Oscars 2021: Going On With The Show

Of all the things we weren’t allowed to do in lockdown, not going to the movies was the thing I missed the most. I know, I know – there’s streaming but it just isn’t the same as the cinema. I suppose I could try dimming the lights in my loungeroom…nope, just not the same.

The effect of 2020 on cinema-going is a case of “wait-and-see”. Just because I missed “going to the movies” doesn’t mean everyone did. It’s hard to compete with the convenience of watching something when you want, in your own home.  

Plenty of big movies, like No Time to Die (the latest Bond film) and Dune have had their release dates pushed back and back. Dune may have been an Oscar contender, but Bond films are rarely on the awards radar, except in the technical categories.  Even the famous theme songs were gongless until Adele’s Skyfall. Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger wasn’t even nominated which is preposterous.

With cinemas closed or opening and closing at a moment’s notice, film studios opted for streaming service, which is fine except it is difficult to see all the films via streaming. Those 30-day free trials can only be used so many times…

And most of Hollywood is currently on the east coast of Australia.  Maybe they should have moved the whole Oscars ceremony to Brisbane just for the year, like they did with the AFL grand final. I’m sure the Convention Centre would have put on a lovely do.

But nothing will stop the Oscars.  Rules have been altered to accommodate these strange times so films intended as cinema releases that had to go straight to streaming services were eligible.  The Awards have been pushed back to April (usually they happen in February) but unlike other awards ceremonies this year, people are expected to be there is person.

But has it had an effect on the overall quality of eligible films? I’ve managed to see almost all of them, and my considered opinion is that not only are the films up to scratch, but it has made for one of the most competitive and diverse races in years. It’s hard to pick this year.  

Best actress in a supporting role

I try to see all the movies nominated for Oscars when writing this but sometimes it just isn’t possible, usually because of time constraints. Other times I choose not to see a film. This is the case with  Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. I suffer terribly from second-hand embarrassment and that is Borat’s whole schtick. I did watch a couple of clips on YouTube of Maria Bakalova’s performance as Borat’s daughter, Tutar, and can see a) she brings some humanity to the goings-on and b) frankly, Bakalova (who is from Bulgaria) must have nerves of steel to do some of the things she had to do. That it is a Borat movie is the main factor against her. But you never know. It’s kind of weird Borat got nominated at all. Classic 2020.

Glenn Close is now tied with Peter O’Toole for the most acting nominations without a win. I hear a movie version of Sunset Boulevard is in the works so ninth time might work a charm for her. Having watched Hillbilly Elegy, her performance as Mamaw is as good as you’d expect, but the film lacks a bit of a purpose, as it pulls its political punches. I think it would be a shame if Close did win for this,  having missed out for superior performances in better movies.

Marion Davies was the mistress of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and the movie Citizen Kane was loosely based on Hearst. As a result, Kane’s mistress Susan Alexander was assumed to be based on Marion Davies.  Even Orson Welles came to regret the impression created (that Davies was as talentless as Susan Alexander – she was, in fact, a popular movie star with enough talent to have a career without Hearst’s intervention. She was also well-liked in Hollywood). So if nothing else, Amanda Seyfried’s likeable turn as Marion Davies in Mank does a lot to rehabilitate her reputation.   

Olivia Colman, nominated for The Father, plays Anne, the daughter trying to make sure her father, who has dementia, has adequate care. Colman is always worth watching. If she won this category, it would be her second win over Glenn Close. That would be awkward. But Glenn Close and Olivia Colman will avoid any such awkwardness because... 

Youn Yuh-Jung in Minari

The momentum is behind Korean actress Youn Yuh-Jung who played the loving but un-grandmotherly grandmother, Soonja, in Minari. Youn Yuh-Jung has had a long and successful acting career in South Korea and is the first Korean to be nominated for an acting Oscar. Deserved.

Best actor in a supporting role

Paul Raci has been fluent in sign language his whole life, as his parents were deaf. After years of being a jobbing actor (and sign language interpreter), along comes Sound of Metal and the character of Joe, the head counsellor at Ruben’s rehab, and they need an actor who can do sign language. And this series of events ends with Raci getting an Oscar nomination at the age of 72. If nothing else, an Oscar nod will allow his agent to ask for a bigger pay cheque, so more power to him. And it's a good performance.

