Competing for best picture are “The Father,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Mank,” “Minari,” “Nomadland,” “Promising Young Woman,” “Sound of Metal” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”
I didn’t really have any horses in the race, but I liked “News of the World” and “Da 5 Bloods” better than many of the nominees. The one thing that really surprised me was the nomination of Thomas Vinterberg as the Best Director, but I can’t really say it was unfair since I haven’t seen that movie and don’t intend to. (It doesn’t appeal to me: “Four friends, all high school teachers, test a theory that they will improve their lives by maintaining a constant level of alcohol in their blood.”) With that disclaimer, I think there are some who could have deserved a nomination in that category. Spike Lee, for example, did a great job in “Da 5 Bloods,” which is an ambitious and sweeping story with many complicated scenes.
… and I have never heard of any one of those movies.
I wonder if that was a COVID thing. It seems like we never heard of any movies this year, not just these. In a normal year we hear about the top box office performers every week, and there is always movie buzz, but in this past year, no film really had a theatrical debut. I found myself googling “likely Oscar nominees” in the past months to find movies that I, like you, had never previously heard of.
In a normal year, I just seem to gain that knowledge through cultural osmosis.
Yeah I think you’re right. There were no blockbuster hits this year, because they were all postponed. And likewise, we never got to sit through 15 minutes of previews before the movie started.
So this year’s Academy award winners should have an asterisk, like the NBA champions; they wouldn’t have won in any “normal” year.
According to Boxofficemojo, only five movies grossed over $100 million in 2020, led by Bad Boys For Life, which came out in January. The year before that, there were 29. Meanwhile, the combined box office take of all eight of this year’s Oscar nominees is less than $25 million.