Well, that was weird.
Oscar night felt a bit like an off-brand version of an Oscar night – and not in a bad way (at least until the end). But there were times when the rehearsal-dinner vibe was impossible to ignore, especially at the end when it felt like ringmaster Steven Soderbergh handed the reins to Luis Buñuel, everyone was getting a little tetchy and impatient, the cake course was served before the entree and when it was time for Gramps’ speech he’d already gone to bed – possibly embarrassed by Mamaw’s twerking. Anyway, as odd and singular as this year was, with all its format changes and pandemic restrictions, it was business as usual regarding the outrage and delight, the grievances and glad tidings that greeted several of the winners. Here’s a quick run-through of the snubs and surprises of the 2021 Oscars.
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Surprise: The Oscars
After a gestation period that felt similar to that of the average African Bush Elephant, they eventually happened. Hallefuckinglujah!
Snub: The Oscars
Oscar night viewing numbers have been in freefall for years now, with seemingly every successive ceremony setting new all-time low records. It’s apocryphal right this minute, as hard stats have not yet been released, but if 2021’s ceremony does not continue to live down to this grand tradition and then some, by shedding several millions from the 2020 tally (which itself was down 20% from the year before, and couldn’t even blame that on a global pandemic) I will eat every floofy last feather on Laura Dern‘s skirt. Certainly, no one was expecting an uptick this year, and giving credit to the production team led by Steven Soderbergh, they delivered a streamlined (though somehow still just as long) ceremony that had some innovations that should maybe be carried over. Still, it should be said that the flip side of Soderbergh’s approach is that while he might have made it more palatable to insiders, anecdotally at least, the public seemed less than enthused by the lack of glitz, the sincerity (no awkwardly scripted presenter banter – such a shame) and the length of the speeches, some of them GASP by people they didn’t recognize. And the Academy really didn’t help themselves, in a year when so few public members had actually managed to see or become invested in the nominated films, by insisting on only making the ceremony available stateside via ABC or one of the more expensive premium streaming providers. At this stage, lads, why the hell don’t you just stick the damn thing on YouTube, or give it away free in cereal boxes, or do a deal with the government to put it in the drinking water?
Surprise: Best Cinematography for “Mank”
Widely thought to be in the bag for Joshua James Richards for “Nomadland,” one can only surmise that this was something of a “spread-the-wealth” award, as everyone assumed – rightly as it turned out – that “Nomadland” would be taking Best Picture and Best Director and wanted to widen the pool of winners. In itself, this is a good thing: single-film sweeps may be exciting and impressive, but they don’t do much, ultimately, to enrich the overall landscape. But on a narrower level, the win for Eric Messerschmidt can also be seen as some of the instincts of the Bad Old Academy creeping back in – namely their historical tendency to conflate Best in this category with Most.“Mank” is certainly the Most Cinematography of the nominated films: the most showy, the most premeditated, the most obviously monkeyed-around-with in post, the most clearly shaped to its creator’s exacting, prettified vision – some would say to the point of flat sterility. Oh but it’s in black and white, so you know, art. Now, I don’t hate this movie as much as some people do, but nor do I think its photography deserved this award over the broken skies and paradoxically intimate agoraphilia of “Nomadland.”
Snub: Documentary Filmmaking
Yes, I mean it; I’m sorry to all you eight-legged-freak freaks; a win for Netflix‘s Windows ’95 Aquarium Screensaver But With Emotions movie is an active snub to the entire art of documentary filmmaking, several of the years best examples of which were RIGHT THERE in the nominations list. It’s particularly galling when Garrett Bradley‘s “Time” and Alexander Nanau’s “Collective” – our number 2 and number 1 Best Documentaries of 2020, incidentally – were both nominated and could both have used the Oscar-win bump far more than the already wildly successful cephalopodophile hit. Look, I don’t hate this movie (though I know I’m making a good impression of it right now); if there were an award for best documentary cinematography, well, sure, that underwater footage is lovely, and morals don’t come much sweeter than I-get-by-with-a-little-kelp-from-my-friends. But documentary, in the year of our Lord 2021, can and should do so much more than placate the eye, murmur a few platitudes and leave with you an unearned, quickly dissipating sense of fuzzy wellbeing. Even knowing that the win will make a surprisingly octopassionate William Friedkin happy does not take the edge off. This one hurts because it so grievously undersells an entire category of moviemaking that has been historically undervalued by mainstream audiences, with the Oscars often repping the best hope for getting truly exciting, pioneering non-fiction in front of a few more eyeballs. So annoyed I’m not even going to embed the winning trailer.
