Screenwriter

Boring Oscar films are back, writes DONALD CLARKE

Screenwriter shares a great deal in common with the current Pope. Each of us has a face like a half-eaten kebab. We both demand unwavering loyalty from our underlings. And neither of us much enjoys admitting that we made a mistake.

Still, when, last week, Bishop Oswald Mosley popped up to explain that the Holocaust was a collective delusion, the Holy Father did the decent thing and immediately called for the men with the butterfly nets. It is, after all, at least a decade since fantastic right-wing delusions have been an official tenet of the Catholic faith.

Hang on, where was this going? Oh yes. Last year Screenwriter squinted at the Oscar nominations and dared to make an optimistic pronouncement. Buoyed by the presence of No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, Junoand Michael Claytonin the Best Picture line-up, I rashly announced the demise of the archetypal Oscar film. No more would the awards be dominated by worthy, middle- brow historical potboilers aimed at people who don't really like films.

You’re way ahead of me.

One could argue that The Tedious Case of Benjamin Buttongoes beyond the archetype to create a sort of super-charged, hyper-inflated expansion of the Oscar potboiler. Eric Roth, writer of Forrest Gump, has stuck a few go-fast, psychedelic decals on that script and encouraged David Fincher to strap rockets to the rear and point it at a warehouse full of half-baked, adolescent aphorisms. It's Out of Africaon roller blades.

Frost/Nixonand Milkare fine films, but they are both, like so many Oscar-winners, historical dramas that invite veteran actors to impersonate rather than act.

However, the real sickener here is The Reader.

Let me pause to offer another mea culpa. I have, in the past, whined about those fans of The Dark Knightwho get a little overheated by that film's worth. It's an excellent thriller, but it doesn't cure leprosy or cause fallen temples to rebuild themselves. The Batmanfanatics are, however, entirely correct to complain about Daldry's stodgy soap opera nudging their favourite entertainment into the gutter. Enthusiasts for Wall-Ehave even more reason to be furious.

For decades certain movie fans have argued that the Oscars ignore populist entertainments for the sort of high-falutin films that get good reviews from eggheads. But here's the thing. Both Wall-Eand The Dark Knightgot far better notices ( Sight and Sound, the egghead's bible, included both in its 2008 top 10) than the dreary Readermanaged.

It seems that too many older, less flexible Academy voters still believe that an Oscar film should mind its manners, shun vulgarities such as digital effects, and nod towards the historical tragedy that Bishop Moseley believes was dreamt up by Guardian-reading sociology lecturers.

Ah well. Maybe, when the zippy, unpretentious Slumdog Millionairewins, the old guard will see sense and begin to shake off their creaky prejudices. If not, a cull may be in order.