Paul Raci and Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal

It’s an odd choice from the producers of Judas and the Black Messiah to put both Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield in the supporting actor category.  Stanfield plays the lead role of Bill O’Neill (the Judas of the title) and Kaluuya plays Fred Hampton (the “Black Messiah”). Technically Hampton is a supporting role (only just) but Kaluuya’s performance kind of steals the movie, which is why he has this “in the bag”. The one thing that could be against him is that the vote might be split between him and Stanfield.

If this happens, then the next most likely contender is Sacha Baron-Cohen. Not for Borat but for The Trial of the Chicago 7.  Like so many comedians before him, he shows he has some solid dramatic acting chops as Abbie Hoffman (a real-life political activist). He has the best lines and has a great scene when he takes the witness stand. I’ve long predicted he’ll surprise everyone one day in a dramatic role that sweeps an awards season, but I don’t think this is the one.   

Leslie Odom Jr plays the legendary Sam Cooke in One Night In Miami and sings like a dream. He is also nominated for Best Song and might have a better chance in that category. Really, his singing is sublime.

Best actor in a leading role

Chadwick Boseman as Levee

Best Actor will be given posthumously to Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. It will be for all the performances we never got to see due to his premature death from bowel cancer, aged 43. Boseman’s performance as Levee, the ambitious but impetuous trumpet player, is very good but I got really annoyed at the movie because it is a filmed stage play, pretending to be a movie. As a result, its stage origins are very obvious. It seems melodramatic and stagey, with lots of playing to the back row.

(Trivia note: This will also end Australia’s run on posthumous acting Oscars - Peter Finch and Heath Ledger are the only other two to win in these circumstances).

I’ll be controversial and say it should be between Riz Ahmed or Anthony Hopkins. If there is a shock result, it will be Hopkins getting his second Oscar for The Father. But Hopkins being a brilliant actor isn't news.

If it was up to me (and it isn’t but it should be), it would be going to Riz Ahmed in the Sound of Metal. I felt like I was watching someone in a documentary, he was so much the character, Ruben, coming to terms with his hearing loss.

Gary Oldman was always going to get a nomination for playing Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter responsible for Citizen Kane. Oldman is always worth watching (but 20 years older than Mankiewicz was at the time of Citizen Kane) but Mank has kind of lost its early momentum.

In Minari, Steven Yuen (best known from The Walking Dead) plays Jacob, the father of a migrant family from Korea, trying to set up a Korean vegetable farm. He is mainly stoic but breaks near the end and makes the audience feel it. It is one of those performances where it looks like he isn’t acting. We’ll see him here again.

Best actress in a leading role

This is the hardest to call of the night as none of them are dominating the lead-up.  I can say with certainty that it won’t be Vanessa Kirby for Pieces of a Woman. She plays Martha who, after enduring the tragic stillbirth of her child, realises she’s married to a complete douchebag. At least that’s what I took away from it. It was a dreary film.  

Frances McDormand was the early frontrunner and if she wins, she will tie with Daniel Day-Lewis for three Oscars for a lead role (trivia nuts:  Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Ingrid Bergman all have two Oscars for leads and one for supporting). But I think there is more excitement for the Nomadland as a whole rather than her performance as Fern, who lives on the road in her van after falling on hard times.

Viola Davis is a favourite, but it would be terrible if two acting awards went to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (see earlier comments). It kind of makes me cross that it is here at all. Davis does play against type as legendary blues singer Ma Rainey and can’t be counted out, as she won the SAG award.

The United States vs Billie Holiday is Andra Day’s first film performance, as legendary singer Billie Holiday. The film is about Holiday's persecution by the authorities for her song “Strange Fruit” it's about lynching and one of the first protest songs). The movie doesn't have any other nominations  (which is against Day’s chances) but it was released late so she didn’t have a chance to figure in the lead-up awards. Critics have raved about her performance (they are less effusive about the film). She is the wildcard here. If she did win, I think she should go up to the podium and say “First time acting and look *motions at the Oscar* Acting is easy!”.

She has a plan. Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman

Promising Young Woman is a cracker of a film and Carey Mulligan was at the centre of that as Cassandra, a medical school dropout who is both hellbent on and strategic about avenging her best friend’s death, or more specifically the causes of it. The film has five nominations so it might just be Carey’s year and it is a topical film. The only thing is that the (still) male-dominated Academy membership might baulk at a film about women’s rage against men.

