Oscar Talk
By Austin Johnson
Here at Filmgazm, we like to give credit to films for getting Oscar wins and/or nominations. The idea of awarding art doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but in our society, we like to recognize what we see as being good. We like to see winners, and that means some people are going to be pissed off. We just passed the 91st Academy Awards, and there is no sign of them being removed from our culture any time soon. It has been seen as the pristine film awards show for quite some time, and it’s something you will surely see on a poster or DVD case if that film was fortunate enough to get that sort of recognition. There’s other popular award shows like,the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Awards, and the SAG Awards, but the Oscars have just always been on a different level than the rest.
There are plenty of films that have gotten “snubbed” in the past, causing controversy ever since the Academy was established. Sometimes it takes a little while for a film to catch the right audience. Something like The Big Lebowski can come out with very mixed reviews, but gain a massive following after years of dissection and appreciation. Now, we look back at the 71st Academy Awards and wish a film like The Big Lebowski could’ve taken part in it. You would think that if we re-voted right now for that year, it would be nominated multiple times. But, that’s not how it works. The Academy has always been determined to annually give awards out, which has caused terms like “award season” to be thrown around, and that can sometimes put films into squares. Typically, we see big blockbuster films come out in the spring and summer, and then the fall is when you see more films that will be relevant during these award shows. We recently saw Get Out, which was a February release, make a bunch of noise at the Oscars. That was rare for it being such an early release, and even more rare since it is a horror film. So, any film can be recognized, but the percentages in the past show that dramatic films that have been released in the fall are normally what we see at the award shows.
I have always spent a good chunk of time at the theater during the fall, because I’m an absolute sucker for those dramatic films that are chasing awards. I have also always been someone who doesn’t mind passing up films every now and again. For example, I haven’t seen Captain Marvel yet, which is seen as insane, due to the fact that Endgame comes out at the end of this month. I don’t mind too much though, I’ll see Endgame at some point in theaters and then catch Captain Marvel when it pops up on some streaming service. The spring and summer is where I pick and choose what really looks interesting to me. That’s normally when everyone else is hitting the theater up every other weekend, but the fall has been instilled in me as the time to really be seeing films. Is one way better than the other? No. Can you do both? Of course, but not everyone has time for that. I have accepted that I will catch what I can until August rolls around, when I spend more money on movie tickets and massive Coca Colas than I ever fucking should.
Along with the award season comes these races between films that really excite us as fans. In sports, we have statistics to back things up, but in art, things get subjective so there’s always a conversation to be had. I’ll never forget doing a double feature in 2015 at the Bijou Theater in San Antonio when I saw Room, which got Brie Larson the Oscar for Best Actress in a leading role, and Spotlight, which won Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Both of those had a lot of Oscar heat around them when they came out and you could feel it. The race for Best Picture is what we talk about most, and I’m going to give you some of my thoughts on the category, which is one that has gone through multiple changes. The inaugural awards in 1927 had only 3 films nominated. The following 3 years, 5 films were nominated. From 1932 to 1943, the Academy flirted with higher numbers for the category, reaching as many as 12 nominations in '34 and '35. From 1944 to 2008, the Best Picture category contained 5 nominees, which I see as the best way to go about it. Since 2009, we have seen the categories nominations go back up, most recently 8 in the 91st Academy Awards. The idea of 5 nominees makes the most sense to me, because it isn’t a fucking participation award. When cuts have to be made, and the Academy has to say “hey, these are the best of the best”, it has so much weight behind it. If you have just 5 films, everything is much easier to document and recognize. Everyone remembers Forrest Gump beating Shawshank, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, and Four Weddings and a Funeral at the 67th Academy Awards, because it’s tight knit and competitive. Flash forward to 2009, and a film like The Blind Side gets nominated. Why? Because they had 10 bloody spots to fill. The image of the Oscars has always been unclear to me. You’re already disliked by a ton of people, so why not make the show good for the people who actually do care? I believe that part of making it good is making every single category have 5 nominees, every year, no matter what. If the Academy could display some consistency, we might have a more definitive way of knowing what the criteria is. I hope to see another 62 year run of 5 Best Picture nominees start up soon. Until then, we will have to deal with films like Bohemian Rhapsody being mentioned in the conversation for best film of the year.
In 2017, at the 89th Academy Awards, we saw a serious fuck up when Envelope Gate occurred, with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty accidentally calling out Damien Chazelle’s La La Land as the Best Picture winner when in reality, Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight was the film the Academy voted for. This was not only a big deal, because it was live and very awkward for everyone watching, but because the two films involved are so different. Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee had just boycotted the Oscars the year before, raising questions over the lack of black nominees in the award show’s existence. Hashtags such as #Oscarssowhite started trending and people were really calling out the Academy for their obvious prejudice in nominating throughout the past. A year later, Moonlight became the first film with an all-black cast, the first LGBTQ film, and the second-lowest-grossing film domestically behind The Hurt Locker to win the Oscar for Best Picture. That is fucking incredible! Moonlight deserves every accolade it’s received, and when Barry Jenkins held that trophy up, I thought the Academy had really changed for good, and for the better.
