5 things on post- Oscar wish list
It’s fashionable to slam the irrelevance of the Academy Awards. But if getting nominated for or winning an Oscar opens up more opportunities for the people who make the short list, here are five things I’d love to see come out of this year’s awards.
1. For Mahershala Ali to star in a romantic comedy: It’s always a joy to see someone who is tremendously talented have a year in which everything seems to come together for him. Ali would have had such a year even if he hadn’t picked up a richly deserved Academy Award for his turn as Juan, a compassionate drug dealer who tries to protect a vulnerable, neglected child in Moonlight.
I adored Ali in Moonlight, and goodness knows pop culture could use more depictions of black men, specifically black fathers, that explode categories and shove aside stereotypes in this same way.
But you know what we could also use, that would serve some of the same ends? The return of the romantic comedy. Hidden Figures never picked up Oscar buzz on the same frequency that Moonlight did, but watching Ali flirt with Taraji P. Henson’s NASA mathematician in that film was one of the purest pleasures I had at the movies last year.
Oscars shouldn’t be millstones. I want Ali to have every substantive part he wants in years to come, but he’d also do a tremendous job revitalizing the romantic comedy, starring opposite Henson, or Gabrielle Union, or Kathryn Hahn, or pretty much anyone. Maybe Barry Jenkins, whose low- key romance Medicine for Melancholy deserves a second look, could team up with Ali again.
2. For Taylor Sheridan to write another movie about absolutely anything: I get an exuberant crush on a movie ever year, and in 2016, it was Hell or High Water, David Mackenzie’s Western noir, which had a fantastic, funny script by Taylor Sheridan, who recast the cowboysand- Indians conflicts of the genre in an entirely fresh way. Sheridan was nominated for best original screenplay, Jeff Bridges was nominated for best supporting actor and the film was nominated for best picture. Neither he, Bridges nor the movie won, and while an Oscar nomination isn’t the same thing as a win, I hope at least making it onto the list of finalists will give Sheridan some richly deserved attention.
3. For Janelle Monae to get to star in pretty much anything: In 2007, when Monae released her album Metropolis: Suite I ( The Chase), it felt like she had arrived fullyformed as an artist, from the lush pop orchestrations that sounded liberated from any passing trend, to the android character Cindi Mayweather she played in “Many Moons,” one of the most memorable music videos of the last decade, to the tuxedos she supported like a uniform and her reasons for wearing them. In 2016, she did the same thing in another genre, showing up in Moonlight and Hidden Figures with what felt like a full range of acting skills, without the schtick or overstatement that might have characterized a less- experienced actor tackling two breakout supporting roles in the same year. I want to see Monae do absolutely anything.
4. For Damien Chazelle to make a movie that doesn’t involve jazz: I do not share the enmity that a lot of folks seem to feel for Chazelle, who at 32 is the youngest person to win the Academy Award for best director, or for his movie La La Land. One of the objections to him seems to be that he’s a white guy who makes movies about white guys who like jazz. If it would make it easier for us to see Chazelle’s ability to create distinctive original characters and to mine drama from the question of what it means to pursue artistic excellence, so maybe he could make a movie that doesn’t involve jazz at all?
5. For Lin- Manuel Miranda to make an original live- action movie musical: If La La Land means musicals are back, wouldn’t it be nice to get a live- action musical from Miranda that isn’t just an adaptation of his wonderful Broadway shows In The Heights or Hamilton? ( The former is in development as a feature film, although Miranda will not be playing the role he created and originated, and an adaptation of the latter seems inevitable.) Both of those shows are beautifully staged for the stage, so I’d love to see what Miranda does when he’s creating something that’s specifically for the screen.