{"id":3032,"date":"2021-04-01T17:47:02","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T17:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2021-04-23T12:38:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T12:38:24","slug":"seymour-movies-asks-if-were-not-sure-what-a-movie-is-any-more-then-whats-an-oscar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=3032","title":{"rendered":"Seymour Movies Asks: If We’re Not Sure What A Movie Is Any More, Then What’s An Oscar?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

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Just so we\u2019re clear, movies aren\u2019t dead, though multiplexes are likely dying. And that process was well underway before COVID-19 locked down the world.

We keep hearing that there\u2019s light at the end of this tunnel we\u2019ve been trudging through for a year. But keep in mind, whether immunized or not, that we\u2019re still in a tunnel, even as I\u2019m writing this. And whenever we all can safely stagger into this light-at-the-end, it\u2019s going to take a while for us to get our cloistered senses re-adjusted. Things will at the very least look<\/em> a lot different at the outset from how they did a year ago, the movie business being among the familiar institutions most conspicuously affected by a year of closures and strictly enforced re-openings here and there.

Of course, I too have missed going to movie theaters, even the ugliest, most utilitarian of them. No matter how big an HDTV screen you\u2019re able to squeeze into your kitchen or bathroom, the experience of watching any moving picture, whether as intimate as Persona<\/em> or as populated as Rear Window <\/em><\/a>is nowhere near as immersive as sitting with strangers in even the narrowest darkened room. As with any other self-respecting cinephile, I regret what seems an irreversible decline in a kind of romantic, near-heroic age of moviegoing commemorated by Martin Scorsese<\/a> during the past year. Streams and clouds are no longer alternatives to theater-going. They are now, pretty much, The Ball Game.\u00a0 Given the choice between figuring out logistics for going out to see a blockbuster or watch that blockbuster at your own convenience as soon as it \u201cdrops,\u201d how many would rather pony up the baby-sitting money, root around for gas and parking expenses and line up single file for whatever dubiously packaged snack will adequately meet their needs and those of the kids tagging along?\u00a0

But we\u2019ll still have movie houses; better yet, all those repertory houses that were devoured by the multiplex could come back to life and restore the romance and adventure celebrated by Scorsese. If whatever\u2019s left of the multiplexes still think they can make a go of it by including all kinds of other distractions \u2013 arcade games, dining, aerial acts, whatever \u2013 they\u2019ll carry on and some may even thrive in such reinvention.

And the really<\/em> good news, at least as far as I\u2019m concerned, is that the Age of Clouds and Streams will better enable greater diversity of both product and producers. Studios will no longer have to wonder about whether certain scripts and stories are too \u201cniche-ey\u201d to reap theatrical profits worldwide. In other words, Black and other minority filmmakers will have more and better outlets to tell their stories and, through such exposure, may eventually be empowered enough to carry those stories into wider marketplaces.

But that\u2019s all for later. For now, the movies are still trying to pick their way through a bewildering, anxious and altogether strange year that may someday be regarded as a transformative one. Whether the transformations are for better or worse won\u2019t be settled or even suggested by this year\u2019s Oscars that, whatever else you want to say about them, don\u2019t look a whole lot like the Oscars of a decade or even a half-decade before

As always, projected winners are in bold face<\/strong> and, whenever necessary, a FWIW (For Whatever It\u2019s Worth) disclaimer\/appendix will follow.<\/p>\r\n

Oh…and one more thing: if you’ve been annually wagering on my picks, please don’t do that this year because\u00a0this<\/em> year, as opposed to its predecessors, I expect to be wrong about most, if not all of these.\u00a0



Best Picture<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Judas and the Black Messiah<\/em>
Mank<\/em>
Minari<\/em>
Nomadland<\/em>
Promising Young Woman<\/em>
Sound of Metal<\/em>
The Father<\/em>
The Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em><\/strong>

After all those serial film festival triumphs, rapturous reviews and probing inquiries into its up-to-the-minute-neo-Grapes-of-Wrath<\/em> relevance (or lack thereof), Nomadland<\/em> has become this season\u2019s catch-all for smarty-pants revisionism. Critics and civilians alike seem to be groping for reasons to dislike or dismiss it, many of them insisting on greater detail or added socio-political content that the movie’s structure was never built to contain in the first place. Why? Who\u2019s that helping? And aren\u2019t we supposed to be smart enough to tease out such inferences on our own? What happened to the idea of making the audiences work even a little bit instead of the story doing all the work for them?

