On Sunday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (AMPAS) will host its annual awards ceremony and, unless something far out of left field occurs, the big winner will be Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” With 13 total nominations, it will easily win at least half of these races including Best Picture and Best Director.
The nominating process itself is relatively simple. In January, AMPAS members (presently 10,000-plus) submit their choices for Best Picture. The 10 (or nine, or eight, depending on a fuzzy algorithm) titles with the most votes are placed on the final ballot which is due back no later than the first week in March.
Quality Versus Messaging
Some members, not all but more than enough, are talked into voting for titles not so much based on quality or artistic merit but rather the (subliminal or not) political and social messaging content of the films; something that has grown far more prevalent in the last decade.
For me, one of the most blatant examples of voter influence took place in 1942. A pleasant enough movie to be sure, and in any other year, “How Green Was My Valley” might have been deserving of the top prize. However, 1941 is considered by most critics and scholars as one of the greatest years in the history of the medium and “Citizen Kane” to be the finest film ever made. Also worthy were “The Maltese Falcon” and “Sergeant York.”
The Golden Era
In my opinion, the second half of the 20th century marked the AMPAS “Golden Era,” a period where it made the right Best Picture choices in all but six ceremonies.Not the worst Best Picture winner ever, but close, is the 1956 “comedy” “Around the World in 80 Days.” It had a few laughs but not enough to fill its bloated length. The sprawling Texas period piece “Giant” and Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of his own 1923 Biblical epic “The Ten Commandments” made far better use of their mammoth three-plus hour running times.
Despite its obvious uplifting tone and everyman appeal, the 1977 winner “Rocky” was just a so-so movie, and not nearly as good as the procedural thriller “All the President’s Men” and the stinging TV news satire “Network.”
In retrospect, the frequently overwrought and underwritten 1979 weepy divorce drama “Kramer vs. Kramer” hasn’t aged well and was dwarfed on every conceivable metric by Francis Ford Coppola’s towering war epic “Apocalypse Now.”
For a movie built on a quaint “can’t-we-all-just-get-along” vibe, “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989) is rife with dated and embarrassing southern racial stereotypes. Whereas Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July” was every bit as great as his other Vietnam epic (and Best Picture winner) “Platoon,” and “Field of Dreams” is one of the most moving father-son bonding films of all time.
Little more than a glorified soap romance with an impressive pedigree, “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) is one of the most undeserving Best Picture winners ever made and doesn’t hold a candle to, nor has a fraction of the staying power and emotional wallop of Steven Spielberg’s searing “Saving Private Ryan.”
The Tide Shifts
Starting in 2017, the AMPAS membership ranks became younger, less white, and less male, which resulted in a whiplash overcorrection where messaging took precedence over artistic excellence. Five of the next seven winning pictures put the emphasis on “social issues” and virtue signaling in the name of DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion).The first example was when AMPAS awarded the big prize to “Moonlight.” In addition to being the second-worst Best Picture box office performer ever ($27 million), it was a downbeat arthouse snoozefest about a depressed alternative lifestyle man played by three different actors.
Based loosely on a true story, “Green Book” (2018) also centered on a depressed alternative lifestyle man, was top-heavy with racial stereotypes and “white savior” issues. The award should have gone to the fourth incarnation of “A Star is Born.”
In 2020, the South Korean “Parasite” won both Best Picture and Best International Feature. It was a black comedy of sorts that focused on a quirky and “loveable” family of con artists. Yet the cleverly executed World War I flick “1917” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” were far better productions.
AMPAS was its most progressive in 2021 with “Nomadland,” the anti-“Grapes of Wrath” film not only approved of homelessness and poverty, it endorsed, extolled, and celebrated it. “Mank,” the story of Herman Mankiewicz’s writing of “Citizen Kane” and the daring “Promising Young Woman” were more deserving.
Last year provided one of the biggest head-scratchers of them all; AMPAS bestowed its top award on a film that blathered incoherent leftist dogma. “Everything Everywhere All At Once” is a cockamamie fever dream of a film and is “everything” the thrilling, upbeat, and America-first action drama “Top Gun: Maverick” (“TGM”), thankfully, was not.
Let’s consider “Top Gun” a bit more. The first, most, and instantly damaged business at the start of the COVID-19 scare was movie exhibitors. The shuttering of almost 5,000 U.S. theaters (and 200,000 more around the globe) hamstrung the film industry, which is still on the mend. Yet all but ordered by distributor Paramount to stream “TGM,” producer Tom Cruise stuck to his guns (all puns intended), rolled the dice, and waited two years to release it on the big screens. In doing so, Mr. Cruise singlehandedly saved the movie industry from collapse and gave theatergoers the world over a reason to leave their houses again.
It will be interesting to see how the dust settles on Oscar night. The AMPAS awards were conceived as recognition of artistic achievement and, if that is indeed the case this year, “Oppenheimer” has no peer. However, don’t be completely surprised if the now DEI AMPAS members continue their progressive streak by awarding Best Picture to the white-man-bad titles, “Barbie” or “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
