The Oscar nominations are set to be announced today. #Oscars

 

This year’s Oscars are going to be hilariously weird

 

But could this be the shake-up the Academy needs?

Every year, savvy number crunchers in Hollywood cobble together all the films that have been released and predict who will be nominated for an Oscar. They always get it right, because it’s inevitably an insider’s mix of the obvious Meryl Streeps and Tom Hankses plus a precocious 14-year-old who carried some unlikely indie to unexpected heights that nobody involved in it will ever reach again...

Last year, the biggest winners were Parasite, Renée Zellweger and Joaquin Phoenix. Yet there were plenty of others who could have sauntered off with an Academy Award to the upset of pretty much nobody. Remember The Irishman? It had an expensive de-ageing technique and won... nothing. Imagine, though, if that film was eligible this year. Given the pandemic and consequent drop in the number of films actually released, something with The Irishman’s gravitas would win it all – even Best Actress, despite it barely having any women in it.

The Oscars 2021 are a bit like the Premier League if the top half didn’t show up so the title was won by Burnley. Fun? Sort of. But quality and flair are also nice. When you read the experts’ predictions and see that Ben Affleck stands an excellent chance of winning Best Actor, well, you do wonder if they should skip a year.

Another tip for the top male? Gary Oldman in Mank, for a performance so convincing that when the 61-year-old actor yelled, “I’m 43!” I burst out laughing. There’s also a campaign for Delroy Lindo, very much just one part of Spike Lee’s scatty Da 5 Bloods, a film really only remembered for Chadwick Boseman, given it was released soon before the Black Panther star’s death.

Boseman’s emaciation tells a story in that film that the public would only find out later, as it does in his final, excellent role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and he should win Best Actor for the latter. That would be richly deserved. But don’t bet against a late George Clooney surge. Incredibly, he is in the mix for The Midnight Sky, a film so slow it might actually be a sloth.

Things get weirder with women. Not for Best Actress, which, somehow, is as strong as ever, but, rather, Best Supporting Actress. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you: that really is Maria Bakalova, from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, on the list – the one who was maybe going to give Rudy Giuliani a blowjob. Strictly speaking, she was acting, but, also, that film is really a documentary and, besides, I doubt even Sacha Baron Cohen, while making the film, considered his prankster sequel Oscar-worthy. A welcome shake-up to a formulaic parade? If you must. But I mustn’t. It’s not like they ever gave anything to Jeremy Beadle.

The moment I lost interest in this year’s race was when five men from The Trial Of The Chicago 7 were mooted for Best Supporting Actor. The film – reliant on wigs – saw Aaron Sorkin take a wild court case and tame it. In any other year, the film would have left the race around November, when all the better films usually come out. Still, someone who might challenge Sorkin’s few wooden men is Paul Raci, who is in the Riz Ahmed-starring film about a deaf drummer, Sound Of Metal. I saw it recently. It’s really good. Yet I have absolutely no idea who Raci is.

All in all, Hayden Christensen must be gutted. This could have been the year his Anakin Skywalker won big. Holy Hanks, the ceremony will be drab: a parade of trussed-up actors, being richly awarded for mediocre jobs, accepting prizes over Zoom. “I’d like to thank...” begins one of the Chicago Seven, before his Wi-Fi dies. “I’d like to thank the key workers.”

Still, there are positives. A brash film such as Promising Young Woman, for instance, initially slated to come out last April, is now in the mix. A release in April tends to mean its makers do not consider it Oscar-worthy – it is too early in the year for voters, especially the many old ones, to remember. However, a delayed release and lack of the standard safe alternatives Academy members usually go for means that Emerald Fennell’s film, starring Carey Mulligan offering a masterclass in revenge and grief, is very much in contention. It is the sort of fare the Oscars usually ignore. Too violent. Too incendiary. Too weird. Yet it is being talked about, which means more people will hear about it and see it.

The result? Maybe a bolder slate of nominees in years to come. There should, at least, be a bumper crop in 2022, given what has been held over. Well, it’s either that or Jason Statham, because, post-pandemic, maybe the Oscars will lose their value entirely. “And the Academy Award goes to... Crank 3: Vaccinate This.”

The Academy Awards 2021 will take place on April 26.

By Jonathan Dean

 

 Source :-  GQ Magazine