Surprise: Daniel Kaluuya embarrassing his own mother during his speech
“My Mum, my Dad, they had sex; I’m here, it’s amazing.” A fantastic, charming, and quite bonkers speech also gifted us an immediate gif/meme in his mom’s classic reaction. If you freeze-frame, you can pinpoint the exact moment her expression changes from beaming maternal pride to “you wait till I get you home, young man.”
Snub: “The Trial of the Chicago 7” taking nada
Without attempting the kind of historical revisionism that makes any film that isn’t your absolute favorite into the cinematic equivalent of a piping hot shitfire (which I know I’ve sort of done with “My Octopus Teacher,” and no regrets there), it is hardly even up for debate that Aaron Sorkin‘s glossy and highly Sorkinized (and perfectly decent in its way) account of the eponymous trial was probably the weakest of the Best Picture field. And so if anything had to be entirely snubbed, better it was this than any of the other BP nominees, all the rest of which went away with at least a statue or two. Don’t feel too bad for Sorkin; he’s probably locating hitherto unnoticed dramatic arcs in his film’s over/underperformance and ginning up the evening into some sort of unlikely underdog story with a lot of ratatat dialogue, right as we speak.
Surprise: The intro to Best Director being in a foreign language
Ok, so this is a little esoteric, but having Bong speak in Korean when he could have easily have read pre-prepared English cues was a lovely, enlarging moment in a ceremony that (to its credit) mostly felt pretty cozy and small. It was a subtle touch that showed the nu-Academy’s willingness to acknowledge the cinematic world beyond America’s borders – in a less punch-the-air way than with “Parasite“‘s historic win, of course. But small changes matter as much as big swings at the Oscars and are more often the indicators of actual systemic change. Also, it meant we got a little hang time with Sharon Choi again. Here’s a throwback to last year, when people could still touch each other.
Snub: Glenn Close losing out on an Oscar again.
Close is now 0 for 8 nominations, making her the most losing actress in Oscar history. On the other hand, if Close – A VERY FINE ACTRESS (please don’t hunt me down for sport, terrifying Glenn Close fandom-mafia) – had actually won for the one of her very least fine performances, in a film whose provenance becomes more toxic by the day, it would have been a sorry way to break the streak. And because we do not want to promote “Hillbilly Elegy” in any way but are also very afraid of Close stans, here’s the trailer for a movie she should have won for.
Surprise: Glenn Close losing the Oscar, but winning The Oscars
So opinions are divided as to whether Close dropping suspiciously deep knowledge about EU’s “Da Butt” from Spike Lee‘s “School Daze” and then leaping up from her table to do a booty-jiggle to it, was a good surprise or a bad surprise but damn, it was surprising. We skew positive on its silliness if only because a largely dignified and sincere ceremony had precious little of that. And given the very checkered history of Oscar “bits” (Ellen buying the audience pizzas, Seth McFarlane singing about the boobs, and didn’t someone bus in a load of Poors one time to goggle at the famous pretty people? – these things all happened in my lifetime); this felt pretty benign. Plus, it gave Close a moment to shine – and to show how very ok she is even though she didn’t win – while not denying us the pure pleasure that is everything about Youn Yuh-Jung and her “Minari” triumph. Pissed off about Glenn’s loss? Hit play and jiggle along with the hardest-twerking , most graciously un-Oscared actress in Hollywood: