All Over But The Shouting: 2021 Oscars Wrap-up Part I

For an Oscars season and Academy Awards ceremony as strange and eventful as we just experienced, it felt necessary to break the wrap-up into parts. In Part I, we will cover the actual award winners and their speeches. In Part II, we will talk about the ceremony itself. And, for Part III, the controversy around the Will Smith-Chris Rock altercation.

Forgive me for being a little off my game on Oscars night. I think any of us who care about this organization and these awards – however silly and uncool it may be to admit that right now – probably was going through something inexplicable for the final hour of the show and the rest of the night. It is understandable. But, Last Cinema Standing exists to celebrate the art of film, and it felt that night like the art got short shrift. So, today, I want to talk about the winners, the speeches, and all these wonderful films.

Sian Heder’s CODA, purchased by Apple TV+ for $25 million at the Sundance Film Festival last year, won Best Picture. Heder also won for her adapted screenplay, and Troy Kotsur won Supporting Actor for the film. CODA is a lovely little film whose victory made a lot of history – first Sundance premiere to win it all, third Best Picture ever directed by a woman, and most importantly, first film from a streaming service to win the Academy’s top award.

I liked CODA a lot and recommend it to everyone, but there is a case to be made this Oscars triumph is probably the worst thing that could happen to it. The things we will discuss in Parts II and III of this series notwithstanding, the Academy Awards are a marker of quality for many people. They confer importance and imply a certain thematic heft, and not all films hold up under that weight. Green Book is a recent example that comes to mind, and CODA is miles better than Green Book.

It is ultimately a feel-good film, and these are definitely feel-bad times. No one can begrudge the Academy choosing a movie that made voters feel good for a couple of hours amid the events unfolding all around us. But, fair or not, the sober light of day and the slow passage of time are likely to cast a harsher shadow on this film because it carries a Best Picture badge.

Kotsur’s speech was probably the best of the night, especially with the context that last year’s Supporting Actress winner, Yuh-jung Youn, stood by his side, holding his Oscar statue so he could sign with both hands. The speech was smart, funny, heartfelt, and emblematic of all the reasons Academy voters felt compelled to vote for Kotsur and the film.

All four acting categories went to the expected winners: Will Smith for Actor, Jessica Chastain for Actress, Kotsur for Supporting Actor, and Ariana DeBose for Supporting Actress. Chastain’s speech was rambling and odd, but this moment has been a long time coming for her and she can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by it. I might have preferred Olivia Colman or Penélope Cruz, but that’s me voting with my head and not my heart. The heart says it was great to see Chastain holding an Academy Award.

DeBose’s history-making win was an early emotional moment in the show, as she acknowledged her queerness, shared her experience as a woman of color, and gave encouragement to people living in fear of putting their true selves out into the world. In a nice moment, she tipped her cap to Rita Moreno, who previously won the award for playing the same character.

Kenneth Branagh won his first career Oscar with an Original Screenplay win for Belfast. This is fine, and Belfast is a good movie, but it really makes you wonder if Paul Thomas Anderson is ever going to get up on that stage. He couldn’t get there for There Will Be Blood, an indisputable modern masterpiece. Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza didn’t do it. What will it have to look like for PTA to clear this final hurdle?

Anderson was not the only person or company unable to clear the final hurdle, however. Netflix once again came up short of the top prize it so desperately desires as The Power of the Dog went an almost unheard-of 1-for-12. Jane Campion won Best Director, becoming just the third woman ever to win that award. This is the first time since 1967 that a film has won Best Director and nothing else – Mike Nichols and The Graduate managed to pull this same trick that year. Why did The Power of the Dog lose so many awards? I think it comes back to what we talked about – admiration vs. love. Voters just didn’t love it, and they rewarded the one person most responsible for their admiration, the director.

