The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
‘Hamilton’ was 2020’s best film, but maybe it’s OK Oscars shunned it
Look, I initially wasn’t sure how to categorize “Hamilton,” either.
Even as I viewed the highly anticipated filmed stage version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s endlessly brilliant, award-gobbling Broadway musical that was about to debut on streaming platform Disney+ in early July, I wondered how I would label my review to come.
Was this a film? Was it television? Heck, was it simply theater?
Thanks largely to increasing power of streaming platforms to release high-profile films, the line between TV and movies, at least, have become blurred in recent years. In fact, never more fuzzy has that line been than in the past year or so, as the novel coronavirus pandemic has led to theaters pausing operations and many staying away from those that are open for business.
You could make an argument for “Hamilton” in any direction.
Ultimately, though, I decided this was a film. The Thomas Kail-directed presentation originally was intended for a theatrical release, later this year, and it received a rating from the Motion Picture Association.
The Academy Awards’ rules committee saw it differently.
As The Hollywood Reporter laid out in early January, the committee cited a section of the 93rd Academy Awards Rules in announcing “Hamilton” would not be eligible for any Oscars. I’m not sure I agree with the decision after reading that chunk of the guidelines for this very unusual year in cinema, but that was the decision.
Hey, there’s clearly no agreement on this. While “Hamilton” received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for the best picture (musical or comedy), the Screen Actors Guild Awards lumped it in with TV movies and limited series. And, as Variety points out, it will be eligible for the Emmy Awards this year, but “it will have to enter in the outstanding variety special (pre-recorded) category, not the TV movie competition.”
“They just seem — both the Emmys and the Oscars — to not be able to resolve what to do about filmed staged productions,” says Tom O’Neil, the editor, president and founder of awards-prediction outfit GoldDerby.com. “We’ve seen a lot of them in the last couple of years, from ‘Rent’ to ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and others.
“There’s a part of Hollywood that just rebelled because (they believe) that’s not a feature film; that’s just, you know, a filmed stage production.”
And while “Hamilton” sits atop the accompanying list of my top 10 films of 2020 — if it IS a film, it’s the best the year gave us because the musical itself is a masterpiece — I’m not sure it should be judged along more traditional movies.
The best traditional film of the year — and thus No. 2 on my list — is “Sound of Metal,” starring Riz Ahmed as a rock drummer who loses his hearing. Thanks largely but not solely to his Oscar-nominated performance, the Prime Video release pulled me in like no other last year.
It is nominated but is almost sure not to win the best-picture Oscar on April 25. The experts at GoldDerby have it as the greatest of longshots, just below another of my favorites, “The Father.” With the respect to writer-director Chloe Zhao wonderfully crafted “Nomadland,” the best bet to win, those other films were better.
Of course, this is all subjective, and that’s one thing that makes caring about movies so much fun. I became completely swept up by the George Clooney-directed Netflix film “The Midnight Sky,” but I found I was in the minority there.
In a year when it was difficult to get together with fellow film lovers to watch a new release, at least we could still dissect — and disagree — via texts, calls and video chats.
Enjoyable, but not same.
Here’s hoping the coming months will bring lots of cine-centric gettogethers — be them in living rooms or in theaters followed by discussions in coffeehouses or bars.
To quote Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton as he speaks to his then-friend Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom) in the show, “I’ll see you on the other side of the war.” the