Oscars 2021

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscars-coronavirus-academy-rules-streamed-films-eligible-merges-sound-categories-1292043

Buried behind the obvious COVID-19 headline that streaming movies (should studios actually end up deciding to open up the firehose) are eligible next year is another big-ish deal. Namely, finally there's only one god-damned sound award!

(Also, some more shuffling around of who gets to vote on best international feature nominations.)

we can all judge sound on our laptops (those of us who don't get screeners)

Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it’s moving the presentation of next year’s Oscars to April 25 and extending the awards eligibility period to February 28, a decision that’s come in for some severe criticism.

Guy Lodge, a critic for Variety and the Guardian, calls the move “idiotic. New films are being released constantly, many of them good, and many voters have nothing but time on their hands to watch them. Dig deeper.” Carlos Aguilar, a contributor to the Los Angeles Times and TheWrap, agrees: “Plenty of great eligible movies have already been released this year and more are still on the way,” he’s tweeted. “Rather than cater to the studios, maybe celebrate films you would often overlook in a typical year?”

Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri expands on this argument, noting how easy it is for him right now, just halfway through 2020, to list ten viable contenders for best picture, including Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. “The Academy’s decision seems, in some ways, like a slap in the face to those films, as if the Oscars were saying to them that even though they’re technically eligible, they should sit back and wait for the big boys to come out and grab their trophies,” writes Ebiri. “An Oscars built around smaller releases that are nevertheless great movies might actually serve as a necessary reset for AMPAS, and return the awards back to what they should be about in the first place: honoring excellence.”

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6984-reshuffling-the-calendar

https://variety.com/2021/film/awards/oscars-documentary-feature-international-feature-submissions-1234881250/

On Dec. 22, the Academy uploaded a robust 93 documentaries for its branch members, bringing the total number of eligible features to 215, a record-breaking number that already surpasses the 2017 record of 170.

Which one of these Golden Globe nominated dramas should I watch this weekend (I've already seen Nomanland and Promising Young Woman)?

The Father
Mank
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Is The Father even streaming anywhere yet?

Well, I thought it was released for streaming today, but apparently not. I guess that narrows it down.

Chicago 7 has a great cast. Not too memorable in other ways, but definitely worth watching.

Full list: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/movies/oscars-nominees-list.html

First impressions: nice to see Steven Yeun, Vanessa Kirby; my eyes got singed by the Mank love, but I knew that.

Good to see Yuh-Jung Youn too.

The only multi-nominated film I haven't watched is Judas, so the category fraud stuff doesn't move me.

Anecdotally/weirdly, I've not heard a single friend so much as mention "Mank" or "The Trial of the Chicago 7," despite both being made by prominent directors, both being out for months and both on the most prevalent of the streaming services. I know lots of folks into "Nomadland" and "Ma Rainey," though, or talking about "Judas" or "Minari" or "One Night in Miami." Funny what still gets seemingly filtered out even when it's all available to watch at home, when people are still largely *stuck* at home.

My parents watched (and loved) Chicago 7, but, yeah, Mank is calculated to appeal to no one except Academy voters. Some things don't change even in the COVID era.

curious to see Sound Of Metal, glimpses I've seen make it seem like potentially not rank awardsbait

is best picture winner Nomadland actually good

yes

Sound of Metal is mostly pretty good, imo. Nomadland I thought was Kelly Reichardt remade as Oscar bait, for better or for worse, but if you like Frances McDormand looking "plain" and staring out *over* plains, you'll like it.

more discursive, ambiguous than the usual winning fare.

It would rank among the worthier winners, especially in the last two decades.

I wouldn't disagree. I just think "Wendy & Lucy" did it a lot better.

Maria Bakalova was nominated??????

I mean, that's great but also huh?

Academy Award-nominated film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

also I swear to god if Soul wins best animated film I will set everything on fire

Wasn't she nominated for (or awarded?) a Golden Globe, too?

