Well, it’s January and you know what that means… time to hit the Oscars trail yet again! Sigh. Let’s get the journey over with.
If you’re not feeling terribly enthused about the season, join me on the couch. There are many movies that I personally enjoyed represented this year, but the whole season still felt like a sleeper with the usual big Marvel hits, some flouncy historical dramas, and a few surprises later on down the line.
One of those big Marvel hits, Black Panther, made it to Best Picture, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song, Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, AND Best Production Design after some… ahem, controversy. We can say what we want about Black Panther’s noms, but in the end you can’t deny the impact of T’Challa’s world. For a good few months, we all really wanted to go to Wakanda. I might still be applying for my visa. Is BP going to rack up everything? Probably not – I’m looking for it to take home Costume Design & Score, probably Original Song too. If you think the Academy is going to be intimidated by backlash, just keep in mind that Green Book is also nominated and looks to be the likely favorite to win (there’s still time for Roma to save us). Surprises do happen but not… often.
Speaking of surprises, Yorgos Lanthimos’s tempestuous romp through courtly & bisexual drama The Favourite is all over the place. Strike me pink because I didn’t see that coming. I really expected most of its nods to go towards the slightly more respectable if more dour Mary Queen of Scots. They’re completely unrelated to each other besides being period dramas dealing with royalty, political power, manipulation, and war. Indeed, The Favourite’s treatment of power plays and high society put it a lot closer to my only favorite period piece, The Wolf of Wall Street. But if it doesn’t take home an award for Cinematography, I’m gonna riot.
The category I’m most looking forward to this year is Best Animated Feature. Some truly great animation hit our screens this year including the long-awaited The Incredibles 2, the touching Mirai, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. It’s not often that we get to say that the hype was real when it comes to awards season, but the hype was definitely earned with many of the films here. This section is going to be refreshingly competitive.
So… let’s talk about the big, white elephant eating peanuts real loud in the room: who is hosting the Oscars this year? The official answer is: nobody! We’ve seen this before at a point when times were lean and we relied on multiple hosts with short to no video packages. But this year is a little different. It’s been an open secret for a while that nobody really wants to host the Oscars – it’s an incredibly stiff job even for those that generally play by the Hollywood code of conduct. But most importantly, in terms of career profile it’s almost worse than actually winning an award. Has hosting ever actually hurt someone’s career? Usually not. Does it feel like a slump or brand you as a has-been at the tail end of their twilight years? No comment.
After searching high and low, we had a host… who quickly flubbed up even the simplest PR damage control and backed out of the job. Since then it’s been crickets and we don’t have a lot of time until game day.
Ay, there’s the rub and that’s where we are: yet another Oscars season where no one’s really learned anything from the previous years and categories full of pandering and so-called problematic favorites. Lip service to change but no real desire to do so. A season that brings us Spike Lee’s first nomination. FIRST, everyone! And not one but two White People Learn Racism flicks. If one of your faves didn’t quite make the list, well, maybe it’s for the best this go ‘round. Things got better in the film & TV world this year, but to see this list of noms you would think it was the same ol’ same old. What’s it going to take to get things to change definitively? To say February 24th is going to be a bit spicy is an understatement.
Photo: chrisinphilly5448