I like the Oscars. Sue me!
My main complaint is Billy Crystal doesn’t host every year. Seriously, watch this:
Man, is anything better than that?
The Oscars stupid as hell. They’re masturbatory. They’re almost completely out of touch with actual tastemakers and the moviegoing public. But that’s the point, no? It’s an ode to the industry of film more than film itself and the majority of said industry has always been behind the curve and out-of-touch. And yet, I still think most anything that gets people talking about movies is a net positive.
The modern American film industry doesn’t have a lot in common with Classical Hollywood cinema, but as long as the Oscars exist there’ll always be a through line for the history of American film. Of course, many important American films aren’t included in Oscar history1, but most important filmmakers/performers get brought into the fold eventually. Rarely for their best work, but they’re there. The timing of when particular power players get brought into the Academy’s good graces, though, is often as interesting as the work itself.
Scanning through nominated movies for each year gives a general idea of how the movie industry developed over time. I think you could write a version of Mark Harris’ Pictures at a Revolution (about the five Best Picture nominees in 1967) about any Oscar Best Picture race and get fascinating insight into all the trends and contradictions of the movie business at any moment in history.
So, what do this year’s Oscar nominees say about the industry? Also, what do I think of each picture? Here’s some quick thoughts on the Best Picture nominees:
WEST SIDE STORY
Spielberg’s West Side Story remake’s critical acceptance feels like a sign that the industry has completely resigned to reboot/remake culture. As recently as a decade ago, the dominant critical complaint was “Why won’t Hollywood tell any new stories??” Now all you gotta do is modernize a couple story lines (gentrification is bad!) and critics are just happy you’re not making another comic book movie. Personally, I think this movie is worse than the original and generally bad. Both Spielberg’s direction and production design are elegant but West Side Story’s inclusion here is a testament to an industry pining for the good ol’ days of theatrical exhibition and distribution (which I guess they think is 2010?).
NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Nightmare Alley is the last of a dying breed. A major studio motion picture drama from a high-profile, Oscar-winning director with the budget and A-list cast to boot. And yet, it was completely unsurprising when it opened to critical indifference and terrible box office returns. Given all this, Nightmare Alley’s nominations feel like a colluding effort by Academy members to keep this dying breed of a production model alive. There will be less and less Nightmare Alleys hitting theaters over the next decade, but each will almost be guaranteed a nomination on the principle of simply existing. That said, I really liked Nightmare Alley! To those who counter it’s only because I took mushrooms before watching I say, “Probably!”
DON’T LOOK UP
Adam McKay’s latest confirms that quality comedy can’t be made by anyone who buys into the importance of their own work. Don’t Look Up confirms the Academy fundamentally doesn’t understand the skill it takes to produce a great comedy film. As has always been the case in Hollywood, though, if you shake enough hands, kiss enough asses and publicly scold enough of your critics, anything - especially an Oscar nomination - is possible. The Other Guys (still McKay’s best movie!!!) deserved a Best Picture nomination. Don’t Look Up does not.
DUNE
When the Academy expanded the Best Picture race from 5 nominated films to as many as 10, they did it with movies like Dune in mind. Dune has absolutely no chance of winning Best Picture but its inclusion allows a bunch of old farts to convince themselves they’re not old farts who refuse to recognize the artistry of big budget, VFX-dependent filmmaking. I’m on record saying Dune is director Denis Villeneuve’s best work-to-date. The fact that Dune got Best Picture but Villeneuve was snubbed for Best Director proves the Academy still has no desire to recognize groundbreaking blockbuster filmmaking. They just wanted to shut up ComicCon nerds.
DRIVE MY CAR
I don’t love Drive My Car as much as others but I’m thrilled to have it included here. It’s a testament to the Academy’s delivered promise of expanding and diversifying its voting body in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite and Green Book. A slow, artsy, incredibly long Japanese film about adapting Chekov and grieving wouldn’t have been here 5 years ago. A positive trend for the industry!
BELFAST
The one movie I haven’t seen. I’ve tried starting it but turns out I’m never really in the mood to watch something that looks boring as hell and most of my friends hate. No matter how much younger and more diverse the Academy gets, movies like Belfast, with no cultural impact or staying power will still find a way to get nominated for Best Picture.
LICORICE PIZZA
My favorite film of the 10 nominees. That said, nothing really interesting to say here. This was a slam dunk nomination: critically and commercially successful auteur director in his fourth decade making a movie about the Los Angeles area? Oscars (and Harris) catnip!
KING RICHARD
No movie this year had a more traditional route to the Oscars than King Richard. Generic biopic with a megastar in the titular role does hundreds of post-screening Q+As and meet-and-greets where industry normies get to momentarily bask in the glow of the aforementioned megastar. Will Smith will be handed what essentially amounts to a lifetime achievement award on Sunday before we collectively, as a society, decide to forget this movie ever existed.
CODA
The story is fine. The performances are mostly strong. But goddammit, CODA is a TV movie! This thing looks like complete shit in a way I can’t comprehend. The lighting is atrocious, the direction is confusing, the editing is noticeable and the overall production is thoughtless when not outright distracting. If CODA actually wins, as some are now predicting, it’d be a testament to how little the majority of Academy members care about the craftsmanship of below-the-line moviemakers. In a year when the Academy decided to give 8 awards (including editing, sound and production design) off-telecast so they can (presumably) do a 20-minute salute to Zelenskyy for the ratings, CODA’s nomination proves just how little most Hollywood people care about anything besides acting and writing. Hopefully a fluke nomination, but possibly a sign of trouble to come.
THE POWER OF THE DOG
The likely Best Picture winner is, luckily, a very good, beautifully crafted movie. The most interesting narrative surrounding the movie is Netflix finally winning its first Best Picture Oscar. Will we look back at 2021 and think of it as the year The Power of the Dog changed the culture? No. If the Academy wanted to recognize a LGBTQ western with Best Picture at a societally relevant time it would’ve given it to Brokeback Mountain instead of Crash in 2006. Instead we’ll think about The Power of the Dog as the movie that put the final nail in the coffin of the myth of traditional studio production (and distribution) as the only legitimate avenue for making prestige film. Unfortunately, this requires giving Ted Sarandos the little gold man he always dreamed of holding before he, inevitably, completely pivots Netflix to making nothing but trash content.
Here’s a list of some of the most important American movies I can think of off top-of-head that I know never got a single Oscar nom. Zodiac; Heat; Rushmore; Texas Chain Saw Massacre; Frances Ha; Synecdoche, New York; The Shining; The Big Lebowski; Anchorman; Halloween; Eraserhead…so many more.