Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Regarding certainty, this Variety article seems to indicate that in major categories other than Kaluuya there’s none.

https://variety.com/2021/awards/awards/ ... 234956208/

If Clint Eastwood had been the director he wouldn't have steamrolled to an Oscar.

rolotomasi99 wrote
The attacks on Bigelow were misogyny, pure and simple. She had beaten the boys at their own game, not just winning an Oscar for directing but doing it in a genre women are generally barred from. Then she was poised to win a second Oscar only three years later, once again in a genre that had previously been reserved for men. It was driving these fuckers crazy and they made sure to not just snub her but disparage her as well. This is why Martin Sheen publicly and personally apologized for briefly being part of the ridiculous attacks on Bigelow. He recognized the disgusting sexism of the people leading the smear campaign, and he did not want to be seen endorsing that type of toxic behavior.

I'm sure that Kathryn Bigelow's success and a sexist response to it was part of it but I don't think it's the whole story. For one reason, because Mark Boal was included just as much in the attacks. But also (and I think this is important to remember), the film's portrayal of torture was confusing. It's not pro-torture but it's not exactly anti-torture either. This was 2012, and I think people on the left were not interested in a film that took a nuanced take to the policies of George W. Bush. I also think that Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal's responses to the accusations were just dreadful by any metric (ironically, the most Democratic party-line quality to the film was the way they needlessly apologized) and that became part of the story. I don't admire strength but also don't admire weakness either. Bigelow and Boal's response to these attacks were the weakest I've ever seen to attacks on a film during Oscar season.

Was sexism part of it? Sure. If Clint Eastwood was the director, none of this happens. But I think just reducing it to sexism doesn't do justice to the film's very complicated Oscar meltdown.

I actually really like Gleiberman's take on it: https://ew.com/article/2012/12/19/is-ze ... o-torture/

Oscar voting ceased yesterday. And, all of the precursors are done.

I think we have very few uncertainties this year.

Lean

Picture
Leading Actress

Up in the air

Adapted Screenplay
Film Editing
Live Action Short
Documentary Short

Sabin wrote:However, I do remember people asking that of Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal and I think it was absolutely fair to ask them that.

It is not fair because the same rules did not seem to apply to Spielberg when he made SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. In the opening scene of that movie, the film depicts American soldiers committing war crimes by shooting surrendering Axis troops. Our main protagonist witnesses this atrocity and does nothing. He barely even reacts. Using your logic, Spielberg is endorsing America's army illegally executing enemy soldiers purely for the pleasure of it. Of course, no one with a triple digit IQ would actually think that about Spielberg since it makes no fucking sense.

Similarly, only a moron would be confused about how torture was depicted in ZERO DARK THIRTY. The main prisoner we see in the first third of the film never gives usable intel while being tortured, and in fact the "enhanced interrogation" only leads to misinformation from him which seems like a very clear argument against torture. Our protagonist is finally successful in obtaining what she needs by tricking the prisoner. Again, the arguments against torture are right there in the movie if you have the mental capacity to understand them.

The attacks on Bigelow were misogyny, pure and simple. She had beaten the boys at their own game, not just winning an Oscar for directing but doing it in a genre women are generally barred from. Then she was poised to win a second Oscar only three years later, once again in a genre that had previously been reserved for men. It was driving these fuckers crazy and they made sure to not just snub her but disparage her as well. This is why Martin Sheen publicly and personally apologized for briefly being part of the ridiculous attacks on Bigelow. He recognized the disgusting sexism of the people leading the smear campaign, and he did not want to be seen endorsing that type of toxic behavior.

I hope Zhao does not suffer the same fate as Bigelow. Being a woman of color will make her even more of a target for these deplorables who hate the idea of having to compete for jobs with the other half of the population that had previously been excluded. I fear the knives will be out for her, but maybe things are different a decade after the ZERO DARK THIRTY bullshit. We shall see.

mlrg wrote:

Big Magilla wrote:
Where is Andra Day's back story? She doesn't have one. The film she's in is a mess.

She doesn't have a back story and I agree the film is a mess. But if you look at this year nominated performances it's exactly the kind of role that usually wins. Biopic, drug addict, singer, downfall, physical confrontation, death in the end.

If I had a ballot my vote would go for Mulligan but I think she lost momentum, specially due to a very long season.

I can't think of any winner that fits that exact description but there have been a few that meet some of those components including last year's winner. However, they rarely go in the same direction two years in a row and I don't see it happening this year.

Greg wrote:Does anyone think the recent announcement that they will finally start shooting Glenn Close's Sunset Boulevard increases Youn's likelihood to win Supporting Actress?

I don't think Youn needs any help winning over Close at this point.

I haven't seen an official announcement that Sunset Boulevard is going to be shot any time soon, only Close's statement in an interview that they are ready to go if they receive the funding they need. That's a pretty big if.

It's possible that Close is putting that out there because she doesn't want to win a pity Oscar for Hillbilly Elegy which a win at this point would be. Should Sunset Boulevard actually be made and Close's performance be as effective on screen as it was on screen, she could be nominated and win on her ninth nomination which would put her in the record books on her own without having to share a record with Geraldine Page.

Big Magilla wrote:
Where is Andra Day's back story? She doesn't have one. The film she's in is a mess.

She doesn't have a back story and I agree the film is a mess. But if you look at this year nominated performances it's exactly the kind of role that usually wins. Biopic, drug addict, singer, downfall, phisical confrontation, death in the end.

If I had a ballot my vote would go for Mulligan but I think she lost momentum, specially due to a very long season.

Does anyone think the recent announcement that they will finally start shooting Glenn Close's Sunset Boulevard increases Youn's likelihood to win Supporting Actress?

While Halle Berry has not had a stellar post-Oscar career, she was not a one-trick pony by any means when she she won her Oscar.

