The much maligned Academy Awards have been struggling for viewership for years. In the last five or six years the respect for the Oscars has rotted away: overly political messages from the wealthy elites, a focus on representation rather than quality, honouring films that the general public have not seen, cringe-inducing hosting and humour or audience Twitter competitions- take your pick which is the biggest factor. But if the Academy wanted to get people talking, all that was required was the Fresh Prince of Bel Air smacking The Rock... sorry, Chris Rock before a packed auditorium. The moment is one for the history books, especially considering Will Smith's Oscar win a few minutes later (his defence amounts to how he embodied what Richard Williams did in King Richard).
Whilst a great moment of drama, it has already been discussed, memed and blasted enough. So let's focus on the winners.
Best Picture: CODA
Was Sam Elliot's sandblasting of The Power of the Dog the coup de grasse for its Best Picture chances? Jane Campion's Western drama seemed the surefire win for much of the awards race, but some last minute pit-stops at the Producer's Guild of America boosted CODA's chances. It became the first film released on a streaming service (Apple) to win the top prize, and that's where the first issue comes. Nobody really has Apple TV+, nobody has really seen this film, and nobody had even heard of it beforehand. It's been logged on IMDb and Letterboxd dramatically fewer times than The Power of the Dog, Nightmare Alley, West Side Story and Dune. Giving a mediocre cinematic text like Spider-man: No Way Home a Best Picture nomination just because everyone went to see it should not be the case, as that film will get sequels and the cast will be rich. And whilst smaller made films rely on awards prestige to gain greater distribution, there should be a middle ground where popular films are awarded. The Last Duel may well have been a big box office bomb, but it only grossed $9 million less than King Richard and, because of availabilty on Disney+, has over double the number of logged views on IMDb / Letterboxd. In fact, it isn't too far behind West Side Story. Streaming views, limited box office runs and tickets sold should be taken more into account here, especially if the Oscars wants viewership to be back to its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Ultimately, Best Picture winners are like X-Factor winners: the runner ups are usually better remembered (Mad Max: Fury Road > Spotlight, Whiplash > Birdman). Giving the Best Picture to The Power of the Dog would only make those that disliked it louder.
The Technical Oscars: Dune Sweeps
Ten nominations, six wins. Dune repeated Fury Road's Oscar blitzkrieg by hoovering up Sound, Editing, Visual Effects, Cinematography, Production Design and Original Score (if Sound was still split with Mixing and Editing then it undoubtedly would have seven Oscars). This is entirely worthy: no other technical film was on the same level as Denis Villenueve's passion project. Hans Zimmer, the greatest composer of the 21st century, got his second (!) Oscar. His snubs for Interstellar, Dunkirk and Inception are still felt, however. Greig Fraser's win in Cinematography is perhaps the most joyous win: Fraser has emerged as one of the leading visonaries of the 2010s through films like Zero Dark Thirty, Rogue One, The Mandalorian and Dune, whilst his work on The Batman perhaps tipped him over the finish line as more and more people take notice of him. Dune's wins for Cinematography and Visual Effects matches Villeneuve's success with Blade Runner 2049 and emphasises how hand-in-hand these two categories have been in the 21st century: The Fellowship of the Ring, Hugo, Life of Pi, Avatar, 1917, Gravity and Inception. Dune deserved to win big- its $400 million box office gross is a remarkable feat, pandemic or no. In fact, the nine other Best Picture nominees have a total box office gross of $240.2 million, meaning an average of $26.7 million per film. Let that be a sign.
Bond Song Hatrick
Billie Eilish won an Oscar for 'No Time to Die' in the Original Song category, following the success of Adele's 'Skyfall' (amazing!) and Sam Smith's 'The Writing's on the Wall' (terrible!) to show that Bond songs are either the easiest vote because of the credit song being inside the film (and not at the end like so many are) or because they are just always popular songs... Either way, it was great to see No Time to Die get a little gong to coincide with the franchise's 60th anniversary. Eilish's win has one explanation: 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' was egregiously not nominated. Encanto's nominated song, 'Dos Oroguitas' lacked the ubiquity to pursue the win, reflecting Disney's failings to predict which song would be the one everyone loved.
Acting Awards are as Predictable as Ever
Ariana DeBose, whose career is about to skyrocket, deservingly won Supporting Actress for her role as Anita in West Side Story. Her win is notable for trivia-heads: following Rita Moreno's win as the same character in 1961's West Side Story, there are now three characters who have had double Oscar wins (Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix for Joker, Marlon Brando and Robert De Nero for Vito Corleone). Troy Kotsur lapped Kodi Smit-McPhee to become the first deaf actor to win an Oscar, to much praise. As for Best Actor and Actress it was a tiresome affair as Will Smith and Jessica Chastain won Oscars for, yes, biopic performances. Since the 2001 Oscars, 22 of the 44 lead actor wins have been for biopics / true stories. That number does not include performances like Olivia Colman in The Favourite (too expressionistic) or Leo DiCaprio in The Revenant (too little to actually base a performance off of). It is a remarkable figure, one that epitomises the Oscar-bait nature of the biopic. A great deal of respected actors have won Academy Awards for their biopic performance, even if public sentiment is that they have done many other much better performances (e.g. Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour). The Eyes of Tammy Faye was honoured with a Make-up and Hair Oscar but it has become tiresome to see actors win for what are essentially impersonations. Benedict Cumberbatch crafted a new, multi-layered character with Phil Burbank, but that no longer seems enough if you are up against an 'overdue' actor. It is a lot more refreshing when Emma Stone wins for Mia or Anthony Hopkins wins for... um... Anthony.
The Oscars Fan Favourite
We have seen what Boaty McBoatface can do to social media polls. Why the Oscars thought doing a Fan Favourite Twitter competition would be a great idea is beyond comprehension. The bizarre nominees for 'Oscars Cheer Moment' were the three Spider-men, the Avengers assemble sequence, Neo dodging bullets, Effie White singing in Dreamgirls (!) and the Flash speed force scene from Zack Snyder's Justice League (which didn't even go to cinema). The Flash won. How? Thousands of Twitter accounts and bots plugging the polls every day to honour Zack Snyder. You have to feel sorry for the guy- his films are worshipped by a totally monomaniacal fan base who are gagging for the restoration of the Snyderverse. There is no other conceivable way for that Flash scene to outmatch the two MCU entires. The Oscars Fan Favourite Film for 2021 was even stranger: Cinderella came second, beating tick tick... BOOM!, Johnny Depp's Minamata and No Way Home. The winner was Zack Snyder's Netflix disappointment Army of the Dead. Boaty McBoatface indeed.
All told, as irrelevant and unecessary as ever.
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