Just about two months ago, at the 91st Academy Awards, a lot of the progress that they had seemed to be making all went to shit when they gave the Best Picture award to Green Book, the most white savior film we have seen win that award since Driving Miss Daisy at the 62nd Awards. I could bring up Crash right here, but I’m not going to because it is a piece of garbage. Peter Farrelly arrogantly accepted the Golden Globe award for best Musical or Comedy, and then the big one at the Oscars. There were 8 films nominated this past ceremony and I truly think Green Book didn’t deserve one of those spots. I thought to myself for a moment, “whatever, Mahershala and Viggo were great.” That isn’t enough though. You can’t win the biggest award in film history for having two actors do their job well. A lot of films can carry some controversy with it, but when there are obvious lies surrounding a film, something has to be said. Mahershala Ali apologized to the family of the man that he portrayed on Oscar weekend. This can’t happen again, especially when films like Vice and Roma are right there in front of you. There were some bright moments at the 91st Awards though. Spike finally got one, the lovely Olivia Colman won, Regina King won... overall, I was fine with most of the outcome. But, the Best Picture winner is the one we will all remember. Shit, IMDb has a list of the Best Picture winners on their movie homepage. The Oscars come up all the damn time, and the Best Picture award is a way we remember each year. It’s etched in bloody time.
I do have hope, as we have seen some legendary films recognized by the Academy. I wouldn’t be buying something like Wings from 1927 on DVD if I didn’t know that it was awarded the first ever Best Picture. That’s the only film from that decade that I have seen in my life so far and without the Academy being established back then, I wouldn’t even know about it. We wouldn’t be able to reference The Silence of the Lambs as a winner of the Big 5 if it wasn’t for the Oscars. It would just be seen as a classic film. That’s okay, but it’s nice to have that extra something attached to it, solidifying it even more. And of course I think some films that don’t get nominated are legendary. Hell, the biggest film in history, Avengers: Infinity War didn’t get nominated for Best Picture. It’s up to the 8,000 members that vote each year to get it right and I hope we see progress in how things are viewed. Fans of the art form also have a role in taking it seriously and actually watching the films that come out. After all if you haven’t seen the films, you can’t be a part of the conversation. I will continue to take it seriously, because I want them to take it seriously.
There are plenty of films that have gotten “snubbed” in the past, causing controversy ever since the Academy was established. Sometimes it takes a little while for a film to catch the right audience. Something like The Big Lebowski can come out with very mixed reviews, but gain a massive following after years of dissection and appreciation. Now, we look back at the 71st Academy Awards and wish a film like The Big Lebowski could’ve taken part in it. You would think that if we re-voted right now for that year, it would be nominated multiple times. But, that’s not how it works. The Academy has always been determined to annually give awards out, which has caused terms like “award season” to be thrown around, and that can sometimes put films into squares. Typically, we see big blockbuster films come out in the spring and summer, and then the fall is when you see more films that will be relevant during these award shows. We recently saw Get Out, which was a February release, make a bunch of noise at the Oscars. That was rare for it being such an early release, and even more rare since it is a horror film. So, any film can be recognized, but the percentages in the past show that dramatic films that have been released in the fall are normally what we see at the award shows.
I have always spent a good chunk of time at the theater during the fall, because I’m an absolute sucker for those dramatic films that are chasing awards. I have also always been someone who doesn’t mind passing up films every now and again. For example, I haven’t seen Captain Marvel yet, which is seen as insane, due to the fact that Endgame comes out at the end of this month. I don’t mind too much though, I’ll see Endgame at some point in theaters and then catch Captain Marvel when it pops up on some streaming service. The spring and summer is where I pick and choose what really looks interesting to me. That’s normally when everyone else is hitting the theater up every other weekend, but the fall has been instilled in me as the time to really be seeing films. Is one way better than the other? No. Can you do both? Of course, but not everyone has time for that. I have accepted that I will catch what I can until August rolls around, when I spend more money on movie tickets and massive Coca Colas than I ever fucking should.