Dune won just about everything below the line, missing only Makeup and Hairstyling (which went to The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Costume Design (which went to Cruella). I tried to get too clever in my predictions and outthought myself in Editing and Production Design. Voters clearly just checked the box next to Dune everywhere it made sense. As we said before, the road is now paved for Dune Part II – whenever it comes out – to sweep the Oscars in a fashion not seen since Slumdog Millionaire or The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

We correctly predicted Drive My Car in International Feature, Encanto in Animated Feature, and Summer of Soul in Documentary Feature, which taken together, means Flee was shut out. Hopefully, more people will discover that film in the years to come and its stature will only grow. We will get to Drive My Car director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s speech in the next installment, when we talk about the show itself, but I felt bad for Amhir “Questlove” Thompson, who won his Documentary award in the immediate aftermath of the Will Smith-Chris Rock incident.

That is a terrible spot to be forced into. Summer of Soul was one of the best movies of any kind last year, and Questlove has been passionate about keeping the focus on the story and the people of Harlem and the wrongly forgotten events chronicled in his film. Then, to have the crowning moment of the film’s run spoiled by something completely unrelated, it’s just a bummer. Questlove’s speech was humble, gracious, and endearing, but of all the winners Sunday night, he most deserved better.

Billie Eilish and Finneas won Best Original Song for their No Time to Die title track, proving that the modern Academy just can’t stop awarding James Bond songs. At least this is not as bad as when voters awarded Sam Smith’s truly awful Spectre song, “Writing’s on the Wall.” Mostly, I am disappointed Lin-Manuel Miranda missed out on his EGOT yet again, but he will absolutely have other chances.

I missed all three of the shorts categories. Star power basically always helps because people tend to vote for their friends or, failing that, people they recognize. So, it is unsurprising that The Queen of Basketball won Best Documentary Short, produced as it is by NBA stars Stephen Curry and Shaquille O’Neal. Director Ben Proudfoot was nominated in the same category last year for the superior A Concerto Is a Conversation, but at 31 years old, he is clearly a talented filmmaker who is likely to be competing in the feature categories someday if he so chooses.

On the same “star power drives votes” note, Oscar-nominated actor Riz Ahmed won for his live action short The Long Goodbye, which is powerful and shocking but also a little underdeveloped. Definitely check out his related feature-length film, Mogul Mowgli, which is excellent but probably was hurt by comparisons to the previous year’s The Sound of Metal. Much as I love Ahmed and am pleased to see him with an Academy Award, I would have picked the devastating Take and Run or the good-hearted On My Mind.

Overall, it is hard to take issue with any of the winners. There is nothing egregious here in the way of My Octopus Teacher or “Writing’s on the Wall.” Unfortunately, there was nothing terribly exciting either. Most everything went as predicted, and that is problematic in its own way. To some degree, the cumulative blandness of the winners paved the way for the Will Smith-Chris Rock incident to dominate the conversation. There was just nothing else to talk about with this show, so rightly or wrongly, that stepped in to fill the void.

Next time: Part II – Can the show be fixed?

What Just Happened: CODA Sweeps, Plus The Slap Heard ‘Round The World At The 2021 Oscars

Well, this is awkward. I am at a loss for words, yet I find myself here needing to explain how I feel about what I just saw. Will Smith punched Chris Rock in the face on live television. I am not 100 percent convinced it was not a planned bit because nothing would surprise me about these Academy Awards, but all reports from those in the room suggest it was very real.

Forever, the 94th Oscars will be the Will Smith ceremony. There is no way around it. CODA won all three awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture, becoming the first Sundance film and the first streaming film to win the top award. It is a historic victory, but this is the Will Smith ceremony. Jane Campion became just the third woman ever to win Best Director, another historic victory, but this is the Will Smith ceremony. Dune was actually the big winner of the night, nearly running the table in the crafts categories in taking home six awards, but this is the Will Smith ceremony. And so on.

That was not the only thing to go awry, just the most prominent. Three hours into a show that lasted more than three and a half, I was pretty certain it was the worst Oscars ceremony I had ever seen. I have followed the Oscars closely for 20 years and have seen just about every second of every one of those shows, and the overarching feeling I had for most of this one was embarrassment for the Academy. 

It may have been either Al Jean or Mike Reiss, former writing partners and longtime writer-producers on The Simpsons, who said about network notes that they are a lose-lose proposition. If you listen to the network and fail, the network blames you anyway. If you listen to the network and succeed, the network takes all the credit. Better to succeed or fail on your own terms. The Academy bowed to network demands and delivered the show ABC wanted. Its failure will fall at the doorstep of the Academy, not the executives who told AMPAS to adapt or die.

