Is Blade Marvel's Next Oscar Movie?

     Kevin Feig, president of Marvel Studios, recently announced the Phase 4 plans for their Marvel Cinematic Universe after Avengers: Endgame at this year's Comic Con. For the next two years we are in for some great movies including a Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange movie (Wandavision), a What If movie that explores the what if scenarios in the Marvel universe that has become a popular side-series in Marvel comics, and a Thor movie which gave us a pleasant surprise with not only Natalie Portman returning from a long hiatus from the MCU as Thor's love interest Jane Foster, but she will become the new Thor.
     Again, it was like superhero movie Christmas, but that wasn't the only big news we got. As part of their Phase 5 movies, Marvel will be working on a long anticipated Blade movie along with a new Blade, Mahershala Ali. Ali being helmed as Marvel's residential vampire slayer is an interesting choice moreso than your regular news of an actor deciding to don tights for a superhero movie for Marvel and DC. This could be a inkling that Marvel could have their eye on the prize, literally. Oscar gold if you want to be technical.
     Apparently making box office billions is not enough for studios anymore as it seems like any superhero movie comes out will generate a ton of money. It seems that with Black Panther, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, and now with the Oscar buzz behind the upcoming Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix, superhero movies are dipping their toes in the Oscar pool. Ali is a two time Oscar winner, grabbing two awards for Moonlight and last year's The Green Book. Is Marvel's plan is for Ali to not only slay Vampires in the Blade reboot, but to slay the Academy Awards as well? 
     I know what you're probably thinking. How could a movie about a dude slaying vampires be an Oscar contender? Well, if you read the comics you would know that there is a lot of story there and attaching the right directors and producers, along with an amazing team could open up a lot of creative and opportunity for this movie to be the comic book darling of the Oscars, a la Black Panther which got the same treatment with its ensemble in front and behind the camera. It would also be a shame to squander Ali's acting ability by having a two time Academy Award winner doing anything short of masterful work. What are your thoughts?

The Lego Movie: Biggest Oscar Snub Ever or Not Really?

     The nominations for the 87th Academy Awards was revealed this week. There were films that were obviously going to be nominated like Birdman which is one of the top contenders with 9 nominations. Of course with the excitement of movies that were nominated, part of anticipating Oscar nominations, along with seeing what award Leonardo DiCaprio will NOT be getting this year, is seeing who gets snubbed. We, in a ironic sense, we're not disappointed, actually we were. There was Selma being nominated for only Best Picture and Original Song, along with a very white list of nominations. Unfortunately we're not here to talk about Selma, we're talking about another film that was supposedly done wrong: The Lego Movie.
     The Lego Movie managed to get only one nomination, Best Original Song. The director for The Lego Movie, Phillip Lord, responded to the news in the hilarious and well respectable fashion by tweeting a picture of a Lego build Oscar saying "It's okay, I made my own." Others didn't have the same reaction. The response to The Lego Movie's spread like wildfire all over social media with people being completely upset with the movie being snubbed. It wasn't shame on you I'll boycott the Oscars, but you can tell that a lot of people were upset with it, acting like it was the biggest Oscar snub of all time. But was it?
     Movies are a form of storytelling. There are two types of storytelling. One is to simply tell a story and one to tell just for entertainment. When I think of the Oscars, I think of an academy award show for the prestige films. It is an award show where we recognize the films that were made for the artistic craft for making movies and the art of storytelling that doesn't get as much mainstream appeal as most of the blockbuster films get, like The Lego Movie. It's is for the Gone Girls and The Imitation Games, and Birdmans that hold a higher degree of cinema photography and acting that most mainstream entertainment films don't have and are in a different sense and tone than most of the other blockbuster movies like The Lego Movie. The movies that usually do get nominated for Oscars, especially in roles like Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director are the movies that suppose to best represent those professions and most entertainment films like the Lego Movie doesn't fall into those categories. If we did put the Lego Movie in those categories, it would've been almost a joke.

      I'm not taking a dig at the movie. It is an amazing movie and I can tell that there was a lot that was put in to make everything awesome. It hit right in the nostalgia button where you would make all of these epic adventures just sitting there playing with your Legos as a kid but, it gotten what it deserved with the nomination category it was placed in. I could've seen it being in Best Animated Movie, but you had other great animated movies and that was probably the committee trying to please everyone.. It is lucky that it got the nomination it did. Anything else would've been overkill. Besides I don't think Lord and The Lego movie is hurting by this snub at all. They've gotten tons of money and they are going to win a few VMAs or something.

Do you think The Lego Movie was wrongly snubbed? Do you agree with what I said above?