By the end of April award season is typically a distant memory. Folks will often bitch a bit about what won a few months back but the focus is on what delightful new Marvel movie or dreadful remake is about to officially open summer movie season. I’m not wasting virtual ink to tell you how this past year was different because we are all aware. In fact I’m not sure what the actual telecast of the Academy Awards is going to look like this year, but based on the propensity to go for low hanging fruit, I’m sure our host/presenters will make plenty of quarantine jokes.
With the shift away from theaters to home streaming complete more and more people had a chance to see far more nominees this year than normal. The late show this year also gave extra time to catch up on things, but well at the risk of sounding redundant, this year was different. I could barely muster up any interest in watching any of the nominees. I had very little excitement about what was nominated and very little enthusiasm for snubs. Frankly put I did not have a dog in this year’s race and collectively the best picture nominees are probably the weakest since 2008. I’ll let you look it up if you want, but that was the last year of 5 best picture nominees when Slumdog Millionaire took home the top honor because frankly nothing was interesting.
As fewer films were released, and a few that didn’t get made the field was wide open and also strange. Film Comment ceased publication this year so my most trusted year end list was nowhere to be found. The Golden Globes proved to be an extra batch of head-scratching this year with several questionable nominees. So with little fanfare, an extended delay comes a quick recap on what is nominated in the major categories, so forgive my lukewarm takes on this years shit. As a surprising bonus though this is the first year in memory where I was able to see every best documentary nominee. For the record I am rooting for Collective to win that although Time and The Mole Agent are also excellent. I can practically guarantee Crip Camp will win because well it’s exactly the type of thing Academy voters love to pride themselves on recognizing.
Best Supporting Actress:
OK so Glenn Close made history this year by becoming the first person nominated for a Golden Raspberry and Academy Award for the same performance. This indicates the polarizing nature of that film, which I honestly didn’t bother sitting through. Yeah it’s on Netflix but man this year has been a huge bummer and I don’t think Hillbilly Elegy is going to make it better. Yuh-jung Youn is little known but the kooky grandparent is a lightning rod for Academy voters, but usually if that actor is best known for younger roles. Speaking of I-had-to-look-up-how-to-spell-their-name-actresses, Maria Bakalova was the breakout of the year in the pedestrian Borat sequel. She is the bright spot of the film and recognizing new talent isn’t an impossibility. Olivia Coleman and Amanda Seyfried are perfectly fine in their roles (Coleman more so) but neither seems to be running away with it. Hopefully Bakalova takes it but I am often wrong.
Best Supporting Actor:
Speaking of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen is nominated for his delightful turn in Trial of the Chicago 7, a perfectly cromulent best picture nominee.His accent is odd, but would you expect anything else from the man? Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield might cancel each other out although I felt like Stanfield should have been considered the lead there. Chicago and The Godfather 2 have proved that someone can win an Oscar when more than one person from the same film are nominated. One Night in Miami was fine, and Leslie Odom Jr. was as good as anyone in it but I literally had to look up who he played. Please read that as “that film was forgettable” rather than “black people all look alike”. Paul Raci is fine in Sound of Metal, but that is the theme of this year. Everyone is ok. For the record I’m pulling for Cohen, but I’m sure Odom wins.
Best Actress:
It’s a good year if you wanted to play a black singer from long ago. Viola Davis lays it on quite thick in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but Chadwick Boseman more than stole the show there. Andra Day is this year’s musical biopic representative for the instantly forgettable The United States vs. Billie Holliday. Lady Sings the Blues covers much of the ground in this film, so yeah we’re getting to making remakes of biopics. Vanessa Kirby is outstanding in the bummer of a movie Pieces of a Woman. Carey Mulligan delivers probably the best overall performance for Promising Young Woman, but I’m not sure how much of a shot she has of actually winning. Frances McDormand makes her sporadic return to potentially win another Oscar. The fact that she already won this award twice would severely handicap her in this race. Nomadland was one of my favorite films of the year but honestly McDormand probably could have done this movie in her sleep.
Best Actor:
Chadwick Boseman is winning this. We can talk about the other nominees, but he’s joining Heath Ledger and Peter Finch in the posthumous trophy category. The film itself is a chore, and it is very,very clearly based on a play because there are countless monologues delivered while characters look away from everyone else in the room. It’s the type of movie some poor theater kid will probably pull from for a future audition. As an actual film everything is painfully telegraphed and a snooze. Anthony Hopkins for the record is fantastic in The Father and he deserves this award more than the one he got for Silence of the Lambs, but it’s Boseman all day. In a perfect world Riz Ahmed would have a real chance of winning this but him and Steven Yeun are going to have to be happy with the nomination.
