The latest round of self-recrimination was brought on by last year's ceremony, which aired on TV right around the time the Covid vaccines were becoming widely available and had to make major adjustments for safety's sake. The already challenging situation was marred by the embarrassing ending to the ceremony, where Best Actor was moved to the end of the show in anticipation of a big moving tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman...only for him to be upset by Anthony Hopkins, who wasn't even there to accept the award. Whoops! Just goes to show that they really don't know what's in those envelopes ahead of time.
However, it's not that anticlimax that upset the show's producers as much as the historically low ratings. People just weren't digging an awards show in the midst of all the bad news, can you blame them? The Academy's gut reaction to these situations is always to disrespect large portions of its membership and sure enough, there was another announcement that several categories would be presented off the air and edited into the broadcast. Stuff like editing, cinematography, sound...all pretty important to movies, but typically not awarded to beautiful movie stars so Joe Sixpack can't handle it. In fact, the Academy looks particularly bad this time because last year they convinced the sound branch to very reluctantly accept the merging of the Sound Mixing and Sound Editing categories into one, with the promise that they wouldn't attempt to cut them from the live show again. Only one year later and here we are! Despite the backlash, they have dug their heels in so, as of the Friday before the show, it looks like this is how it will play out. Don't be surprised if some of the winners call them out in their speeches.
The Oscars are not a huge mainstream event and that's okay. There's nothing to be gained by chasing the Superbowl's clout, not when football is basically America's national religion. It would make much more sense to solidify the appeal to movie fans everywhere, to fully establish it as a fun annual event for people who find the Superbowl irritating and avoid it. If it's long, oh well. People will spend 12 hours watching a whole season of streaming television, remember? Since the pressure is coming from ABC, maybe the answer is just to divorce the entire thing from network television and stream the whole show. It would honestly solve a lot of these problems.
There's another unique aspect of this year's show that is well worth discussing...
Oscars Fan Favorite
A new category? It's too early to say but it's quite an experiment.
When Spider-Man: No Way Home packed theaters in a way that hasn't been seen since before the plague, a loud contingent of industry folks declared this feat worthy of a Best Picture nomination. Does the movie deserve it? Well, that's up to each individual viewer. In my opinion, the one it should really get is Supporting Actor for Willem Dafoe. That man is a god. Was it ever likely for it to actually get that Best Picture nomination? No.
As fun as the movie is, it's way too dependent on Marvel lore for the large portion of the Academy who just don't follow this stuff. You need to have seen like 5 or 6 other movies to appreciate everything. When the nominations came out, there were immediate cries of "snub," although to be snubbed you have to had a chance in the first place. It was never going to happen. At the very least, I will agree with Jimmy Kimmel that the movie is indeed better than Don't Look Up.
The Oscars are very uncomfortable with these situations, especially when the movie in question is from Disney, which owns almost everything at this point including ABC. So they created this concept almost entirely for a chance for Spider-Man to get something. The way it works is that people chime in with their picks on social media and at first glance, you can kind of see what they were going for. Spider-Man is getting a lot of love, but there are also a lot of people pushing for Zack Snyder's director's cut of Justice League. Meanwhile, the horror community has rallied behind Malignant.
I rolled my eyes at the initial announcement, but I've warmed to the idea since then. It could end up being a fun thing to do every year. The only thing I worry about is how susceptible this process is to bots and trolls. We could end up with some other random movie winning the poll that was chosen as a joke. If that happens, I doubt we'll see this category again. If all goes to plan, I think Spider-Man is the obvious winner and I'd be happy to add it to the annual list of predictions in the future.
Best Animated Feature
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
Who Will Win: Sixty percent of the nominees were released by Disney, which I find just obnoxious. That's not to say the movies themselves aren't good! Typically the Pixar film is the safest bet, but Luca was released so long ago it feels like it's not even eligible. Meanwhile, Encanto is vintage Disney that has people excited in a way not seen since Frozen. A bit of trivia - the Danish animated documentary Flee is the first movie ever to be nominated for Animated Feature, Documentary and International Feature. Pretty impressive, although this is the one it's least likely to win.
My Choice: Encanto is the best Disney movie I've seen in ages, but I have to go with The Mitchells vs. The Machines. The animation division at Sony, which won a couple years ago for Into the Spider-Verse, is putting out brilliant and innovative work and should be encouraged.