Lotta SBC in the Oscars this year.

dont know much abt sound of metal and im curious about it but i really dont want it to be some aronofsky type shit where he slowly goes crazy and like cuts his ears off at the end, its not that is it?

The Mank placings are so predictable and tedious, just like the movie. I don't mind Amanda Seyfried being nominated, though, she's the only life in that whole thing. (Would happily take Bakalova over her.)

How is Minari? I don't really have any sense of that.

Yeah, Bakalova was a lock. She received Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA nominations and won a handful of critics' awards.

@One Eye Open: No, it's not that. It's a thoughtful character study.

Bakalova was incredible in that movie and was pretty much the only reason why it worked but also she was nominated for flashing her bloody crotch at a roomful of horrified socialites, which makes this the best Academy nomination ever

The critical embrace of Minari surprised me. Other than the deserved showcases for Yeun and Yuh-Jung, it's pure Sundance fare.

xpost Yeah, Sound of Metal I was worried would be exactly what you'd think it would be, but it's not really that.

Minari looks good and has been on deck for us to watch as a family for a while now. (Coincidentally, so has Jim Sheridan's "In America," which seems broadly similar.)

Judas isn't a great movie but it's considerably better than it had to be, and I look forward to conservatives freaking out about commie valorization or whatever

I haven't seen Minari yet, but I'm stupidly excited about Steven Yeun's nomination, because we went to the same small liberal arts college (five years apart) and were both in the improv troupe.

As with Promising Young Woman, I'm waiting for the streaming cost to come down (though maybe I'll splurge if it's going to be a while).

Posted about "Judas" on the movie thread, because I looked at it from the other perspective: it's considerably worse than it should have been (which doesn't mean bad, just not particularly anything more than fine, a weird purgatory for such a potentially fiery movie).

I'm pleased about Kirby's nomination; the first half of Pieces of a Woman is harrowing stuff, the rest just a disaster. Relieved Ellen Burstyn's shameless mugging for a nod was ignored.

I looked at it from the other perspective: it's considerably worse than it should have been

I get this but also depictions of the radical left are usually completely botched so I'll take it

As with Promising Young Woman, I'm waiting for the streaming cost to come down (though maybe I'll splurge if it's going to be a while).

wait till it's free with a service you already subscribe to imho

Ideally, yes, but if it's on Amazon for $3.99, I'll watch it.

I'm sorry a what now

Oscars: Diverse Field Sees Asian Actors Shatter a Bamboo Ceiling https://t.co/gXPGDxEOQ4

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) March 15, 2021

I get this but also depictions of the radical left are usually completely botched so I'll take it

― intern at pepe le pew research (Simon H.),

See: Sorkin, Aaron.

yuuuuup

I'd never heard the phrase before, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_ceiling

well that's me told! fwiw it seems like the term was new to many others as well (going by twitter replies)

who do these ppl think is the lead of Judas And The Black Messiah

That's what I was wondering, unless it was a calculated decision to court those specific noms? Idgi.

^^ it was.

I didn't even notice that those two were relegated to supporting actor nominations! I mean, seriously, at the very least *one* of them is a lead actor, but really both. Plemons fits the "supporting" title in that movie to a T.

boseman is almost certainly gonna win best actor, and they were looking to avoid that buzzsaw.

if anything, they're co-leads, not co-supporting, but category fraud happens.

Academy Award-nominated film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Monday, March 15, 2021 9:22 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

THE GODFATHER was the first movie franchise to have its first and second films both nominated for Best Screenplay. the second movie franchise? BORAT.

— Russell (@RussellHFilm) March 15, 2021

ha!

