Bad Movies on Oscar Weekend
Thursday, February 25, 2016 at 12:30PM 
This weekend's release of Gods of Egypt got me thinking about the fact that we never get great movies opening on Oscar weekend. Studios must be betting that those of us watching the show are too busy prepping movie-themed party snacks to sneak in something special at the movies. Instead, they usually cater to an audience who'll likely be avoiding the big show. Hardly a new standard for release schedules, this weekend has been a dumping ground for forgettable cinema for some time.
Like the notorious poor quality of early months of the year, this weekend rarely gifts us with cult classics or enduring pleasures either. You have to go back 1997's Oscar weekend to find releases that still have vocal fans: TNT staple Selena (remember good Jennifer Lopez?) and Liar Liar (remember good Jim Carrey?). The previous year had David O. Russell's underappreciated sophmore film Flirting with Disaster, which did get some precursor love.
However, for something timeless and Oscar recognized, this weekend's biggest standout in modern memory is Pretty Woman. Julia Roberts performance as What Do You Want It To Be Vivian wasn't the most recent Oscar nominee debuting the weekend of the ceremony.
Let's see how far back we have to go to get an Oscar nominated film released on Oscar weekend!*
*full disclosure: I cheated, but you will totally agree why after the jump...
2015 - Birdman wins as Hot Tub Time Machine 2 opens - see how quickly the movies of this weekend are forgotten? Stick around, it's about to get weird.
2014 - On the same weekend as winning an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, Lupita Nyong'o sort of starred as a sort of concerned flight attendant in Non-Stop, another movie where Liam Neeson kills people - this time on a plane.
2013 - Ben Affleck got Argo the gold, while The Rock starred in Snitch, which is probably getting its very first and only mention here at The Film Experience.
2012 - The Artist was a mostly silent winner as Amanda Seyfriend yelled about her missing sister or something in Gone.
2011 - Nicolas Cage starred in Drive Angry, which is also something fans of The Social Network did after it lost to The King's Speech.
2010 - The Hurt Locker wins and That Movie That Shall Not Be Named opens. *it won 2 Oscars, but see, I told you you would agree... moving along
2009 - Slumdog Millionaire was our last winner to sweep, and Fired Up! opened. What's Fired Up!? Great question.
2008 - No Country for Old Men took the night and Larry the Cable Guy vehicle Witless Protection happened. Foreign Language winner The Counterfeiters also had its real opening after a 2007 qualifying release.
2007 - Scorsese's The Departed was the winner as Jim Carrey got creepy in The Number 23.
2006 - Crash and Ultraviolet. You get the picture.
2005 - Million Dollar Baby wins - Cursed opens. The production story of Cursed is more terrifying than the film, but makes for a fascinating read.
2004 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was the inevitable sweeper, while Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights was quickly forgotten. The unwanted didn't have much of a chance regardless as this weekend was also for behemoth The Passion of the Christ.
2003 - A mixed bag for the gays this weekend with a win for Chicago and Cuba Gooding, Jr. serving stereotype in Boat Trip.
2002 - Another rough one for the gays with homo-ignoring A Beautiful Mind and broski Sorority Boys. This weekend also saw the rerelease of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial - wouldn't Oscar weekend make great timing for a quick big screen revisit of a classic instead?
2001 - Glaaaadiator won, but more importantly, Heartbreakers opened! It stars a "Back in the USSR"-singing Sigourney Weaver as Jennifer Love Hewitt's mom as they try to con and seduce super gross Gene Hackman. It's on Amazon Prime right now.
2000 - American Beauty gave us peak Spacey, but Romeo Must Die gave us peak Aaliyah.
1999 - A very Ben Affleck weekend with Shakespeare in Love winning and Forces of Nature opening.
1998 - We made it! Titanic obliterated its competition and Primary Colors began its long walk to next year's Oscar ceremony. It was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Kathy Bates and Best Adapted Screenplay for Elaine May, and lost both. Also opening was that shower door that revealed Kevin Bacon's penis in Wild Things.
While the weekend is meant to celebrate quality films, what are the bad movies you celebrate?