Best Documentary Feature
Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul
Writing with Fire
Who Will Win: Flee is the most innovative documentary here and it also tells a story of the refugee experience that's newly relevant because of what's happening in Europe. It may well win, but I'm predicting the Oscar will go to Summer of Soul, which unearthed footage of a huge Harlem festival in 1969 and made an electrifying documentary out of it. The key factor is that the director is Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, who was actually the DJ for last year's Academy Awards. He must have made a few friends in the process, so that should work in his favor.
My Choice: I expected Summer of Soul to be good, but I didn't think it would capture so much of the excitement of being at a real concert. It's also an impressive feat of archival work given that this footage had sat in a basement for decades up until now.
My Choice: I have way too many fond memories of "Fresh Prince" to root for anyone else.
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson for Licorice Pizza
Kenneth Branagh for Belfast
Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog
Ryusuke Hamaguchi for Drive My Car
Steven Spielberg for West Side Story
Who Will Win: Whatever happens to the movie itself, a win for the New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion seems inevitable. She's won just about every directing award this year, including the telltale Director's Guild honor. Headlines about the Academy giving this Oscar to two women in a row (following Chloe Zhao last year) must also be appealing.
My Choice: I've never connected to Campion's films despite their technical excellence and that includes The Power of the Dog. It might not sound like an exciting choice, but I'd be tempted to give it to Spielberg after seeing the amazing production design and cinematography in the new West Side Story. We take this stuff for granted coming from him, but if a previously unknown director came along with a movie that looked like this, we'd all be singing their praises to high heaven.
Best Picture
Belfast
CODA
Don't Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
Who Will Win: The usual indicators point to a win by The Power of the Dog. It's got a ton of nominations and has won many of the important precursor awards. However, I don't think it's going to happen. In fact, the movie is quite vulnerable. As well made as it is, it's emotionally cold and at times seems determined to alienate its audience. But if it didn't win, what would?
Nightmare Alley got here based on affection for Guillermo del Toro but I think most people would agree it's a mid-tier entry in his body of work. Dune is an impressive feat of blockbuster filmmaking but science-fiction is a nonstarter with this crowd. Licorice Pizza is a light comedy that looks insubstantial compared to some of these other films. King Richard is a familiar sports drama that benefits from great acting, which is where it will be recognized. A win by West Side Story would be interesting given that it's a remake of a movie that already won Best Picture, but this isn't 1961 and I don't think it's a year where an old-timey musical wins. Don't Look Up is the most polarizing of the nominees and will be undone by the preferential ballot system that rewards consensus. Sometimes a movie like Green Book can win despite that, but Green Book had sentimentality and attempts at racial uplift whereas Don't Look Up is just a giant wail of frustration. Could the Japanese film Drive My Car do what the South Korean film Parasite did just two years ago? The fact that it has gotten this far makes me think it has a real shot, but it's not a crowdpleaser like Parasite. It fits within most stereotypes of the typical "art film" - an understated three-hour drama with a lot of attention given to the messy personal lives of actors.
The remaining two films are the ones with a chance to upset. Belfast is the closest to a "traditional" Best Picture nominee, a period drama with a finale that leaves viewers reaching for tissues. Don't underestimate a tearjerker at the Oscars, folks. CODA is the "happy tears" version, a feel good story that's also a legitimate breakthrough for the depiction of deaf people on screen. It surprised most observers by winning the Best Ensemble prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, with the Producers Guild following closely after. It's coming for the big prize.
This starts to feel familiar if you've followed the Oscars for a while. We seem to be headed for a replay of the infamous Brokeback Mountain vs. Crash matchup in 2005. Once again we have a gay cowboy movie going into the ceremony looking unbeatable only to be potentially taken down by an unassuming challenger. Crash was one of the most divisive winners ever and its win was followed by a wave of scathing think pieces about the latent homophobia lurking within the supposedly progressive Academy membership. I would almost feel bad for CODA if it wins, since it's a sweet little movie that wouldn't deserve the resulting backlash.
But it may not turn out that way. I don't think the Academy particularly wants to experience that again and in a year where the Oscars have already gotten a lot of bad press, "fixing" a certain result in the past might be appealing. So maybe they will go with the easy-to-appreciate-hard-to-like choice this time. There's some real suspense this year. I didn't see the 2005 result coming but this time I think CODA will win. We shall see.
My Choice: Belfast > West Side Story > Dune > CODA > Drive My Car > Nightmare Alley > Licorice Pizza > King Richard > The Power of the Dog > Don't Look Up. Even though I don't really see Spider-Man as Best Picture material, I do sympathize with people who would like to see some more outside the box nominees in this category. The increasing presence of movies from other countries for the last few years is encouraging and I hope that the idea of what an "Oscar movie" is continues to broaden.
