuel from a new brand of Oscar campaigning, said Nick Allen in The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Because rules now limit spending on promoting contenders, studios are instead investing in alternative tactics, and “anonymous, often Internet-driven mudslinging has to some extent filled the vacuum.” The industry’s biggest stars wind up spending the run-up to the Academy Awards fielding questions about their films’ historical accuracy (Dallas Buyers Club) or moral seriousness (American Hustle). None of this is helping draw theatergoers, said Brooks Barnes in The New York Times. Nebraska, Her, and Dallas Buyers Club have gotten such a minuscule box-office bump from their Best Picture nominations that they make 12 Years a Slave’s $50 million U.S. take look like a success story. Whatever else is making this year’s campaign feel so disheartening, “the lack of a tangible payoff may be weighing on Hollywood the most.”
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