Lakeith is obviously the lead. Kaluuya would be fine to class as co-lead or supporting.

xp But that's different, even football fans don't care about the Pro Bowl

mmmmm you may be getting my point

my mom cares about the oscars. though, thanks to plex, this year she actually saw most of the movies beforehand and was excited to have a rooting interest

maybe i'm more of an 'oscar head' than most but i have to say that i did not find it hard to remember which awards were being presented during the brief 50-60 second period that the nominees were being listed

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Monday, April 26, 2021 10:33 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

many of the pre-award spiels were a lot longer than that but yeah i was paying half-attention, and breaking the presenter banter-montage-award progression that i've been conditioned to expect threw me off

I don't have a problem with Nomadland, Zhao, Hopkins, or Youn Yuh-jung's wins tbh. That's a respectable, un-embarrassing roster.

Yuh-jung was, like the entire Minari cast, exquisite.

I don't think I have a problem with any of the top 6 with the obvious caveat that Nomadland didn't work on me. I am perfectly happy that Frances McDormand has joined the three acting Oscars club.

Also, the only best picture nominee that got scotched was Chicago 7, which, great!

so, I haven't actually seen Ma Rainey's Black Bottom yet, is it actually an injustice that Boseman didn't win this or did people just want him to win another posthumous oscar?

No injustice. Boseman, Hopkins and Ahmed were all phenomenal this year.

The last five best picture winners were:

Spotlight
The Shape of Water
Green Book
Parasite
Nomadland

The AMPAS is officially a schizophrenic organization.

Ope, sorry, Moonlight not Spotlight. Even more schizo.

Meanwhile, this one continues her descent down the J3ffr3y W3lls slide of anti-wokeness...

https://www.awardsdaily.com/2021/04/26/the-state-of-the-race-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/

Tyler Perry’s speech was a plea for unity – the kind Joe Biden should be making and never has wherein he asks us not to hate each other – not to hate people for skin color, not to hate cops because they are cops – to meet him in the middle. It was powerful and memorable and exactly what this country, and this industry, needs.

...

The Academy was somehow making their whole show about appealing to the black community

Every nominee in Best Actor was good to great except Oldman. The Best Actress category equally solid.

Golden Derby's post-mortem:

On paper, it looked like it was Boseman’s to lose. The late star had won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Screen Actors Guild Award, losing just the BAFTA to Hopkins. Many had dismissed the BAFTA result as a home-field advantage win for Hopkins, who was probably sleeping like a baby in his native Wales when he won the Oscar, which I had cautioned against doing. The fact of the matter is, Hopkins’ tremendous, GOAT-level performance connected with a lot of people. Do a quick search on Twitter (well, wade past all the Oscar reactions) and you’ll see nothing but praise for Hopkins. Many of the anonymous Oscar ballots from the past week featured voters stating how much they were floored by Hopkins’ performance and that they voted for him. And lest we forget, Hopkins, now the oldest acting winner ever at 83, received all-time raves for his turn after “The Father” premiered at Sundance in January 2020, which admittedly is a lifetime ago, and was the early frontrunner almost all of 2020 until Boseman came along.

https://www.goldderby.com/article/2021/anthony-hopkins-2021-oscars-win-how-beat-chadwick-boseman/

Hopkins winning isn't really that much of a head-scratcher. Posthumous awards are actually generally pretty rare unless they're cloaked in as much mystique (and box-office) as Ledger's.

plus Boseman already has a posthumous oscar. I don't know why there was an assumption that he deserves a second one when up against equally great performances (I'm guessing, given that I didn't in fact see either Hopkins or Boseman's performances).

He did not have an Oscar going into last night. He had a Golden Globe, tho.

oh, fuck for some reason I thought he was given one for black panther. Maybe I am Anthony Hopkins in the Father.

The only posthumous wins: Ledger and Peter Finch's. Even goddamn Spencer Tracy lost in 1967. James Dean lost two posthumous performances.

Even Peter Finch's win it feels must've in part been attributable to the Academy not quite being able to stomach handing Sylvester Stallone an acting Oscar.

but they had William Holden ready to jump off the George Washington Bridge for it!

Oscars 1976: The Death Hour

It's official: https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/tv-ratings-oscars-2021-down-record-low-1234960615/

turns out i wasn't the only idiot who was sometimes confused about the new presenting format!

https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/2021-04-oscars-academy-awards-winners-drew-magary-16128432.php

we tuned into a random 15 minutes in the middle during some technical award and it was so weird and awkward and the nominees clearly hated having a camera jammed in their faces and dealing with the presenter's overly-familiar banter. It was all too ramshackle and post-apocalyptic for me. I'll take gross + gaudy Oscar pomp over whatever that was any year.

"People who are not performers sometimes look less composed on camera than people who earn their living on camera. Therefore, the pandemic is fake."

Tyler Perry’s speech was a plea for unity – the kind Joe Biden should be making and never has wherein he asks us not to hate each other – not to hate people for skin color, not to hate cops because they are cops – to meet him in the middle. It was powerful and memorable and exactly what this country, and this industry, needs.

Tyler Perry is an anti-union piece of shit who was given ten minutes to make an autohagiographic advertisment for his own shop. Fuck that.

(ten minutes to air, not to make. ygwim.)

sic, that first sentence isn't wrong but that second is a gross accusation and the "pandemic is fake" wasn't even hinted at in that post.

The Oscars should change format every year! The Billy Crystal version sucks too, just have producers come up with new versions instead of going back to till it again.

A pomp and self-importance version really wouldn't have played with this year's slate, the nominees-only sort-of-distanced format aside.

(I assume OL would not have taken that comedic escalation seriously. But it's silly to complain about something distractingly acknowledging a pandemic and attempting to minimise the direct risk it's creating, when we are essentially at the peak of the pandemic, imo. We live here!)

that Magary piece was fun, tyft vc

But it's silly to complain about

When has this ever stopped u

it's silly to post at all tbh

Regarding ratings. I had to watch an unlicensed stream online because I don't have cable. Who has cable in 2021? ABC/Disney has multiple streaming services, they should have at least dumped it onto one of them.

p.s. thank you reddit

It was on free-to-air broadcast television.

Kind of feel like everyone should be holding onto those digital antennae for another couple years at least.

Who has cable in 2021?

Looked this up: 120.6 million households (out of 128.45 total), 65% of individuals in the USA (69% have a subscription to at least one streaming service).

Yeah, we need to go buy one of those. We cut the cable cord last year, but only learned just last night that not even Sling gets us ABC, so we didn't end up watching it at all.

I haven't really watched much of the show for years--maybe three minutes last night--but I guess I'm still somewhat interested in the results. I talked about the winners with a remote grade 5/6 class today and showed them a trailer for Nomadland. I really want to see the film--lots of beautiful shots in the trailer. Maybe picturesque colour photography is easy, but so is giving the cinematography award to Mank because it's in B&W--I don't recall taking any particular notice of the cinematography in that film.

thought the cinematography in Nomadland was really beautiful

also really liked the cinematography in Mank, but it was very, very dark. remember thinking I would probably most appreciate it in a dark theater on a big screen

as far as black and white goes, I didn't think the cinematography in Mank was as mesmerizing as that of Roma or Cold War from 2018

i saw mank in theaters and thought it was INCREDIBLY dark and hard to watch!

The cinematography in Mank also felt kind of eerily airbrushed and smoothed over. It was not like anything I remember seeing before

Meanwhile, this one continues her descent down the J3ffr3y W3lls slide of anti-wokeness...

I muted her on Twitter years ago because of her political ramblings, which seemed a little unhinged. But she's always had a big chip on her shoulder about something or other.

i was off ilxor all day today but just wanted to say this is super sharp and accurate analysis of what i posted. you've really acquitted yourself well here and in subsequent posts, bobo.

as a casual Oscar watcher (i see almost no movies and don't care who wins, etc.) this show was a major drag. missed the jokes, song performances and *especially* the movie clips badly.

I do NOT watch movies and have no interest in them. I am INFURIATED that I have not seen ten 19-second excerpts of some movies from last year, and have no way of doing so.

way too much talking. terribly solemn and boring.

