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Forced to rethink the ceremony because of the
pandemic, and with a slate of diverse but mostly smaller films,
organizers are promising a show unlike anything seen in the
93-year history of the Academy Awards.
Staged for the first time in a working train station in downtown
Los Angeles, albeit a striking Art Deco building, Oscar
producers have been vague on details of the limited in-person
ceremony, which will be aired on ABC television.
But they say the tone will be optimistic and the show will act
as a love letter to the battered movie industry after a year of
theater closures and delays in releasing dozens of potential
blockbusters.
"We are here to make a case for why cinema matters," said Stacey
Sher, one of the trio of Oscars producers.
Netflix Inc's 1930s Hollywood drama "Mank" leads nominations
with 10 nods in a best picture list that includes 1960s
courtroom saga "The Trial of the Chicago 7," also from Netflix.
The other nominees are recession drama "Nomadland," revenge tale
"Promising Young Woman," immigrant family story "Minari," civil
rights biopic "Judas and the Black Messiah," dementia tale "The
Father," and "Sound of Metal," about a deaf drummer. [L1N2ME2DB]
The winners are chosen by the 9,000 members of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"This year, these movies are not well known, but oddly enough
are more accessible than ever before when they are on all the
streaming platforms. Nevertheless, there are lot of downer
topics (and) many of them are smaller films, slower films," said
Pete Hammond, chief film critic for Deadline Hollywood.
The TV audience on Sunday is expected to fall sharply, in line
with other scaled-down award shows during the pandemic. Those
largely virtual affairs saw viewership plummet by as much as
60%.
YEAR OF DIVERSITY
Even with a small red carpet event on Sunday, organizers face a
challenge in striking the right balance between escapism and the
pain inflicted by the coronavirus.
"The reason why we watch these enormous, bloated affairs is for
the promise of the electricity of a live event, of everyone
being in the same room, and those last vestiges of spontaneity
and glamour," said Alison Willmore, film critic at New York
magazine.
While Netflix clinched a leading 35 nominations, awards watchers
say it may again end up seeing the top prize - best picture -
slip away.
"Netflix has the volume but in the end it can't win that big
one, and it seems to be the way it's going with the Oscars
again," said Hammond.
"Nomadland," the Searchlight Pictures film about the American
van-dwelling community, has picked up most of the big awards
leading up to the Oscars.
"'Nomadland' feels like a film that offers both incredibly
beautiful sweeping landscapes and a cinematic language that
recalls Westerns, while at the same time being grounded in
pressing ideas about the lack of a social safety net, labor,
aging, and the fragmenting of the social fabric," said Willmore.
Hollywood's drive for diversity over the past five years could
reap rewards.
The best director field for the first time includes two women -
Chloe Zhao for "Nomadland" and Emerald Fennell for "Promising
Young Woman" - who were among a record 76 women to be nominated
for Oscars this year.
Nine of the 20 acting nominees - including front-runners
Chadwick Boseman, Daniel Kaluuya and Youn Yuh-jung - are people
of color.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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