The Afternoon After

My father used to collect all of the Best Picture winners on DVD/Blu-Ray over the years. It made for an easy birthday present/father’s day gift. Just go on Amazon and order it with a book and I was done. It was a real easy process. I stopped at one point and just decided to give my father trade paperbacks of Saga and Paper Girls instead. So, the cynic in me is glad that I don’t have to get my father a copy of Green Book this year. Well, I would have probably left that as a gift option for my sister.

So, Green Book won Best Picture because a bunch of people got mad about The Dark Knight not being nominated for Best Picture.  This is the fault of Film Twitter (or I guess, back in 2009, it was still blogs) and the overtly aggressive Oscar campaigning of Harvey Weinstein that knocked Christopher Nolan’s super hero take on Heat out of contention and delivered a BP nod for The Reader. So when there is a system that sets out to reward the most liked picture, not necessarily, the best, but the most liked, you end up with winenrs like Green Book, Birdman, Spotlight, The Artist, Argo, and The King’s Speech. Those are pictures that are going to play to older folks because it’s just a good story told well. That’s all they want. Just a nice story that’ll make them feel better once the credits start to roll. So, does the Acadmey continue on with the five to ten possible Best Picture nominees or go back to five nomineees? Would Green Book still have won if it was just up against Roma, A Star Is Born, Black Panther and The Favourite? Maybe, but going back to five BP nominees should something the next Academy president should seriously consider.

Whomever comes into the job will probably not look into changing things because this year’s broadcast was a success. The Oscar influencers who turned into MAGA chuds while championing Green Book will feel proud because they knew since Toronto that it was the one! The influencers who were wrong, will simply shrug their shoulders and continue on with their jobs at the respectable trade papers.

Looking ahead to next year, it still feels like it’s going to match up between the two coastal titans: Martin Scorsese, the king of New York against Quentin Tarantino, the king of Los Angeles. Along with Rocketman, the Elton John biopic, Marielle Heller’s Mr Rogers picture, Toy Story 4, Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, the Downton Abbey picture, and the Goldfinch. However, as our friend Steve Kornacki likes to say: “it’s too early to call.”