Once Again: Is this thing still on?

Each year, it seems like award season starts earlier and earlier and more importantly, it never ever seems to end. When it does end, it is a great feeling. Remember how mad everyone got about Green Book? What a horrible moment, but at least Olivia Colman saved the night. Never the less, the 2019/20 award season will officially get underway with the start of the Venice and Telluride film festivals. Is Todd Phillips’ The Joker the real deal? Does the vegan king Joaquin Phoenix drop another hammer? Should I continue to be irrattionaly worried that the film will inspire some sort of unpleasenetness? Will Jeff Wells miss a great film at Telluride because he had to watch Maher? Does Sam Mendes have a good film in him? It’s been a very long time since Road to Perdition. These are the pressing issues as we move into the opening rounds of the season.

However, I can’t get that excited about this season just yet. There have been many good award quality films released this year, but unfornatuley they’ll get pushed out of the major categories for the standard awards bait pictures. I want to believe that The Farewell will go the distance this season, but at the end of the day, Lulu Wang will probably pick up a Best Original Screenplay nomination that she’ll end up losing to Tarantino. Julieanne Moore was great in Gloria Bell, but she’ll be forgotten. I assume that the patron saint of American art house cinema Megan Ellison will pull off some sort of hail mary and spend a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot, lot of money on a Best Screenplay nomination for Booksmart. Annapurna may be in the red, but at least an over rated film will get a little more shine. If only the Letterboxd community could vote in the Oscars….

Two other aspects of award season that I’m dreading are returning to Twitter and the multiplex. It’s easy to lurk on Twitter for soccer transfer news and BLACKPINK fan cam videos, but to keep up with the buzz and meltdowns (Can you imagine what would happen if Corporate Pete dropped out of the race?), you’ll have to log on for all of that. I haven’t missed Twitter all that much since departing in June. It’s been very nice to not be apart of the daily rage cycle. I haven’t missed going to the multiplex after Hobbs & Shaw. I don’t want to come back and sit through another crummy picture. I’ve done that far too many times this year.