Why Are We Ruining National Treasure Christoph Waltz?

The opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 masterpiece Inglorious Basterds is a thing of beauty. In it, a local French farmer played by Denis Menochet is having a conversation with a high ranking Nazi who we later has earned the nickname “The Jew Hunter”. The conversation and scene clocks in at almost 30 minutes, yet it flies by as the farmer and the Nazi are having such an intense and engaging conversation. The Jew Hunter is charismatic and charming and the life of the scene. While the Farmer always keeps his guards up, the audience get sucked in. Despite his name, he doesn’t seem like he’s that bad. He seems like an everyday bloke just trying to do his job. He could be wrong about his mission, but he needs to investigate anyways. Then the scene turns. Not only does the audience later figure out the Farmer is hiding a family of Jewish people under his floorboards, but The Jew Hunter knows this as well. He gets the Farmer to admit his “crimes” and eventually orders his men to kill the entire family. One of the daughters, Shoshanna, escapes, and The Jew Hunter points his gun at her back and she runs away- carefully following his prey. Then… he gives up. He admits defeat and walks away.

And this is how America was introduced to the great Christoph Waltz.

6 Recent Oscar Nominees Who Were Nominated In The Wrong Category

We live in an era full of category fraud where "Orange Is The New Black" can be considered a comedy and where "True Detective" is a TV program and not a mini-series. We live in an era where Steve Carell in Foxcatcher has the same percentage of screen time as J.K. Simmons in Whiplash but the former is considered a Lead Actor but the latter is a Supporting Actor. We live in an era where Whiplash is considered an adapted screenplay because it was adapted from a scene from its own script.

Category fraud is more rampant at the Emmy's because the TV shows themselves can determine what category they choose to place themselves in. With the Academy Awards, studios can just campaign for a particular category but ultimately it is The Academy themselves that determine which category to place movies and actors into. There have been instances where a studio will campaign for one category and been placed in another. Therefore, in theory, category fraud shouldn't exist at the Oscars. Unfortunately, it does. Here are 6 Recent Oscar Nominees Who Were Nominated In The Wrong Category.

The 15 Best Oscar Winning Performances of The Past 15 Years

15) Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius (Gladiator)

Category: Best Actor
Year: 2001
Reasoning: Maximus' most memorable line from the film is after he has slain another opponent in the Colosseum and he screams, "Are you not entertained?!" We were all entertained by Crowe's performance, and the Academy was as well. Crowe plays a war hero who gets captured as a slave and is forced to win the hearts and minds of the people by winning in "cage matches" in the Colosseum in order to take down the Emperor Commodus played by Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix.

14) Reese Witherspoon as June Carter (Walk The Line)

Category: Best Actress
Year: 2006
Reasoning: Joaquin Phoenix was really good as Johnny Cash, but Reese Witherspoon was amazing as June Carter. I think Phoenix is an incredible, incredible actor, but Witherspoon blew him off of the screen every time they appeared together. It also helped that Phoenix was doing an imitation of Johnny Cash, whereas Witherspoon WAS June Carter. Who knew the ditz from Legally Blonde had it in her?