by Eric Blume
EMILIA PÉREZ | © Netflix
Each Oscar nomination morning, there’s always that moment of sadness or anger over our favorites being left out of the race. It’s part of the fun of the awards season really…righteous indignation feels damn good! And I’m sure, for all of you, this year was no exception. There’s always something to gripe about on how the Academy did someone dirty, or how they’re sheep about following the trends, etc.
BUT, let’s have some fun and look at some of the positive things about this year’s nominees…
I'M STILL HERE | © Sony Pictures Classics
THE CHANGING ACADEMY
The Academy itself has a lot more members than it used to…close to ten thousand now(!), with many, many more international members, and a greater sense of diversity, too. The “steak eaters” (old straight white men) who formed the bulk of the Academy for many decades are still alive and well, and still conservative in their voting (note the lack of any nominations for any movie about sex…Queer, Babygirl, Challengers, etc.). But a new wave is slowly replacing them, with very cool results.
This is the second year in a row where our Best Picture list has not one but TWO foreign films on the list. Last year, we had Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest. This year, we have Emilia Perez and I’m Still Here. (The year prior we had All Quiet on the Western Front and Triangle of Sadness…the latter in English, but largely a “foreign film”.) And it’s not even as if the Academy likes a certain “type” of international film…Emilia Pérez and I’m Still Here couldn’t be more different in tone and style, one all gas pedal and one all brake. This is a gigantic paradigm shift from years past.
In the case of I’m Still Here, it really feels like Fernanda Torres’ Golden Globe win pushed the film into priority viewing for voters, resulting in three nominations for the very quiet, slow-burn picture. One can only think/hope that if the marketing people could get two or three MORE international films on the radar like that, this trend can grow. Whatever you may think of the pictures, the momentum in this direction is very exciting.
SEPTEMBER 5 | © Paramount Pictures
QUALITY AND BREADTH
Last year, I thought we had perhaps the single most perfect Best Picture line-up ever…there wasn’t a dud in the bunch (and I thought Oppenheimer was probably only 7th best!). This year we also have ten very solid pictures. Maybe one or two aren’t your favorites. Again, we all have our personal choices on what may have been overlooked…I’d drop out Wicked and A Complete Unknown and replace them with A Real Pain and September 5, personally. But all ten films are smartly made, director-driven, impressive movies. There’s no Green Book, Vice, or Bohemian Rhapsody (all in 2018). Nothing with the threadbare afterschool-special dynamics or amateurish sentimentality of CODA. No steak-eater title like Hacksaw Ridge.
Plus, this year’s nominees are a fairly broad spectrum, covering several genres (drama, comedy, musical, horror) and telling stories with protagonists from many different worldviews. Also, 50% of the Best Picture nominees have a female protagonist at their center…we’ve never had that in the modern era!
THE SUBSTANCE | © MUBI
BIG SWINGS
Film Critic Guy Lodge mentioned today how insane it is that “two batshit French auteur projects” (Emilia Pérez and The Substance) are up for Best Picture. And it’s true. Again, regardless of your thoughts on either film, these two movies are indeed batshit crazy big swings that in prior years never would have made it into the ultimate race. In my opinion, both are bold, exciting storytelling that the Oscars should be encouraging and celebrating, rather than mainstream pabulum.
The Brutalist is also a gigantic swing that got big rewards, a weird, difficult, uncommercial picture made independently on a shoestring budget. This is the kind of thing last year’s Best Screenplay winner Cord Jefferson was encouraging: let’s make 20 movies for $10 million, instead of one movie for $200 million!
So keep mourning your Oscar snubs, that’s only human. And the Academy still has its boner moments (Diane Warren, no Challengers score, etc.). But the last few years have shown some truly seismic shifts towards the positive, and lord knows we need all the positive we can get nowadays. Happy Oscar season!