The 91st Oscars: Mexican Standoff

Two major changes in the Academy Awards over the last ten years has adjusted how Oscar geeks like myself have speculated on who will win the statuette. The preferential voting system, which insures that the Best Picture winner must get over fifty percent of the vote, and the push after #OscarSoWhite to have a younger, more diverse voting body, has fundamentally altered who is getting nominated and who is winning.

This has created, to my mind, the most wide-open Oscar race in my memory. Not only is there no slam-dunk winner in any of the acting categories, or screenplays, or editing, or cinematography (I think the only hands down winner is Best Song, which should go to Lady Gaga) but Best Picture is wide open. Think of it as one of the great cliches in Hollywood films, the Mexican standoff. Think of that scene at the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but instead of Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach, it's Green Book pointing a gun at Roma, which is pointing a gun at BlacKkKlansman, pointing a gun at Green Book. Or think of the end of Reservoir Dogs and add A Star Is Born. I'm leaving out two of the three films (other than BlacKkKlansman) who have the requisite nominations of Directing, Screenplay, and Editing, The Favourite and Vice, which I don't think have much of a chance of winning. It's a world turned upside down.

The diverse voting body has lowered the reliance on safe, crowd-pleasing films and introduced a wider type of film. Roma got ten nominations, and it's a black and white film in Spanish. There are two directors of non-English speaking films in the Best Director category. None of the five of the Best Documentary Feature nominees were directed by white males.

The other big story is that Netflix, which is changing the way films are seen, broke through big time, with Roma and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs getting nominations. Is this the tipping point? When it doesn't matter where we see a movie? The Academy has always distanced itself from television, banning films that premiered on the idiot box, but now Netflix, which throws money at filmmakers, and makes more jobs for actors, who are the largest group of voters. There might still be some old white guys chomping on cigars saying, "If it's on TV, it isn't a real movie!" but these guys are dying out, just like the ones who wouldn't vote for Brokeback Mountain because of its gay theme. Since then, Moonlight, a film about a black kid coming to grips with his homosexuality, and no white people in the cast, won Best Picture. This year, half of the Best Picture nominees have prominent LGBT characters.

I will have to ponder who is the real favorite in the Best Picture race. Right now I'd guess Roma, although it did not get an Editing nomination. Alfonso Cuaron tied the record with four nominations for the same film, and would have broken it had he got the editing nomination (this ties with Warren Beatty, who did it twice, Alan Menken, and the Coen Brothers). Bradley Cooper got three, but did not get a Best Director nomination. Green Book, who perhaps was the favorite going in, also did not a Best Director nomination.

Cooper for director was a pretty big snub, but I was more surprised by the snub of Won't You Be My Neighbor, the popular documentary about Fred Rogers. I think the most surprising inclusion was Willem Dafoe getting a Best Actor nomination for playing Vincent Van Gogh in the very little seen At Eternity's Gate. It was the only acting nomination I hadn't seen yet.

The other big story is Black Panther. It got seven nominations, but the only above-the-line one came where it counts, Best Picture. It becomes the first superhero movie to gain such a distinction. It's interesting because the snub of The Dark Knight, ten years ago, was what many people believe prompted the expansion of five to as many as ten nominees, which also led to the preferential ballot.

A few other nuggets: Spike Lee got his third and fourth Oscar nominations, doubling his career total, and his first directing nod. He did get an honorary Oscar a few years ago, but this was a long wait. Diane Warren got her tenth nomination in the Best Song category--she's never won, and I doubt she beats Gaga this year. Other nominees in the Song category are Kendrick Lamar, who already has a Pulitzer Prize, and Gillian Welch for "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. When I saw the film the song was so ridiculous I couldn't manage it getting nominated, but I heard Welch's version and it's really a nice little cowboy song.

Over the next few weeks I'll take a look at the big six categories, gearing up to the awards on February 24th. Should be a lot of fun this year.