Who Made It; The Shark?
Let's talk SNUBS.
The Academy Awards has always had this aura about them since I was a kid. It had some to do with the glitz and glamour of the spectacle. The Hollywood-ness of it all. It had a lot to do with the montages (I fucking love them, a montage of nominated films, a montage of old Hollywood, a montage of the actors doing actor-y things). But what it mostly had to do with though was the awards themselves. Seeing people hoist up a little trophy and delivering a speech to varying preparedness has always been something I enjoy. Is it catharsis seeing people achieve their greatest achievement or is it the closest thing to sport that the mainstream arts have that I like so much? Giving out awards for something so subjective as films don't make the most sense and increasing or decreasing the value of a film based on the number of nominations it received makes even less.
Films and sports raised me so seeing "my team" win is a win for me. Bong Joon Ho winning for Parasite and telling folks who don't like foreign language films to read fucking subtitles was glorious. 1
The mishap with Moonlight may have robbed us of Barry Jenkins and his team getting that moment hearing the title of their film announced but it did give us this which is still funny to me. Are the Academy Awards just a way for Hollywood to give awards to themselves while touting to the masses about how we can make a change in the world? Absolutely! But it is also event TV, no different from the Super Bowl or the series finale of your favourite show (except that one). It is something to watch, something to bet on (more on this later), and something to spend a few hours being irrationally emotionally invested into something you have no control over. It's the best.
Whatever your feelings on the production itself, there still is significance to the Oscars. Some of the films nominated are films most people have never heard of or were willing to go out and see, especially now. But it shines a light on these films, how many have seen Parasite or Moonlight because they saw it win an award?2 Who even knew there was a Pinocchio live-action film before it somehow found its way to two nominations in 2019. At the very least the Oscars are an expensive signal boost and the discourse around this time about what should and shouldn't have been nominated helps illuminate some of the titles that would otherwise be left in the dark. The 2022 nominees can be found here and we have time to stress, think and wager on who will win these things but the event is about a month away so today let's look at some films that haven't been recognized by the academy. THE SNUBS.
THE SNUBS
There are always a handful of films that the public would consider snubs--films or craftspeople that should have been nominated. They often are paired with films that weren't so deserving of their nod. It is essentially the NBA All-Star game for film. Except there are no statistical metrics to support one's argument on why one film is more deserving than another. Did Khris Middleton really deserve to be a 3-time All-Star in front of players like Pascal Siakam, Lamelo Ball, or Jarrett Allen? A resounding no. His own teammate Jrue Holiday was more deserving but I guess we will be forced to watch some mid-range jumpers with absolutely no flare for a few minutes next Sunday. But films are different, we can cite box office numbers but that means very little sense in this instance. The categories are voted on by the people in that department, so actors vote for actors, VFX votes for VFX, and so on. So there should be some legitimacy to the nominations, but they often are not. However, this is not a piece to try and fix the award show but rather a place to recognize the films and people that fell a bit short in the eyes of the voters.
There are films like Pig, The Green Knight, and The French Dispatch that has different intended audiences but they are all such unique films with what I thought was a clear path to a nomination. All three of these films received a total of 0 nominations.
Pig stars Nicholas Cage (1-time winner) as a truffle hunter who lives remote somewhere in Oregon until his truffle pig is abducted and he returns home to Portland to track down its captor. It is a slow burn film where we mostly watch Cage wrestle his past internally as he refuses to reacclimatize into normal society. If there were a real debate on whether Cage is an amazing method actor or a terrible over performer, this one is a point for the good ones. It also seems like the type of performance that normally gets recognized by the Academy -- an established actor who gets dirty and gives a strong but quiet performance. But nothing.
The Green Knight was a film I was excited to see, it had all of the elements I am interested in. I was under the impression that it was this fantasy adventure film of good versus evil with mythical creatures and instead it is this stoic art film that is more so moving portraits of beautiful landscapes and handsome faces. I would also describe this one as a slow burn but it barely touches the wick as its plot moves forward. However, it is a beautiful picture. The images produced are some of the best I've seen this year, it is rich with colour and has perfect textures. A cinematography nod for Andrew Droz Palermo would have been surprising but worthy.
Wes Anderson films are very niche and attract a certain subset of audiences that love to see things perfectly composed in the middle of the screen and symmetrical. A real fan of golden ratios and one-point perspective. The reason his films look the way they do is because of his consistent attention to detail. The sets are not only built perfect to the time and place of the film but they are built functional to a film set. Wes and cinematographer Robert Yeoman have signature camera moves that require the precise laying of dolly tracks and cooperation from the production design team to create the sets to be able to do this. Being on a film set is like being a part of a team or being at a camp. Everyone is responsible for a certain job and all of these jobs need to work in concert to achieve a shared goal. The French Dispatch is the culmination of everyone doing their job and doing it damn well. The whimsical nature of Wes' films may not be for everyone but the gorgeous sets cannot be ignored. I would imagine a Production Design nomination is a high and more than deserving honour for the entire team.
While many other great films did receive nominations, not every deserving person involved was recognized. Dune had several nominations and some that are sure winners3 but Denis Villeneuve not receiving a Best Director nomination is criminal. Despite putting out some of the best films of the 21st century, Villeneuve has yet to be recognized for his work. Argo is a film that memorably won Best Picture without having their Director nominated and it has a chance of happening again. But how does this happen ever at all? The team that wins the finals has a finals MVP, a nomination for maybe the best director alive (who makes movies that make money) would have been just and overdue in my opinion. There is a correlation between Best Picture and Best Director and the two awards do often win together but it is almost as if there is a disconnect between what the two categories mean, the same way that “valuable” in Most Valuable Player can be interpreted in so many different ways. How can a film be considered for one of the industry’s highest honours and not recognize the person who is leading the charge? What you dune academy?
All this to say that if you consider films to be pieces of art the way that I do then being able to experience the film is a kind of award in itself. There is a feel to movies that are made with the sole purpose of getting awards, think of Best Picture winners like Ordinary People or Dances with Wolves, fine films but looking back in history, it is hard to put them near the top of the list for their respective years. Ultimately there is validation to seeing the things we like being awarded. It reinforces your taste but it shouldn't. If you thought the new Spider-Man was the best thing you saw last year then you are absolutely right. If you thought The Worst Person in the World was the best movie you saw last year then you are even more right 🤭. Everything that is created and put out is up for judgment but if you make the thing for yourself and do it honestly, it should be more than good enough. Not in the business of giving out participation ribbons for just showing up but let's give out medals of achievement for doing the damn thing no matter what a group of voters have to say.
Including a list of recommended films from last year that were not included in this piece or best picture nominations. I still have a lot of catching up to do myself.
Shiva Baby Emma Seligman — Crave
Zola Janicza Bravo — Netflix
The Tragedy of Macbeth Joel Coen — AppleTv+
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This was actually from a different awards show but including it in here anyway.
Greg Fraser is the odds on favourite to win and deservingly so. Betting guide to the Oscars will be an upcoming newsletter 🤑