It absolutely sucks that this year's ceremony did not involve ramming thousands of people shoulder-to-shoulder, having strangers hug each other, and making people sing directly into each other's faces. I have not watched and TV or read any news since last year's Oscars.

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Sunday, April 25, 2021 11:33 PM (yesterday)

j/k, actually you are a total disaster and should log the fuck off and come back when you learn to read

to eephus!: i watch the Oscars (often out of one eye while working on a laptop) because they're a big event, you get to see celebrities making jokes and wearing pretty dresses, and it allows me to catch up just the right amount on a year's worth of movies i didn't see. if i laugh a few times and come away with a movie or two i think i'd like to see, then i consider it a success.

that show last night was honestly one of the worst couple of hours of TV i've seen in a long time. i do understand it's a tricky situation with regard to holding large events and the fact that people couldn't see movies in theaters for the past year.

this was enjoyable

The camera director direct Cuba Gooding Jr.'s acceptance speech at the Oscars 1997 is amazing. pic.twitter.com/zsuLPjA6zM

— chu (@chuuzus) April 25, 2021

SPEECH BY: DANIEL KALUUYA

FILM: "Judas and the Black Messiah"

Man, man. Thank you God. Thank you God. I can’t be here without your guidance and you’re your protection. I’d like to thank my mum. Thank you so much for pouring into me. You gave me everything. You gave me your factory settings. [laughter] So I can stand at my fullest height. Um, love to my sister, love to my niece, my friends, my family, everyone I love, from London Town to Kampala. I’d like to thank my team, incredible support. Bro, we out here, yo. Man. Man. It's good, come and dance. Ryan, Zinzi, Sev, Proximity, everyone at Proximity. Charles King, man, Everyone at MACRO, Bron, Participant. Nigel. Everyone at Warner Brothers. Thank you so much for everything you poured into this. Everything you poured into this. It’s so hard to make a film and make a film about a man like this, and they made it possible, they made it happen. I share this honor with the gift that is Lakeith Stanfield. The light that is [applause], yeah yeah, the light that is Dominique Fishback. [applause] The incredible cast, the incredible crew –you know what I mean -- Lucas Brothers for starting the journey. Will Berson. See, you know it's so incredible to look around you, to look around you and just go . . . you’re inspired by not only what they do but who they are. So that's amazing. Chairman Fred Junior and Mama Akua, thank you so much for allowing us into your life and into your story. Thank you, thank you for trusting us, you know, with your truth. I appreciate you deeply and it's an honor to partner up and stand side by side with you. And to Chairman Fred Hampton. Bro, man. Man, what a man. What a man. How blessed we are that we lived in a lifetime where he existed, do you know what I’m saying? I like thank you for your light. He was on this earth for 21 years, 21 years, and he found a way to feed kids, breakfast, educate kids, give free medical care, against all the odds. He showed, he showed me, he taught me him. Him, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party. They showed me how to love myself. And with that love, they overflowed into the black community and into other communities. And they showed us that the power of union, the power of unity, that when they play divide and conquer, we say unite and ascend. Thank you so much for showing me myself. And yeah, man, there's so much work to do guys, and that's on everyone in this room, this ain’t no single man job. I look at this room, and I look at everyone, every single one of you, you got work to do, you know what I’m saying. And I'm going to get back to work, Tuesday morning, because tonight I'm going up. [laughter] We’re going up, you know what I mean, we’re enjoying ourselves tonight because, what, we got to celebrate, celebrate life man, we're breathing, we’re walking. It's incredible it's incredible. Like it's incredible, my mum, my dad. They had sex. It's amazing. Like do you know what I’m saying, I'm here. You know what I mean? [laughter] So I'm so happy to be alive, so I’m going to celebrate that tonight, do you know what I’m saying? And I appreciate every single person in the room, appreciate everyone watching at home, you know, love, peace, love and onwards, we go again. Appreciate you. [applause]