She had been getting noticed in numerous TV productions as far back as 1989. She received strong reviews on the big screen for 1995's Losing Isaiah and two years before her Oscar win gave what is still her greatest performance in the TV movie, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, which she self-produced, and for which she won a Golden Globe, an Emmy and various other awards. A forgotten narrative in the race for the 2001 Oscar was the one that called for the actress who played the first Black actress nominated for a Best Actress Oscar to be the first winner of that award. If anything, Denzel Washington won for Training Day on her coattails to make it two leading Black acting winners in the year in which they were honoring Sidney Poitier with an honorary Oscar, not the other way around.

Where is Andra Day's back story? She doesn't have one. The film she's in is a mess. Viola Davis has a back story, and may well become the first Black actress to win a second Oscar, but I don't see it happening for Ma Rainey, her SAG win aside. Frances McDormand is highly unlikely to win a third Best Actress Oscar for Nomadland though she will probably win a third for producing the year's Best Picture winner. For Vanessa Kirby, the nomination is her award. Carey Mulligan is still the one to beat.

MaxWilder wrote
True, but they weren’t on the ballot when Berry won.

Another thing: Halle Berry in the ‘90s was known first and foremost for her beauty. While she didn’t go the Charlize-in-Monster route, she wasn’t playing a glamorous woman. She earned points for showing us a different Halle Berry.

We really have no history with Andra Day, whereas Viola Davis is a big, big deal. They basically shut off the speech timer when she won for Fences.

Agreed, which is what makes Andra Day different from Halle Berry.

Sabin wrote:But general consensus at the time was that if a black actress was finally going to win, it would be Angela Bassett or Alfre Woodard.

True, but they weren’t on the ballot when Berry won.

Another thing: Halle Berry in the ‘90s was known first and foremost for her beauty. While she didn’t go the Charlize-in-Monster route, she wasn’t playing a glamorous woman. She earned points for showing us a different Halle Berry.

We really have no history with Andra Day, whereas Viola Davis is a big, big deal. They basically shut off the speech timer when she won for Fences.

MaxWilder wrote

Sabin wrote
I think this is probably Viola Davis' best nominated performance and possibly the best of the nominees in a good crop. But I don't think Viola Davis is going to win. Yes, Viola Davis won the SAG which is a major predictor of who is going to win but she didn't have to compete with Andra Day and I think that would've changed the vote.

I'm just thinking big-picture. If a Black actress is going to win for just the second time ever, is it going to be newcomer Andra Day (in a movie that made little impact) when Viola Davis is on the ballot?

I think Andra Day has the role that would win. I think Viola Davis has the career that would win. It's worth noting that Halle Berry certainly didn't have the career that would win either. Although at that point, Halle Berry did have a career that spanned a decade (vs. Andra Day, in her first role), Halle Berry had already won an Emmy for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, and had famous earned $1m that year for going topless in Swordfish. But general consensus at the time was that if a black actress was finally going to win, it would be Angela Bassett or Alfre Woodard.

I'll also throw out there that while The United States vs. Billie Holiday didn't really make a huge impact, its zeitgeist was during Oscar voting period. And while Ma Rainey's Black Bottom had a much higher showing, that doesn't mean that it's necessarily beloved.

Sabin wrote:I think this is probably Viola Davis' best nominated performance and possibly the best of the nominees in a good crop. But I don't think Viola Davis is going to win. Yes, Viola Davis won the SAG which is a major predictor of who is going to win but she didn't have to compete with Andra Day and I think that would've changed the vote.

I'm just thinking big-picture. If a Black actress is going to win for just the second time ever, is it going to be newcomer Andra Day (in a movie that made little impact) when Viola Davis is on the ballot?

rolotomasi99 wrote
I am aware of Harvey Weinstein doing this regularly (i.e. accusing the subject of A BEAUTIFUL MIND of being an anti-semite), but what I specifically object to is the bullshit Bigelow, Scorsese, and now Zhao face where people conflate the view of the protagonists with that of the writer/director. If a character supports torture or hedonism, that does not mean Bigelow and Scorsese agree with them. They are simply depicting what the movie's subjects (all of whom are based on real people) do and say without blatantly projecting their own viewpoints on the audience. I find the behavior in ZERO DARK THIRTY and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET deplorable, but I can still enjoy the movie because I never felt like I was being asked to agree morally with what I was seeing on the screen.

And you still can enjoy, however it's perfectly valid to ask if both The Wolf of Wall Street and Zero Dark Thirty endorse their behavior because with both films the answer is admittedly nuanced. You can walk away thinking both yes and no. I don't think it's remotely bullshit to ask these questions. But to the best of my awareness, nobody is accusing Chloe Zhao of supporting Amazon or -- if I remember correctly -- Martin Scorsese of endorsing hedonistic behavior. It was also through the prism of the film they made. However, I do remember people asking that of Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal and I think it was absolutely fair to ask them that.

Those aforementioned whisper-campaigns by Harvey Weinstein were really something though. There is a big difference between accusing John Forbes Nash of anti-semitism (akin to discovering long buried tweets) and asking if Zero Dark Thirty endorses torture.

rolotomasi99 wrote
Similarly, Zhao was showing us (quite briefly I must point out) how these characters support their itinerant lifestyle through this type of seasonal work. I certainly did not watch the movie and think how wonderful it would be to work at Amazon. In fact, I sat there thinking how grateful I was to be an overpaid paper pusher rather than breaking my back in a warehouse or on a farm. I know some people love that work, but nothing in this film glamorized those jobs for me.

That's fine. But we can still ask the question considering how matter-of-factly the film views Amazon. Generally speaking though, I think this is a good thing. Nomadland has largely skated through Oscar season on a cloud of worship.