Along with the award season comes these races between films that really excite us as fans. In sports, we have statistics to back things up, but in art, things get subjective so there’s always a conversation to be had. I’ll never forget doing a double feature in 2015 at the Bijou Theater in San Antonio when I saw Room, which got Brie Larson the Oscar for Best Actress in a leading role, and Spotlight, which won Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Both of those had a lot of Oscar heat around them when they came out and you could feel it. The race for Best Picture is what we talk about most, and I’m going to give you some of my thoughts on the category, which is one that has gone through multiple changes. The inaugural awards in 1927 had only 3 films nominated. The following 3 years, 5 films were nominated. From 1932 to 1943, the Academy flirted with higher numbers for the category, reaching as many as 12 nominations in '34 and '35. From 1944 to 2008, the Best Picture category contained 5 nominees, which I see as the best way to go about it. Since 2009, we have seen the categories nominations go back up, most recently 8 in the 91st Academy Awards. The idea of 5 nominees makes the most sense to me, because it isn’t a fucking participation award. When cuts have to be made, and the Academy has to say “hey, these are the best of the best”, it has so much weight behind it. If you have just 5 films, everything is much easier to document and recognize. Everyone remembers Forrest Gump beating Shawshank, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, and Four Weddings and a Funeral at the 67th Academy Awards, because it’s tight knit and competitive. Flash forward to 2009, and a film like The Blind Side gets nominated. Why? Because they had 10 bloody spots to fill. The image of the Oscars has always been unclear to me. You’re already disliked by a ton of people, so why not make the show good for the people who actually do care? I believe that part of making it good is making every single category have 5 nominees, every year, no matter what. If the Academy could display some consistency, we might have a more definitive way of knowing what the criteria is. I hope to see another 62 year run of 5 Best Picture nominees start up soon. Until then, we will have to deal with films like Bohemian Rhapsody being mentioned in the conversation for best film of the year.
In 2017, at the 89th Academy Awards, we saw a serious fuck up when Envelope Gate occurred, with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty accidentally calling out Damien Chazelle’s La La Land as the Best Picture winner when in reality, Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight was the film the Academy voted for. This was not only a big deal, because it was live and very awkward for everyone watching, but because the two films involved are so different. Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee had just boycotted the Oscars the year before, raising questions over the lack of black nominees in the award show’s existence. Hashtags such as #Oscarssowhite started trending and people were really calling out the Academy for their obvious prejudice in nominating throughout the past. A year later, Moonlight became the first film with an all-black cast, the first LGBTQ film, and the second-lowest-grossing film domestically behind The Hurt Locker to win the Oscar for Best Picture. That is fucking incredible! Moonlight deserves every accolade it’s received, and when Barry Jenkins held that trophy up, I thought the Academy had really changed for good, and for the better.
Just about two months ago, at the 91st Academy Awards, a lot of the progress that they had seemed to be making all went to shit when they gave the Best Picture award to Green Book, the most white savior film we have seen win that award since Driving Miss Daisy at the 62nd Awards. I could bring up Crash right here, but I’m not going to because it is a piece of garbage. Peter Farrelly arrogantly accepted the Golden Globe award for best Musical or Comedy, and then the big one at the Oscars. There were 8 films nominated this past ceremony and I truly think Green Book didn’t deserve one of those spots. I thought to myself for a moment, “whatever, Mahershala and Viggo were great.” That isn’t enough though. You can’t win the biggest award in film history for having two actors do their job well. A lot of films can carry some controversy with it, but when there are obvious lies surrounding a film, something has to be said. Mahershala Ali apologized to the family of the man that he portrayed on Oscar weekend. This can’t happen again, especially when films like Vice and Roma are right there in front of you. There were some bright moments at the 91st Awards though. Spike finally got one, the lovely Olivia Colman won, Regina King won... overall, I was fine with most of the outcome. But, the Best Picture winner is the one we will all remember. Shit, IMDb has a list of the Best Picture winners on their movie homepage. The Oscars come up all the damn time, and the Best Picture award is a way we remember each year. It’s etched in bloody time.
I do have hope, as we have seen some legendary films recognized by the Academy. I wouldn’t be buying something like Wings from 1927 on DVD if I didn’t know that it was awarded the first ever Best Picture. That’s the only film from that decade that I have seen in my life so far and without the Academy being established back then, I wouldn’t even know about it. We wouldn’t be able to reference The Silence of the Lambs as a winner of the Big 5 if it wasn’t for the Oscars. It would just be seen as a classic film. That’s okay, but it’s nice to have that extra something attached to it, solidifying it even more. And of course I think some films that don’t get nominated are legendary. Hell, the biggest film in history, Avengers: Infinity War didn’t get nominated for Best Picture. It’s up to the 8,000 members that vote each year to get it right and I hope we see progress in how things are viewed. Fans of the art form also have a role in taking it seriously and actually watching the films that come out. After all if you haven’t seen the films, you can’t be a part of the conversation. I will continue to take it seriously, because I want them to take it seriously.