by Juan Carlos
I’ve been itching to discuss this for quite a while now. Ever since the pandemic, the way we watch films has dramatically shifted. Cinemas are now either closed down or maintained with stringent health safety measures. Drive-in cinemas have experienced a resurgence in popularity due to their safer conditions. Meanwhile, we have seen films dropping on streaming platforms, VOD, and virtual cinemas at such a rapid rate that it is quite hard to even keep track of what is being released.
Meanwhile, AMPAS made several changes in its rules to adjust to the current world we are living in. So for the first time, the Academy allowed streaming-only films in as long as there was an intention to exhibit them theatrically (I still don’t know how they would prove intention, but that's another discussion). Also, they have extended the eligibility period: from January 1 to December 31, 2020, it will now extend until February 28, 2021, a move that seemed hastily done months ago and now makes even less sense since majority of the films that were supposed to screen in the last months of the year in cinemas have now moved to late 2021 anyway.
And then this opinion piece from the Washington Post happened.
In an article that adds itself to the chorus of people saying that the Oscars should be cancelled in its entirety, the writer asserts that the Oscars should be cancelled because...
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The number of Oscar films are bound to drop compared to what Academy voters and Oscar watchers consider in a normal year.
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It would be harder for people to convene for the Oscars ceremony.
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Making the Oscars socially distanced would defeat the point. If it is done in Zoom, then glamour is dead.
UGH! Let's get as candid as possible but also substantiate it with facts to debunk these three points, especially the first one.
Point 1. The number of Oscar films are bound to drop compared to what Academy voters and Oscar watchers consider in a normal year.
Sure, the number of films that screened in actual cinemas did drop precipitously. But when we follow the new Academy rules, which allow for streaming, did they? The answer: not really.
While there is no singular record of all the films this year that were released in different platforms (and we are not yet factoring in how many of these films would actually do the paperwork to become "eligible"), we have a healthy number of films that are viable contenders or will at least be eligible.
A number of genre films received considerable buzz this year. Unlike past years when the types of films up for Oscar consideration have been noticeably homogenized to the typical genres -- biopics, dramas, true stories, message movies -- films in other genres have had people talking in 2020: horror (The Invisible Man), action (Tenet), comedy (The King of Staten Island), superhero (Birds of Prey), period comedy (The Personal History of David Copperfield), and sports (The Way Back) and all of those films could be considered legitimate contenders for some category or another this year.
Streamers like Hulu (Palm Springs), Amazon (One Night in Miami, Sound of Metal), Apple TV+ (On the Rocks, Cherry), and Disney+ (Soul) all have placed their bets in the Oscar game too. Meanwhile, Netflix is an animal of its own, with several contenders already under its belt and more to come. Some of them are actual Netflix productions (Da 5 Bloods, I’m Thinking of Ending Things) while other have either migrated from other studios (The Trial of the Chicago 7) or been picked up at festivals from Sundance (The Forty-Year-Old Version), Venice (Pieces of a Woman), or Toronto (Bruised, I Care a Lot). And that's not yet even talking about their future releases: Mank, Hillbilly Elegy, or Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
This has also a banner year for independent films. Without the usual ways of growing its audience (for better or for worse), these films have had to find comfort in VOD and virtual cinemas. We've seen an unprecedented dominance of works from directors that are female, POC, or from other minority groups: The Assistant, First Cow, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Emma, Shirley, and Miss Juneteenth are just some of the early releases directed by female filmmakers that continue to find passionate audiences. Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, Andrew Ahn’s Driveways, and Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca are just some of the films this year from Asian filmmakers that have received critical acclaim. A lot of the films already mentioned are from people of color too: Regina King, Spike Lee, Radha Blank, Channing Godfrey Peoples.
Non-English titles could also make a dent in the awards conversation in a perfect world. International Feature submissions from last year that weren't nominated or released in US theaters in 2019 (and are therefore theoretically eligible) include And Then We Danced (Sweden), A White, White Day (Iceland), The Painted Bird (Czech Republic), Beanpole (Russia), The Whistlers (Romania), Those Who Remained (Hungary), and In the Life of Music (Cambodia)s. Netflix has its own stable of non-English language films that have sparked some conversation including The Platform (Spain), I’m No Longer Here (Mexico), Nobody Knows I’m Here (Chile), Cuties (France) and The Life Ahead (Italy) starring legend Sophia Loren. Other buzzy non-English language titles have been picked up by distributors like Neon (Ivory Coast’s Night of the Kings and Mexico’s New Order) and Sony Pictures Classics (Mexico’s I Carry You with Me). Distributors like Film Movement, Kino Lorber, Music Box, and MUBI have their own releases.
While animated features are usually associated with blockbusters, this year does not lack in films that could easily compete in the Animated Feature category. Studios like GKIDS (Ride Your Wave, Children of the Sea), Pixar (Onward, Soul), Netflix (A Whisker Away, Over the Moon), and Apple TV+ (Wolfwalkers) are surely viable contenders for that category.