Best Director:
This is the most interesting race in my opinion this year. Thomas Vinterberg is the lone nominee who directed a film without a best picture nominee. If you have Hulu, I highly recommend watching Another Round. It is all the fun of a Lars Von Trier film with half the depression. David Fincher is long overdue for one of these awards and Mank might be the one to do it. It’s certainly playing to it’s audience here but all eyes will be on Chloe Zhao who won the Globe in this category. This year’s Academy Awards are more diverse than normal but it does get a little annoying that after 90+ years we’re still having firsts when it comes to nominees. The Academy can pat itself on the back (and believe me there will be an applause break for it) by nominating two women for best director, and two Asians, what a world. I believe Zhao will take this home and her previous film The Rider was highly acclaimed even if it got no love from mainstream award shows.
Best Picture:
The Father - This is the last nominee to be released to stream so I expect few people got around to even watching it. It’s a bummer and a half. Well made, it does have some resemblance to Michael Haneke’s excellent Amour without all the story. In fact that is the biggest knock against this film is that there really is no plot. It is made in a way that is fascinating and by trying to approximate what Hopkins character is going through makes things a little surreal. Like most Oscar bait, it is the type of film you can be moved by without ever wanting to sit through it again.
Judas and the Black Messiah - This film is by the numbers and honestly a little less enjoyable than I had hoped. I’m not sure how many of the nominees this year suffered by being watched in the comfort of my own home, but well I watched A Marriage Story and The Irishman last year on Netflix and they were both excellent.
Mank - This year’s Netflix award bait was a significant drop in quality from the past two years. I’m not saying Mank is a bad film, but it’s a story I’m well familiar with. There are so many old Hollywood Easter eggs it amused me slightly to think how they can take a Marvel approach to film nerds. This struck me as a movie I could see getting plenty of nominations but probably not winning the top prize. Although the irony of a movie about the writing of Citizen Kane winning best picture when Kane didn’t would not be lost on me.
Minari - This is the last nominee I watched this season and it is a movie. Minari is unique in telling a story that hasn’t been told before, at least not like this, but man that’s about all I can say about it. I mean does a Korean family trying to start a farm in Arkansas sound like a good movie to you? Well where are the giant lizard vs. giant ape battles? We don’t even get a lot of stereotypical “go back to your country” scenes, and it takes place in Arkansas. Honestly Minari shows that even Asian people can be recognized for mediocre films. Look there’s nothing wrong with the movie but it was lost on me.
Nomadland - If I were voting for best picture, this is what I would vote for. If anyone watches this and thinks it’s boring as hell, I won’t argue with you. Not much actually happens but damn it if I still didn’t feel something watching it. I suppose my reaction to this film is what I was hoping for with all the nominees but it’s the only one to achieve it. With so many depressing things happening in 2020 it seems fitting that the best film would also be depressing. I know this film isn’t for everyone but in an incredibly weak year for cinema, this was a bright spot.
Promising Young Woman - With every film available to buy/rent Promising Young Woman was the first one we actually got. I vaguely remember seeing a trailer for it before the world ended and was not excited about it. The Us inspired re-working of “Toxic” from Britney Spears made my eyes roll quite hard. Even watching the film there were plenty of moments where I couldn’t tell if this was some brilliant Heathers/American Psycho black comedy or a tonally inconsistent lecture. I absolutely loved parts of it and kinda groaned at others. In a stronger year this might not have been nominated but I’d say it’s worth watching. Most people will have somewhat strong opinions about it, but it’s up to the individual what your take on it will be.
Sound of Metal - When this popped up Amazon Prime I was curious, then checked it out after the Golden Globe nominees were announced. Another film that surprised me by even getting made. This year is lacking many of the big productions, period pictures and epics, which makes some sense. Sound of Metal is absolutely great for what it is, which seems more like a small film that would have gotten some love at film festivals and then dropped out of sight. Riz Ahmed is fantastic, and for once an art film might win the sound design Oscars.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 - This is your dad’s best picture winner. The kind of movie that checks every box for a good old fashioned award season hit that everyone will forget about in less than five years. It’s good but so textbook, which seems like the biggest strike against it. This might have been the most enjoyable of the nominees and if it weren’t for a monumentally corny finale I probably would be rooting for this as best picture. It’s well acted, incredibly well structured, and compelling as hell despite it’s predictability. Of all the nominees this is probably the one you’ll hear boomers recommend this year.
So there you go, my take on this year’s snooze-fest of nominees. Am I still going to watch the show? Absolutely. Am I still going to lose my Oscar poll to Caroline? Probably. Looking forward to awkward jokes landing poorly, and finally having a rooting interest in the best animated short category.
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