Holiday Catch-Up on Oscar Films

The holiday season has come to mean something much more important than celebrating goodwill and exchanging gifts--catching up on potential Oscar nominated films so I will have seen as many as possible on the big night, March 10, 2024. Since the last entry on this topic, I managed to see three more potential nominees and rewatched Maestro on Netflix.

Julianne Moore and Charles Melton in
May December

May December: Previous Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore look to nab Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress slots for this bizarre indie which falls between comedy and drama (the Golden Globes has classified it a comedy). But newcomer Charles Melton has emerged as the front-runner for Best Supporting Actor, having won the New York Film Critics Circle and several other critics' group. BTW, have you noticed that almost every city and geographical area in the country now has its own movie critics' group, each bestowing its own set of awards? It used to be just New York and Los Angeles, now it's everywhere including the East Podunk Film Critics Circle and the Dead Cactus, Arizona Movie Reviewers and Fly Swatter Collectors Group.

Oscars So Diverse: Predictions

Will Hidden Figures upset LaLa Land at the Oscars?

This year's Oscars did not dominate the national zeitgeist as much as usual. Perhaps it's the Trump circus overshadowing every other event of normal obsession such as the Super Bowl and the Westminster Dog Show. Anyway, I predict the speeches will be more political than usual with many denunciations of the President's fascist regime. The awards will be a repudiation of his racist rhetoric and a reaction to last year's lack of diverse nominees with #OscarsSoDiverse replacing #OscarsSoWhite.

Best Picture
Prediction: Hidden Figures
LaLa Land has racked up a massive 14 nominations, sharing the record for the most ever with the magnificent All About Eve and the bloated Titanic. Normally, that would mean a lock for Best Picture, but there has been serious backlash against the nostalgic musical. While the film is basically a lighthearted tribute to the Golden Age of cinematic tuners such as Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris and The Bandwagon, many have seen it as a celebration of white culture at the expense of African-Americans. I just read a bizarre LA Weekly column comparing director Damien Chazelle to Leni Riefenstahl for creating a propaganda film by casting white Ryan Gosling as the savior of pure jazz while black characters are shunted to the sidelines. This is a more than a bit extreme but the anti-Trump sentiment might be enough for the majority of voters to pass over the feel-good musical and hand the top prize to Hidden Figures, an Oscar-bait candidate if ever there was one. There is the traditional underdog fighting the power (three real-life African-American female mathematicians battling sexism and racism in 1960s NASA) and an uplifting final triumph, plus it's a great way to say "Screw You, Racist Prez!" Of course Hollywood may want to fete LaLa as a narcissistic hurrah for itself, but I think politics will be stronger than self-love this time.