Best director

Thomas Vinterberg directed Denmark’s Another Round (it’s about binge drinking) and it is a frontrunner for Best International Film.

Emerald Fennell wrote and directed Promising Young Woman and she gets everything right. She is also the only person nominated for directing who was pregnant at the time of directing (she and Chloe Zhao are only the sixth and seventh women ever nominated).

David Fincher’s Mank, about old Hollywood, is made in a way that echoes old Hollywood movies, from a screenplay written by his Dad.

Minari is based on Lee Isaac Chung’s own childhood in Arkansas.

But ever since Nomadland was released, Chloe Zhao has won every award going, so it looks like a second woman will win a Best Director Oscar.  

Apart from David Fincher ( who has been nominated twice before) they are all new faces in this category, which is probably a good thing.

There is no truth to the rumour that after nominating two (count ‘em) women in this category in the same year the voters had to have a lie down.

Best picture

I haven’t seen The Father because from personal experience I can say dementia is grim and I don’t want to see movies about it. I’ve heard good things, and interestingly on IMDB, it is the highest-rated 
of all the nominated films. Can’t be ruled out.

Judas and the Black Messiah and The Trial of the Chicago 7 are set in the same time period and Judas and the Black Messiah actually mentions the trial going on in Chicago. The late 60s was a time when the establishment was doing whatever it took to hold onto the power it thought it was entitled to hold. I don’t know if two Best Picture Nominees have been that interconnected before. Both are very good if you like movies about history – both recommended.

I enjoyed Mank but I think it is a movie for film buffs. I’ve long known about the whole back story to Citizen Kane (mainly from reading David Niven’s entertaining Hollywood memoirs). If you didn’t know about the Hearst/Welles feud, a lot of what was happening on screen might be lost on you. But Hollywood does love a movie about Hollywood and this is one of its most intriguing tales.

Of all the films I’ve seen, Sound of Metal was the one that stayed with me. It tells the story of a heavy metal drummer struggling with a diagnosis of deafness (ironically it will probably win some Sound awards) but it isn’t the usual Best Film contender. But again – recommended.

Minari (it’s a Korean herb if you’re wondering) is about a migrant family from Korea trying to start a farm in Arkansas. Doesn’t sound like much but credit to the filmmakers, it gets you in and packs a punch.

I could write an essay on why Promising Young Woman. It just says everything that needs to be said about how society reflexively seeks to excuse and cover for the entitled and appalling behaviour of men. If you watch closely, it also deftly portrays the ramifications of not holding them to account. What else might they be capable of? Emerald Fennell should absolutely get Best Screenplay and if she doesn’t, we riot, okay?

Nomadland. No one will argue about it getting Best Cinematography

But Nomadland is the one that got everyone excited. The only one at this stage within striking distance seems to be The Trial of the Chicago Seven and I think there has been some late buzz about The Father. I will say technically Nomadland is superb, and the US is a beautiful country and you’ll be wanting to do a roadtrip across America afterwards when we’re allowed to travel again… 

But I have a few words to say...

Nomadland is based on a book by journalist Jessica Bruder, which investigates the politics and economic policies that created the nomads of the title – older Americans who were wiped out by the GFC and had no choice but to live itinerant lives, always on the road. The movie doesn’t go into the politics, opting for a character study of Fern, portraying oddballs living on the fringes of society. At best it looks at an American underclass through rose-coloured specs. At worst it defaults to furphies about poverty: That poverty is a choice (it is made clear Fern has options); there are jobs out there if you’re willing to work hard (Fern easily picks up minimum wage jobs); Amazon isn’t a corporate behemoth that built its immense wealth on undercutting workers pay and conditions but a benign job creator; that their hard luck and struggle leads to some sort of wisdom about life (the nomads, played by actual nomads, are shown as sanguine or sage about their hardship).

For all the positive things it has going for it, the film seems all but oblivious as to why and how this happened, so it ends up being a shallow and comforting take on wealth inequality. That is its main fault. It also explains why Jarvis Cocker singing “…everybody hates a tourist…” (from Pulp’s classic Common People) popped into my head while I was watching it.

Sorry to come across all Marxist, but I wasn’t that rapt with Nomadland.

I’d give Best Picture to Promising Young Woman.