I still believe in Nomadland<\/em>, even if I\u2019m no longer certain the Academy does. But what kind of Academy vote will matter here? If it\u2019s the same Academy that<\/em> punched Green Book<\/em>\u2019s ticket two years ago, then Mank<\/em>, The Father<\/em> or Chicago 7<\/em>, the closest things to \u201ctraditional\u201d Oscar bait, will get this one. If it\u2019s the Academy that gave Parasite<\/em> its unprecedented near-sweep of a year ago, then Minari, Judas<\/em> and, yes, Nomadland<\/em> lead the pack. This leaves Sound of Metal<\/em> and Promising Young Woman<\/em>, both very dark in very different ways. If you think the Best Picture vote is the best reflection of an overall industry mood, then I\u2019m going to presume here that the overall industry is both anxious and angry over what\u2019s happened over the last twelve months, or four years, or whatever index you choose to use. The mordant humor of Promising Young Woman<\/em> is, from this vantage point, best suited to ride that wave. If on the other hand events since January 20th are making Hollywood feel more hopeful than not, then any of the others could take this one home. As with just about every category on the board this year, nothing\u2019s set in granite.<\/p>\r\n

UPDATE (4\/8\/21): Is it plausible to imagine a world in which the in-your-face storytelling of The Trial of the Chicago 7\u00a0<\/em> vanquishes the sublimities of\u00a0Nomadland\u00a0<\/em>or even\u00a0Minari <\/em> (which would be my personal choice)? Doesn’t take much imagining,\u00a0 because that world has been with us for as far back as the 1940s when issue-oriented melodramas such as Gentlemen’s Agreement\u00a0<\/em>could prevail over David Lean’s Great Expectations.\u00a0<\/em>(A greater, if not necessarily bigger movie than either Lean’s Bridge Over the River Kwai\u00a0<\/em>or Lawrence of Arabia. <\/em>) It’s still anybody’s ballgame as far as I’m concerned. But somehow Aaron Sorkin’s look-back-in-anger over what happened to Fred Hampton in 1969 seems more of an industry crowd-pleaser (and prototypical Oscar-winning Best Picture) than, say, Shaka King’s angrier one.\u00a0<\/strong>

Best Director<\/strong>

Chloe Zhao, Nomadland<\/em><\/strong>
David Fincher, Mank<\/em>
Emerald Fennel, Promising Young Woman<\/em>
Lee Issac Chung, Minari<\/em>
Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round<\/em>

Zhao\u2019s ascension is as compelling and inspiring a story as her movie\u2019s. Besides which, it\u2019s past time for a woman-of-color to win one of these

Best Actor<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Anthony Hopkins, The Father<\/em>
Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom<\/em><\/strong>
Gary Oldman, Mank<\/em>
Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal <\/em>
Steven Yeun, Minari<\/em>

There\u2019s been some chatter, as the NSA likes to put it, over how Hopkins\u2019 portrayal of an Alzheimer\u2019s victim is so consummately good that voters may decide he deserves another one of these after all. But Old and New Hollywood, in whatever post-Millennium forms they assume, were deeply shaken by Boseman\u2019s passing last August and his widow\u2019s acceptance speech at the Globes was so startlingly beautiful and moving that voters would love a reprise.


FWIW<\/strong>: Since we\u2019re here, would it be OK if we take a brief tour of Boseman\u2019s (brief) life\u2019s work to determine which of his roles would or should have gotten this award beforehand? We can eliminate Black Panther<\/em> \u2018s title role, even though he evinced a lot of star power in all the MCU movies where his character appeared. Of the historical figures Boseman brought to life, his portrayal of James Brown in 2014\u2019s Get On Up<\/em> is the one that was at once the most electrifying and credible, though the Jackie Robinson he played in 2013\u2019s 42<\/em> was more complex and cogent than was generally acknowledged at the time. A few words, but no more than a few, should be submitted on behalf of his impressive star turn in the 2019 NYPD thriller, 21 Bridges<\/em>. But what in many ways represented Boseman at his most magnetic was his scene-stealing performance in Spike Lee\u2019s Da 5 Bloods<\/em> as the charismatic, doomed patrol leader for which he richly deserved a Supporting Actor nomination \u2013 and, for that matter, the Oscar. Have I mentioned yet that this particular nomination is only his first? How could I have forgotten to mention that? Oh, and about\u00a05 Bloods?\u00a0<\/em>Delroy Lindo was screwed.\u00a0

Best Actress<\/strong>

Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday<\/em>
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman<\/em><\/strong>
Frances McDormand, Nomadland<\/em>
Viola Davis, Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom<\/em>
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman<\/em>

In any other year, this might have been the occasion for yet another win for Academy fave McDormand. But this a formidable quintet competing in what is almost, but not quite, as wide open a contest as this year\u2019s Supporting Actress race (see below). Early on, Day\u2019s Golden Globe victory took so many by surprise that it compelled several hundred eyes to gaze upon her\u00a0 intuitively intelligent rendering of Billie Holiday. The rest of her movie, however, can\u2019t keep up with her and, in some ways, drags her down. She could still take it. But Mulligan\u2019s been poised for some time towards Oscar\u2019s embrace the same way that a heat-seeking missile is poised to take down an enemy compound. And this all-out performance of a fierce, wounded feminist avenger, especially when juxtaposed with her un-nominated, but noteworthy turn as an emotionally-tough-yet-physically-fragile aristocrat in The Dig,<\/em> seals Mulligan\u2019s reputation for range and raw nerve.


