The Oscars Latch On To An Historic Winner

Wow! So that happened. I still can't believe that not only did a foreign film finally win Best Picture, but the best film of the year won! In my opinion that hasn't happened since 2003, so it's been a while. Parasite is such an unusual film to win this award, regardless of language. It's a comic thriller about class warfare, not really a tone they've embraced before. I think it speaks to how much the Academy has grown and changed the last few years. A film like Green Book is still a threat because there is an old guard that hasn't been phased out, but as the Academy continues to evolve its membership there seems to be more opportunities for exciting and fresh films that wouldn't normally be considered Oscar movies to win.

The show itself was a bit bland for most of the runtime. I think last year they went into the show not knowing what to do about the lack of a host, but this year they seemed to have figured things out a bit better. It didn't feel quite as rudderless as last year, it just felt a bit paint by numbers. Most of the tech categories were presented with little to no showcase for the work being rewarded. When the Score category came up and actually had a live presentation of all the music I was ecstatic because they actually got to focus on the craft for a few minutes. But I guess they couldn't take time to show us what made up the nominees for Art Direction or Cinematography because they had to make time for Eminem to perform a song from 18 years ago.... I don't know what calculus the producers did to think that made any sort of sense but it happened and we are all the more confused for it.

The show finally picked up when Director was announced. The category seemed like such a foregone conclusion that when it went a different way I realized we might be in for an exciting final act to the show, which turned out to be the case. It would have been nice if one of the Acting awards went a different way but I can't really argue with most of those wins. Brad Pitt gave a lovely speech and even got a little emotional at the end, which I didn't expect. I'm really glad Joaquin Phoenix and Laura Dern have Oscars, even if I'd prefer it be fore different performances than these. Only Renee Zellweger was a poor choice (and that meandering speech did nothing to endear me to her).

So where do we go from here? I doubt we see a new trend in the Academy where the most original or exciting film wins each year, but I think it's more of an open conversation in the next few years as to what can win. Hopefully the films of the next few years present as many good options for a unique Best Picture winner as Parasite did.

Random Thoughts

• That opening song by Janelle Monae was kind of awful? I love her as an actress but the performance felt so out of sync with the Oscars. At least it prominently featured dancing Midsommar flower girls.
• I really liked the Acting montages they did for the four acting categories. It allowed them to feature a few different flavors of each performance instead of just one clip. I could be on-board with that being a new feature for a few years.
• Can we talk about a non-Oscar thing for a second? This is the third year in a row at least that we've gotten these commercials with the four directors (Scorsese, Bigelow, Inarritu, Cameron). Can we either stop these or get some new directors? Three of these directors haven't even made a film in years, maybe they should get working on a new film instead of doing these annually?
• I laughed so hard at Josh Gad's joke about "Idina Menzel, which is pronounced exactly like it sounds." That presentation by John Travolta from years ago will never not be funny to me.
• I wish David Lynch, who won the Honorary Oscar this year, could have been there to celebrate Laura Dern's win with her. But I'm sure he had no interest in showing up for a full ceremony.
• Which reminds me, they really didn't show us any clips from the Governor's Awards Ceremony. I would have liked to see clips of the four winners in the actual show. They also didn't mention the Science and Technical Awards that they do on a separate night. Did those even happen this year? They always show us at least a clip of those.
• The streak of non-blockbuster Best Pictures continues. They had to go out of their way this year to not reward a blockbuster, as five of the nominees were $100 million plus earners, and two of the remaining films were Netflix and could theoretically have been seen by tens of millions as well. But Parasite is an international hit, so there is that. Still, it has been since Argo that we got a general audience hit. Will that streak continue next year?

So yeah, the show itself was an average show with a stunning final act. I've seen 73 of the 92 Best Picture winners and Parasite may be the best film they've ever rewarded this award? Certainly top five. I can't expect them to reward my favorite film of the year every year (or even once a decade), so I will savor this win for a long time.