Reader Comments (25)
I don't celebrate bad films. I defend the shit I like everyone else dismisses.
chris I too love 2001's Heartbreakers. It was the first movie in which I became aware of Sigourney Weaver's excellent comic timing. Girl should do more comedies. I keep waiting for someone like Amy Schumer to cast her on something.
Loved Primary Colours, it's strange that a Mike Nichols film was dumped/released in February.
Another script by Elaine May - "Ishtar" - I will always defend as being quite funny. Critics reviewed the budget not the film.
Primary Colors is a March release.
There are a lot of "good" films I consider "bad" and the other way round.
Like Donald Kaufman (Adaptation.) wisely said: "You are what you love, not what loves you."
Heartbreakers is definitely a good entertaining movie for me and I'd nominate Sigourney Weaver for a Globe without a blink.
/3rtful - yep, the ceremony was further back in those days. A few times in the 80s they were in April
So happy to see the love for HEARTBREAKERS! It's delightfully dreadful!
Speaking of bad movies and the Oscars - voters should have screened Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Rhinestone and Judge Dredd before deciding if they should award Stallone an Oscar.
Eddie: Or screening The Room before deciding if they want Room to be an Oscar winner.
@Eddie
McConaughey has an Oscar everyone else can have one too!
Fired Up! is a great stupid comedy from the director of Easy A, and i'll love it until i'm long past dead.
I will also defend Fired Up! As a great guilty pleasure movie. The fact I have a slight crush on one of the leads is irrelevant!
Good to hear on FIRED UP! guys. I love EASY A, so maybe it'll pop up on Netflix.
Passion of the Christ was nominated for 3 Oscars so surely that one fits the bill. Especially since Primary Colors was indeed a March release.
Gods of Egypt is fantastically terrible.
The article is about "Oscar Weekend" (right in the title!) not "the last weekend in February", and the Oscar ceremony changes dates.
Yeah. the ceremony changes dates guys. It's even been in April in my lifetime.
Glenn -- i'm curious how bad? like bad movie we love? is it worth seeing enjoyable bad?
We also get Triple 9 this weekend which has an interesting cast incl an Oscar winner and a couple of nominees.
I saw Heartbreakers in the theater. Christ, I'm old.
Why wasn't "Try Again" nominated for Best Song? And to think we would lose Aaliyah so soon after ...
"Wild Things" has a special place in my heart because Neve Campbell was my last major heterosexual crush. Oh, youth.
Nathaniel, I'm not sure. I got a lot of giggles out of it as well as a lot of head-shaking in awe of how bad it is. Others I know were just decidely saddened by it. I reckon it has some of the worst vfx I've seen in a major motion picture since Battlefield Earth. One scene in particular on a clifftop with the hero god fighting some weird tusked animals on a waterfall is truly abysmal-looking. It does have Geoffrey Rush as a weird fire-shrouded space pope riding a boat through the stars. It's certainly less soul-destroyingly bland than EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS.
The Heartbreakers is a great comedy!!!! Weaver is so funny ha ha
Wild Things is sexually dreadfully great
I saw Heartbreakers in the theater. Christ, I'm old.
This reminds me of the scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street when an exhausted Heather Langenkamp looks in the mirror and says, "Oh, God. I look 20 years old!"
Jennifer Lopez should have won an Oscar for portraying Selena. I believe that there still exists
stereotypes in the entertainment industry. It is unfair that Hollywood still casts the same posse, nominates them over and over again, they win and does not acknowledge the great talented latinos.
I'm terrible at remembering movies beyond a few small moments or images even when I love them, but for some reason I remember Primary Colors really well. Bates was so great it in (SO glad she was remembered almost a year later) but Adrian Lester was, too. I remember wondering where he came from and occasionally would look up what he was doing (how do you get chosen to be the star of that movie and then kinda disappear?). Then imagine my surprise when he turned up on BBC's "London Spy" and, even though I literally haven't seen him in anything since 1998 and he's not even that distinctive-looking, I immediately recognized him.
You do realize that Heartbreakers is actually amazing? Right?
@DJDeeJay - I seem to remember Adrian Lester didn't have a great time filming in the USA for Primary Colors - certainly he came straight back to Britain, where he was the star of the hit show Hustle and has done a lot of theatre.