Best Supporting Actor<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah<\/em><\/strong>
LaKeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah<\/em>
Leslie Odom Jr., One Night in Miami <\/em>
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal<\/em>
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em>

Yet another example of what should have been acknowledged as a lead performance that\u2019s (kind of) a ringer in the supporting category. Some think having Stanfield in the mix make a cancelling-out effect, or even a tie, inevitable. Ties are not unprecedented, but it won\u2019t happen here. And I\u2019ve been hearing about \u201ccancelling-out effects\u201d for most of my adult life and now believe them to be as mythological as sports teams getting a championship for no other reason except that they\u2019re \u201cdue.\u201d Gambling tip: next time you hear somebody make a pronouncement like that, hook them immediately for whatever hard cash you can risk. And thank me later.

FWIW:<\/strong> If I had a vote, it\u2019d go to Raci, without a second thought.


Best Supporting Actress<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Amanda Seyfried, Mank<\/em>
Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm<\/em>
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>
Olivia Coleman, The Father<\/em>
Youn Yuh-jung, Minari<\/em><\/strong>

So wide open, as noted earlier, that there\u2019s no such thing as a dumb guess here. Coleman\u2019s recent win for The Favourite<\/em> makes her the least likely winner. But as I\u2019d warned the year she got that Best Actress prize, quite a lot of people love her and as noted above, The Father<\/em>\u2019s been picking up some momentum on the home stretch. Close\u2019s work was, by common consent, the best thing about her movie and the Academy seems to be searching for some way, any way, to give her a win after eight tries. Bakalova\u2019s turn as apprentice Kazakh journalist and would-be-sex-partner to Rudy Giuliani may have been the century\u2019s most audacious comedic impersonation and she\u2019s been getting considerable buzz for it. Seyfried already has amassed a great deal of industry-wide affection, and it\u2019s hard to imagine an Oscar contender going away empty-handed after picking Gary Oldman\u2019s pocket in a black-and-white movie in which Orson Welles is more of a supporting character than hers is. Except..in situations such as this, dark horses always have a chance. And since the marvelously bawdy and winsome Youn Yuh-jung has won the SAG, she’s no longer a dark horse. Nevertheless I insist it’s still<\/em> wide-open.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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Best Adapted Screenplay<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm<\/em><\/p>\r\n

Nomadland<\/em><\/p>\r\n

One Night in Miami<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

The Father<\/em><\/p>\r\n

The White Tiger<\/em><\/p>\r\n



Usually I go with the Writers. Guild on these, but I\u2019m having trouble picturing the same crowd who put their heads together on Borat Subsequent Moviefilm<\/em> converging here as one big winner, though it\u2019d certainly be my preference. Kemp Powers is already assured of a win for co-directing Soul<\/em> (see below). But he\u2019s been such a conspicuously entertaining media presence throughout the Oscar campaign season that it isn\u2019t hard to see him scoring a rare double here. Of course, if Nomadland<\/em> gets a monster surge of momentum towards the home stretch, I\u2019m an idiot once again.


Best Original Screenplay<\/strong>

Judas and the Black Messiah<\/em>
Minari<\/em>
Promising Young Woman<\/em><\/strong>
Sound of Metal<\/em>
The Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em>

Definitely going along with WGA on this one for its serrated edges and willful ingenuity. Dark as hell, almost literally speaking, but in its weird, deterministic way, the most fun of these assembled nominees. (I mean, not that \u201cfun\u201d has anything to do with it, but\u2026)<\/p>\r\n

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Best International Feature<\/strong>

Another Round (Druk)<\/em><\/strong>
Better Days (Shaonian de ni)<\/em>
Collective<\/em>
Quo Vadis, Adia?<\/em>
The Man Who Sold His Skin<\/em>

Thomas Vinterberg\u2019s Best Director nomination was about as big a \u201ctell\u201d as you can expect as to how this one\u2019s going to go. But it’s also the closest Vinterberg has come to a “feel-good” movie and that will count for a great deal with the general consensus.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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Best Documentary Feature<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Collective <\/em>
Crip Camp<\/em>
My Octopus Teacher<\/em>
The Mole Agent<\/em>
Time<\/em><\/strong>

