The Oscars Fail to Inspire Despite Plenty of Creativity

I’ve been sitting here all week trying to motivate myself to create another Slacker’s Guide to the Oscars. I’ve, obviously, been coming up dry. I’ve watched all of the Best Picture films too, with a few days to spare. To the detriment of trying to watch the films nominated in the animated category.

This year’s list of movies has a lot of thought-provoking and enjoyable entries, unlike some years where the overarching theme is films that are depressing. But the words just aren’t coming when I try to commit my thoughts about these ten movies to paper. If you could crumple and toss Google Docs, I’d be wading shin-deep right about now.

Why is that?

If I have any followers out there, you’ll be the ones to have realized I’ve been having a problem since the last Oscars season with producing anything. But usually, the challenge of getting to all ten Best Picture movies spurs me out of a funk.

Not this year. This year is different.

It’s the first Oscar season in a while where I don’t have a clear favorite. There are four competing for my top slot – Barbie, The Holdovers, American Fiction, and Anatomy of a Fall. Time is running short and I can’t choose which comes out on top.

A nagging voice keeps saying “It doesn’t matter.” You could also add harsh and cynical as descriptions of this voice. But you couldn’t add wrong to the list.

It was clear from the nominations Barbie didn’t have a chance in hell of being considered a legitimate condenser. A billion dollars, reigniting a huge cultural phenomenon, discussing the objectification and sexualization of women, and exploring the need for women to have their own space to define themselves isn’t enough to warm more than a conciliatory spot at the table.

I’m not going to rehash the snub conversation. Plenty has already been said there. 

I think my block is deeper than that since American Fiction, The Holdovers, and Anatomy of a Fall also don’t have a chance.

The Best Picture race isn’t so much a competition as it is an inevitability. Oppenheimer is going to win today.

And it’s not the Best Picture.

Yes, determining something like this falls into the subjective and relies heavily on personal feelings. I think we would all like to know what the Academy was feeling in 1999 since we, the audience, have been paying for their moment of optimistic whimsy ever since. Shakespeare in Love over any of the other nominees can’t be anything other than whimsy.

It’s not that I didn’t find Oppenheimer interesting. I did. It’s not that I didn’t think the performances were good. They absolutely were.

Did it need to go on for three hours to get its point across? No. I get that the source material went above seven hundred pages, but really this didn’t need three hours. Trimming even twenty minutes off the run time would have gotten us to the film’s point – Oppenheimer was a hero with a shining conscience and Lewis Strauss was an insecure, vindictive pissant.

Unless, of course, some of the time allocated to the damaging effects of McCarthyism had been used to discuss the morality and ethics of stealing and nuking land previously used for burial rights. That conversation seemed to have hit the cutting room floor. If the second half of the film hadn’t been dedicated to the moral responsibility and ethics of mass destruction, maybe that omission could have been noted but not be seen as a detriment to the film. This discussion should have been more than two lines in a three hour movie bent on creating a hero.

As Joe Koy pointed out (eye rolls welcome), Oppenheimer is based on a Pulitzer prize winning book, a credential none of the other nominees can boast. So I guess that’s enough.

If the Academy is sitting around wondering why the show’s ratings are down, they might want to take a look at how predictable they are becoming. People might tune in if the results weren’t blatantly obvious before the show airs.

Alright, ranting over. 

I think I’ve managed to whip up enough motivation to come up with a brief slacker’s guide ranking of the ten Best Picture films:

10. Maestro – A visually pretty film from the use of black and white film to gorgeous sets/locations, but the story felt a bit manic and was never clear on the actual subject of the film. For me, the film wasn’t about Bernstein, it was about Montealegre, but the focus of the majority of the scenes was Bernstein. Maybe that was a result of Bernstein being the narrator of the film and he clearly kept himself at the forefront.

9. Oppenheimer – I don’t think this ranking is a surprise based on my lead-in.

8. Killers of the Flower Moon – I find it difficult to put this film so low on the list since it was a compelling story. If Lily Gladstone doesn’t take the Best Actress category, I am going to flip a table. She was the emotional center of the film. The choices made in presenting the story hurt the film for me and sent this further down the list. This needed some trimming, particularly around Robert DeNiro’s character. He was shady, and the movie didn’t need to dwell on that quite so hard. The time could have instead gone to Molly and her family. Scorsese’s refusal of an intermission, particularly at a time when movie theaters are struggling, was absurd for a movie this long. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had an intermission. A movie aimed at an audience with a short attention span.

7. Poor Things – Another visually stunning film playing with black and white film. If I had written this immediately after watching the film, Poor Things would probably be my #10. But upon reflection, there was a lot packed into this interesting movie. Unfortunately, there was too much for any one point to come through with any clarity. Honest Trailers does a very succinct job in its review.

Now, we’re getting into the hard part of the list, where I’m not sure the numbering system is going to be a really good measure. I could easily make an argument for any of these to win Best Picture, but since lists are the thing…here’s my best stab at the 11th hour:

6. Zone of Interest – This movie was a lot. It took on a subject and period that’s been done plenty of times before but in a completely different way. Zone of Interest was a horrifically violent film without a single scene of violence. I would not be surprised if there was a Best Picture-Best Director split this year, with Glazer taking the Best Director statue over Nolan. I also see this taking the International category. 

6. Past Lives – This is a very different movie than most of the other nominees. It reminded me of Linklater’s Before series (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight) crammed all into one film. Past Lives was very subtle but poignant and heartbreaking.

4. Barbie – I’m a fan, as I’ve already said.

3. The Holdovers – You could call me biased, seeing as this was filmed in my backyard, but the scenery isn’t enough to make for a Best Picture. This movie was more than its setting. Angus, Paul, and Mary present us with the many facets of loss and grief and the many ways of dealing and not dealing with those feelings. And they manage to still laugh and have fun and allow us to go right along on their journey with them.

1. Anatomy of a Fall – I didn’t think I was going to like this movie as much as I did. The story plays with the audience’s perception and asks that they decide what the truth is in the story. Sandra is not very likable, probably because she takes on the typically masculine role in the family – she’s the breadwinner, she’s unemotional, and she’s not the default parent. Did she do it? As Vincent says to Sandra after she says she didn’t kill her husband, “that’s not the point.” That decision is up to you, the audience.

1. American Fiction – Billing this as a comedy might have been a misstep. Yes, it was infused with humor and light moments, but at its core, American Fiction is a drama. There are many different layers to the struggles of its main character, Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison. His family dynamics, his identity as a writer, his relationship with the world, and with himself. Monk has all of this thrown at him all at once. There’s no other actor that could have played Monk as well as Jeffery Wright. The Best Actor race should be between Wright and Giamatti, with Wright taking the night, but this too seems like an unlikely outcome. Sterling K. Brown should also be taking home Supporting, even though Brown doesn’t believe he will take the prize.