Ruminations on Oscar Gold

One of the first lessons I learned about writing nonfiction is to almost always give yourself time between what you’re writing about and when you start writing, just to get your feelings in order. It’s this reason that I waited until we finally got a new oven mitt at work before complaining about it on the internet, and it’s the reason I’m posting this two weeks after The 90th Academy Awards instead of the Tuesday after.

I sometimes joke that The Oscars are awards that everyone likes to say they don’t care about, but secretly they do. It’s certainly how I feel about them. “It’s just a popularity contest,” people like to say. “Good Time and Wind River weren’t even nominated.” And that’s certainly true, especially in certain categories. But there’s still something to be gained by knowing what’s popular and what’s not, especially in a cultural touchstone like American cinema.

What’s popular, for example, is giving awards meant for individual achievements to people with good careers despite a lackluster single performance. Sometimes this turns out positively, such as Roger Deakins winning Best Cinematography for Blade Runner: 2049, but it can also lead to snubs like Allison Janey (I, Tonya) or Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) winning over stronger competition like Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird) or Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).

To be honest, though, that’s just me complaining. On a more positive note, I do enjoy seeing the buzz surrounding the nomination announcements. I like those controversies much more (The Lego Movie was snubbed!), maybe because cutting the field from hundreds to five is much more exciting than cutting from five to one. It also is much better at making potential watchlists. When I found out I had seen seven of the nine best picture nominees before the nominations were even announced, I became much more interested in seeing those remaining two.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I like watching movies, and I am always looking for new, good movies to see -- I generally rely on the quality filters of people around me for the older ones (“You’ve never seen Gone With the Wind?”). The Oscars, for better or for worse, are another way to find those newer movies. So even if I disagree with the eventual winners in some subjective way, at least it’s good for that.

-F