I took Crip Camp<\/em> to my heart for how authoritative and touching it was in rendering the rise of the handicapped-rights movement. And this grizzled old newspaperman greatly appreciated Collective<\/em>\u2019s intricate, rousing examination of how investigative journalism can effect change, even in a government as corrupt as Romania\u2019s. But Garrett Bradley\u2019s multi-layered chronicle of a Black woman entrepreneur’s efforts to overcome heavily stacked odds in freeing her husband out from under an egregiously lengthy prison stretch is the most innovative picture among this year\u2019s entire slate of feature films, fiction or nonfiction. This doesn\u2019t necessarily mean it will win. But for those who still appreciate how movies can still catch you by surprise in the things they do (or don\u2019t), it\u2019s, so to speak, Time.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

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UPDATE (4\/23\/21): Way too late to take my hand off this piece, but the New York Times this morning has\u00a0My Octopus Teacher\u00a0<\/em>the overwhelming favorite and I should’ve known it carried even more of a feel-good vibe than\u00a0Time.\u00a0<\/em>I’m prepared to concede defeat on this one. My only comfort is that it won’t be the only one.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n




Best Animated Feature<\/strong>

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon<\/em>
Onward<\/em>
Over the Moon<\/em>
Soul<\/em><\/strong>
WolfWalkers<\/em><\/p>\r\n

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A lay-up, of course. All the same, it\u2019s a drag that Pixar releases one of its finest features the same year that the Ireland-based Cartoon Saloon gives cel painted animation a gratifying jolt with the enrapturing WolfWalkers<\/em>. The jazz beaux and the romantic folklorist living within me are deeply divided — though I doubt either of them will grieve all that much if the Saloon scores the (unlikely) upset.



Best Cinematography<\/strong>

Judas and the Black Messiah<\/em> (Sean Bobbitt)
Mank<\/em> (Erik Messerschmidt)<\/strong>
News of the World<\/em> (Darius Wolski)
Nomadland<\/em> (Joshua James Richards)
The Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em> (Phedon Papamichael)

I don\u2019t know who has the edge here, so I\u2019m going to presume that what Messerschmidt does with shadows and light emit dazzle sufficient enough to carry the day.
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FWIW:\u00a0<\/strong>Of course, if\u00a0Nomadland\u00a0<\/em>runs the table, etc etc.

Best Original Score\u00a0<\/strong>

Da 5 Bloods<\/em> (Terence Blanchard)
Mank<\/em> (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)
Minari<\/em> (Emile Mosseri)
News of the World<\/em> (James Newton Howard)
Soul<\/em> (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross & Jon<\/strong> Baptiste)<\/strong>

Reznor and Ross\u2019 only real competition here is with themselves and Stephen Colbert\u2019s unflappable bandleader pushes this one over the hump with the kind of acoustic jazz charts the movies have hitherto forsaken.


Best Song<\/strong>

\u201cHusavik\u201d from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga<\/em>
\u201cFight for You\u201d from Judas and the Black Messiah<\/em>
\u201cSpeak Now\u201d from One Night in Miami<\/em><\/strong>
\u201cIo Se (Seen)\u201d from The Life Ahead<\/em>
\u201cHear My Voice\u201d from The Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em>

Leslie Odum Jr., the song\u2019s co-writer and performer is compensated for not getting the Supporting Actor prize for re-enacting Sam Cooke. It must be nice\u2026.


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                    Just so we\u2019re clear, movies aren\u2019t dead, though multiplexes are likely dying. And that process was well underway before COVID-19 locked down the world. We keep hearing that there\u2019s light at the end of this tunnel we\u2019ve been trudging through for a year. But keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[369,1124,1114,1112,1113,1128,214,1111,1115,1109,1126,1116,969,1120,1122,1121,1117,1024,1110,1118,1125,1123],"class_list":["post-3032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-aaron-sorkin","tag-amanda-seyfried","tag-andra-day","tag-anthony-hopkins","tag-carey-mulligan","tag-cartoon-saloon","tag-chadwick-boseman","tag-chloe-zhao","tag-daniel-kaluuya","tag-federico-fellini","tag-fred-hampton","tag-garrett-bradley","tag-glenn-close","tag-jon-baptiste","tag-kemp-powers","tag-leslie-odum-jr","tag-maria-bakalova","tag-martin-scorsese","tag-nomadland","tag-olivia-coleman","tag-thomas-vinterberg","tag-youn-yuh-jing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3124,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions\/3124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}