The non-Will Smith lowlights: the pre-show ceremony of course, during which eight Oscars were handed out to filmmakers and craftspeople who deserved better; the strangely altered performance of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” a song that had no place on the show to begin with; the upbeat choir and dance number to accompany the in-memoriam segment; the band playing off Ryusuke Hamaguchi during his International Feature acceptance speech. I could keep going, but you get the point.

Ultimately, this felt like an Academy Awards ceremony produced by people who hate the Oscars, and maybe there is some resentment among ABC executives who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting this show, only to watch it hemorrhage viewers and rapidly lose whatever cultural cache it once held. Even if hate is a strong word, the show certainly was not produced by anyone who understands what people who love this show love about it.

Every single move by the Academy was a wrong one. The fan favorite “awards” went to two separate Zack Snyder movies, proving only that Snyder’s rabid fans have not lost their touch with a hashtag. The lack of applause in the room reflected what most of us felt: We cut eight awards from the show for this? Not to mention the interminably long 60 Years of Bond montage, which was shown during a portion of the show unrelated to Billie Eilish and Finneas playing their ultimately triumphant theme to No Time to Die. In essence, we got two 007 segments. 

We can talk more about the actual awards tomorrow once we have had some time to clear our minds. Overall, the winners were fine, if not terribly exciting. Only three films won multiple awards: Dune (6), CODA (3), and The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2). Three of the Best Picture nominees won nothing, while The Power of the Dog went 1-for-12, winning just Best Director, a feat not accomplished since The Graduate pulled that same trick in 1967. The predicted quartet of Jessica Chastain, Will Smith, Ariana DeBose, and Troy Kotsur won the acting categories.

My predictions were fine. I missed every one of the shorts categories, which is frustrating, and I would have done better had I gone with the conventional wisdom and predicted Dune just about everywhere below the line. I outthought myself. Oh, well.

The truth is I don’t feel fully equipped to talk about the show right now. There is plenty to say, but I need a night to sleep on it. So, I will leave it there. Let’s meet here tomorrow and try together to figure out what just happened.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actor

The Last Cinema Standing Countdown to the Oscars is your guide to the Academy Awards. We will cover each of the categories in depth, talk about history and what the award truly means, and predict some winners. Check back all month as we make our way to the big show, one category (each as important as the next) at a time.

Best Actor

The nominees are:

Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos

Benedict Cumberbatch for The Power of the Dog

Andrew Garfield for Tick, Tick…BOOM!

Will Smith for King Richard

Denzel Washingtong for The Tragedy of Macbeth

I got burned last year predicting against the stats in this category. I thought the sentiment for the recently deceased Chadwick Boseman, coupled with his undeniably great performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, would override the fact that Anthony Hopkins won the BAFTA for The Father. I was wrong, and I will not make that mistake again

It is a little easier this year, considering one actor has won the BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild award, the Critics’ Choice award, and a somewhat meaningless Golden Globe. That actor …

Will Smith for King Richard – Sometimes, a pairing of actor and role just seems designed to win an Oscar. The buzz begins from minute one, long before any footage has even been shot. It does not always lead to an Academy Award win, but when it does, it becomes so inevitable it feels as though it were written in the stars. This is a long way of saying Smith has not been shy about his desire to win an Oscar, and taking on the role of Richard Williams has given him the perfect opportunity to do so.

Of course, none of this works if the performance is bad, so Smith throws himself fully into the role of the famed tennis instructor. He’s got the voice down. He’s got the walk. He’s got the attitude. Smith is showy in all the right ways, evoking the larger-than-life figure while still making the character his own. Smith’s take on Richard is difficult and a little deranged but devoted to his daughters and determined to make them the best they can possibly be. In other words, he’s playing a pretty good dad, which is a core Smith zeroes in on to carry the audience through the story.

Benedict Cumberbatch for The Power of the Dog – What a fascinating and enviable career Cumberbatch has built for himself. Just in the last 10 years, he has appeared in Star Trek: Into Darkness, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as the voice of the dragon in two The Hobbit movies. But, he has balanced out the blockbusters with prestige work like 12 Years a Slave, The Imitation Game, 1917, and this film. He seems equally at home in either context and never repeats the same performance twice. There is always something new to discover with a Cumberbatch character.

