The Oscars Were Weird

My Thoughts on the 2021 Academy Awards...

The Oscars this year were strange for quite a few reasons. The disruption of usual release schedules last year limited the number of films eligible for awards. The COVID pandemic and the related restrictions affected the Oscars ceremony. The event and broadcast itself were produced by Steven Soderbergh who made some interesting production decisions.

Some of Soderbergh’s choices I really liked, the way things looked was great, the way the event flowed generally was better, there were no irrelevant musical performances, fewer lame attempts at comedic segments, and information in the even that actually highlighted some interesting information about the craft behind the films featured. Some of the choices weren’t great, like the decision to move the Best Picture award before the Best Acting awards, which ended up creating an anti-climactic ending, but I wasn’t nearly as upset about this as some people were. (You can’t take these things too seriously guys).

But what about the actual winners? I think it’s going to be difficult to structure everything I want to say, so let’s just…

Assorted Thoughts Relating to the 2021 Academy Awards:

• I was quite satisfied with most of the nominees and wins this year. Even if my favorite in a category didn’t win a given award, I think all the winners were pretty deserving with the possible exception of Promising Young Woman taking home Best Original Screenplay. I enjoyed that film but didn’t think the screenplay was where it excelled. I most likely would have given the award to Minari or Sound of Metal.

• And also I would have given Best Cinematography to Judas and The Black Messiah over Mank. Sean Bobbit killed it in Judas, and my gripe with Mank is that the cinematography looked digital. In a film where so many details are carefully crafted to imitate the period right down to reel-change markers, you can’t have your image looking like it came out of a RED camera.

• Every year people were confused about the difference between Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. The Oscars finally solved this by combining the two categories into “Achievement in Sound” and Sound of Metal took home a well-deserving win. If you want some insight into what is so great about the sound in that film I made a video about it with professional sound editor Alex Knickerbocker.

• Soul won Best Original Score and it’s well deserved. (I’m listening to it right now). The fusion of original Jazz -which is integral to the actual story (not just practically since it’s a story about a Jazz musician but also thematically, since it’s a story about finding beauty in the chaotic reality of life on earth)- and the electronic soundscape that helps illustrate the visual ambiance of “The Great Before” is masterfully done.

• Tenet takes home Best Visual Effects and it’s not undeserved but I can’t help but think that every other big-budget film that would have possibly given it a run for its money was delayed until 2021. (My gut tells me Dune might have won had it been released.)

• This is a big one: Sound of Metal took home Best Editing! This was my pick as the deserving winner in my video about all the Best Editing Nominees. Some people were saying on Twitter that I accurately predicted the winner, and I’m going to out myself here and say that this is technically not accurate. I didn’t mention it in my video but I was sure that The Trial of The Chicago 7 was going to win even though Sound of Metal is what I wanted to win. The Academy voters usually pick the film that has bold, flashy, noticeable editing and overlook films like Sound of Metal that have more subtly powerful editing. But I was wrong, and I’m glad I was! Maybe they’re learning.

• Yuh-Jung Youn’s acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in Minari was my favorite speech of the night. Do yourself a favor and watch it. I love that popular film culture is developing a stronger relationship with Korean and Korean-American Cinema.

• I haven’t had the chance to watch any of the other Best International Feature nominees yet, but I was happy to see Another Round take the win. I enjoyed Another Round as much or more than a lot of the Best Picture Nominees this year and wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone!

• Finally, Chloe Zhao took home Best Director for Nomadland. While there are other directors who were nominated whose work might have been more refined and technically a more “perfected” display of craft, I was most excited by what Zhao was doing on-screen stylistically. I made a video talking about her connection to the work of Terrence Malick, and why she deserved the win. Possibly unfortunately she’s slated to do a Marvel film next, but I’m extremely excited to see what she does in the years to come and I think her best work is still ahead of her.

That’s all I have to say! I find the Oscars themselves a little annoying at times. People often take them too seriously. They often overlook the best work in a given year, and are more about marketing and celebrating celebrity culture than anything else. But they’re also great excuse to talk about films that aren’t the usual blockbuster hits, and the artists who work on those films, so I’m up for that any time. If you want a more in-depth exploration of some of these films I’ve made a playlist of all the recent videos on my channel that touch on films featured in this year’s Oscars.

I hope you’re all doing well. Have a wonderful day. I’ll catch you later.
-TF