Documentaries are vital now more than ever, providing works that are simultaneously entertaining and enlightening. Significant releases include Crip Camp (Netflix), Beastie Boys Story (Apple TV+), Rewind (FilmRise), A Thousand Cuts (PBS), Spaceship Earth (Neon), On the Record (HBO Max), Athlete A (Netflix), Welcome to Chechnya (HBO Films), Boys State (A24), All In: The Fight for Democracy (Amazon), Totally Under Control (Neon), Assassins (Greenwich), and The Truffle Hunters (Sony Pictures Classics). Those are just some of a huge crop of documentaries released in 2020 that could be in the conversation for Best Documentary Feature. We have never had a documentary nominated in Best Picture yet so this is also high time given the ever-increasing significance of documentaries to our film and cultural discourse.
The Washington Post's point is nonsense. I have kept a spreadsheet of films released this year (to the best of my abilities) and I can confidently say, we have enough more than enough films in terms of quantity AND quality that would make a completely satisfying roster of Oscar nominees. I’m not just talking about major categories. I’m including the technical categories as well.
Now, let’s talk more numbers. Here are the number of films eligible for the Academy Awards during the past decade and the number of films that were actually nominated per year*:
2010: 248 eligible, 31 nominated (12.50%)
2011: 265 eligible, 32 nominated (12.08%)
2012: 282 eligible, 24 nominated (8.51%)
2013: 289 eligible, 29 nominated (10.03%)
2014: 323 eligible, 32 nominated (9.91%)
2015: 305 eligible, 28 nominated (9.18)
2016: 336 eligible, 35 nominated (10.42%)
2017: 341 eligible, 30 nominated (8.80%)
2018: 347 eligible, 27 nominated (7.78%)
2019: 344 eligible, 27 nominated (7.85%)
* Excluding shorts and specialty categories like Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and International Feature Film UNLESS they were nominated in other categories too.
Just by looking at those numbers over the past ten years, we can already prove that regardless of the number of films released in a year (which has ranged from 248 to 347), the Academy usually only nominates less than 10% of theem. This goes to show that the number of eligible films does not always matter. If you go back to earlier years, the number of eligible films continues to drop (1980 has 192 eligible films, for example).
The longwinded point is that this argument that “we don’t have enough films” is utter bullshit. Instead of trashing the films we've had this year (yes, that is what articles like this are doing to the wonderful work filmmakers have put out this year), this is the perfect time to advocate for the films that might have been lost in the loud year-end shuffle in a "regular" film year.
Elisabeth Moss in The Invisible Man for Best Actress? Delroy Lindo in Da 5 Bloods for Best Actor? Sonic the Hedgehog for Best Visual Effects? Emma. for Best Costume Design? Women directors in the Directing category? Go ahead and support the films that you love! There's plenty of time to campaign for the films.
If I may point out a silver lining in this, traditional Oscar campaigning generally includes a lot of gatherings and parties, all to get some votes via socializing with voters and insiders. With physical gatherings out of the equation, awards strategists will do most of their campaigning online. Which leads us to the second point to dismantle...
Point 2 - It would be harder for people to convene for the Oscars ceremony.
With the pace of how the United States is handling the pandemic (Trump be damned), it is a realistic projection that we will not be able to have a physical ceremony for the Oscars even with that push to April. But does that mean that they HAVE to cancel the ceremony?
As shown by the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, you can do an awards show while maintaining safety protocols. And instead of being an alienating thing for the audience, it can even be a unifying experience to watch an awards show done remotely. To see these craftspeople and even actors in their homes, doing their part in fighting this virus, is actually a touching thing. I personally felt that watching this year’s Emmys and Zendaya celebrate with her family as she won Drama Actress,The Schitt’s Creek cast and crew jubilating back in Canada while wearing masks, Regina King graciously accepting another Emmy while encouraging viewers to vote, The Succession cast cheering for their Series win while in their own homes. We can still have great awards moments like these even if the ceremony is virtual.
Sure, it might be weird (okay, yes it is) but with the terrific film work in 2020, there is simply no reason to not give filmmakers their due. We'll just have to do it in a new way.
And the last one….
Point 3. Making the Oscars socially distanced would defeat the point. If it is done in Zoom, then glamour is dead.
Uhhh….. How to answer this? We celebrate the Oscars because of the movies. We may not always or ever agree with their choices, but the thing that makes people come back to the Oscars is not just the celebrities in gowns, but the shared love for films. Again, I really liked how the Emmys did it. Some of the nominees dressed up, but some of them wore shirts and house clothes. And that is fine. We are living in unusual times, so let this year’s Oscars reflect it. Include the frontliners in the show. Show celebrities in their homes.
It is time to embrace the peculiarity of this film year and let that translate to this year’s nominations. Different doesn't mean bad. We have plentiful reasons to celebrate this year in film and we can surely do that from the safety of our own homes.
So, do your homework, start watching films, and shut this “cancel the Oscars” thing down.