Such is the case with Phil Burbank, a rancher whose self-denial and repression have curdled into anger and vindictiveness. There is no place in the world for him to be his true self, so he lashes out at the world and everyone in it, with Cumberbatch deploying a quiet menace that chills to the bone. Yet, within this villain, there is the soul of a poet, of the person he could have been if the world were more accepting, the side of himself he has suppressed. Cumberbatch nails this half of the character with equal finesse and skill, crafting one of the great movie characters of recent memory.

Andrew Garfield for Tick, Tick…BOOM! – Garfield is one of my favorite actors working today. It has been fascinating to see him navigate the aftermath of starring in a pair of big-budget Spider-Man movies that kept him away from smaller, more interesting work for the better part of five years. He immediately followed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with 99 Homes, Hacksaw Ridge, and Silence, three wildly different films in which Garfield is allowed to explore the full range of his abilities. This year, he returned to Spider-Man, but he has also given us this outstanding achievement.

I intend to wrap up 2021 with a later-than-usual Year in Review next week, once we are past the Oscars, but one bit of information I feel comfortable divulging: I think this is the best performance of the year. As Rent creator Jonathan Larson, Garfield embodies the spirit of every striving artist who is one phone call away from changing his life forever. He sings, he dances, and he brings us into the world of a Broadway wannabe with tons of talent but no luck. The movie does not work if Garfield does not get it right, but he soars and so does the movie.

Denzel Washington for The Tragedy of Macbeth – Would it surprise you to learn Washington is the most nominated leading actor of the past 10 years? It’s true. At an age when many actors start taking character roles or supporting parts or just start working less altogether, Washington has bolstered one of the finest resumés in cinema history with a decade of unmatched excellence. The New York Times recently named him the best performer of the 21st century, and it seems impossible to find fault with that determination.

You have never seen a take on the character of Macbeth like this. Much has been made of Joel Coen’s decision to cast older actors to play Lord and Lady Macbeth, but that has less to do with the success of the film than Washington’s decision to underplay every line where a lesser actor – or even a great actor with a more traditional take on the material – would shout to the back rows. Washington imbues each Shakespearean soliloquy with the weariness and nonchalance of a man at the end of his rope but who believes he always has another card up his sleeve. 

Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos – I love Bardem. I think he is excellent. He deserves many more leading roles in which he is not cast as a villain but rather a romantic lead or sympathetic hero. He can do just about anything. Just about anything, except play a famously light on his feet Cuban musician and comedian. He does what he can in the part, but his casting here was a mistake.

Though talented and versatile, Bardem carries with him the weight of life and experience. He has seen things. These are great qualities for a performer, but they do not exactly scream out: 36-year-old song-and-dance man. Worse still is that the story does not give Desi Arnaz much to do, which means Bardem is held back by the script, as well as his own casting. But, anyway, good for Bardem earning his fourth acting nomination from the Academy.

The final analysis

For a while, it looked as if the momentum behind The Power of the Dog might carry Benedict Cumberbatch to a victory here, but that momentum has cooled, effectively killing his chances. Likewise, Andrew Garfield had buzz around his work in Tick, Tick…BOOM!, and the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home only bolstered his profile (interesting to note Cumberbatch also appears in that film but did not get a similar boost). However, missing out on a BAFTA nomination with the voters in Garfield’s adopted U.K. home (his family moved to England when Garfield was 3) put a serious dent in his chances.

No, this is Will Smith’s award to lose, and regardless of the twists and turns of the campaign trail, it always has been. A win for Smith would be a feel-good story, a reward from the industry for being one of the most successful and popular actors of the past three decades. Few actors in Hollywood are savvier than Smith, and with King Richard, he saw his moment and seized it. He has played this perfectly – including delivering a stellar performance – and for his troubles, he will walk away with that little gold statue.

Will win: Will Smith for King Richard

Should win: Andrew Garfield for Tick, Tick…BOOM!

Should have been here: Dev Patel for The Green Knight

Next time: Best Actress