Are ‘The Oscars’ too neurotic to enjoy?
After a year like no other, we’re told to expect an edition of “The Oscars” (8 p.m. Sunday, ABC, TV-14) like none we’ve ever seen. Details are sketchy. There will be no host, but expect a batch of A-list presenters. Due to COVID, there will be no giant theater filled with stars and Oscar hopefuls. Producer Steven Soderbergh has promised that the Academy Awards will unfold “like a movie.”
But what kind of movie? The arty movie that Oscar tends to favor? Or the popcorn blockbuster that audiences (used to) go to see? Increasingly, people are wondering, just what is a movie anyway?
COVID has kept people out of the cinemas, but that only accelerated a trend toward streaming films at home. Netflix has this year’s most-nominated film, “Mank.” But it has been a force at the Oscars for years, with “The Irishman” and, before that, “Roma.”
COVID merely forced its studio rivals, Warner Bros. and Disney, to play Netflix’s game. Many were chagrined to see a Pixar film as ambitious as “Soul” unceremoniously dumped on the Disney+ schedule, like just another “High School Musical,” entry, or so much “content.”
But without streaming, would films like “Da 5 Bloods” or “The Trial of the Chicago 7” get released at all? A Hulu release elevated “Nomadland” from a mere arthouse favorite (like director Chloe Zhao’s previous film, “The Rider”) to something widely seen and talked about.
But how widely seen? Streaming services are still pretty cagey about numbers. Apparently, if you sit through the credits for a movie and abandon it after five minutes, you’re counted as a full-fledged “viewer.” That’s very different from buying a ticket.
That may account for a recent survey showing that fewer than 20% of people claim to have even heard of “Mank,” nominated for 10 Oscars.
Rather than a celebration, “The Oscars” has become a ritual of introspection and worry. Are movies still movies if people only stream them at home? Is Hollywood diverse enough? Are there enough women filmmakers? Can straight actors play gay characters? Must actors now only play characters of their own race? Can we still laugh at Woody Allen movies? Should we strip the Oscars from every film ever made by Harvey Weinstein? How about Scott Rudin? Why was Steve Guttenberg ever popular?
People seem to be chattering about everything but the last movie they saw and loved.
Not unlike the TV industry, the movie end of show business lurches from crisis to crisis until interrupted by a bona fide hit. The ratings for the Oscars are forever in freefall, until a really big movie arrives, like “Titanic” or “The Lord of the Rings,” to get everybody’s attention.
Heck, by the end of the 1960s, the studios were so broke they held auctions to sell their old sets and costumes. Then, in 1972, “The Godfather” (8 p.m. Saturday, Sho2) became the highest-grossing film in history. Followed in quick succession by “The Exorcist,” “Jaws” and then “Star Wars.”
You can probably judge somebody’s age by the year they think Hollywood started going downhill. (It’s 1980, by the way!) There’s a great book called “The Fifty-Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood.” Written by Ezra Goodman, it was published in 1961!
Historically, Hollywood’s “really big” movies were generated from really big books. 2020’s “Hillbilly Elegy” was based on a bestseller, but most agree that Ron Howard’s adaptation was less than scintillating. The fact that the book is considered controversial should not matter. It certainly never stopped “Gone With the Wind,” or “Peyton Place.”