Oscars 2023: Only Academy Voters Can Save the Oscars

As we wrap up the final hours of voting on the nominations ballot, the Oscar race almost seems like it’s over before it’s even begun. We don’t know the outcome for a fact but we can feel the wheels in motion. Whatever movie wins this year is going to decide the fate of the Oscars. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any one movie can save the Oscars from declining ratings, not even Top Gun Maverick. Millions of people are mostly done with the film industry and especially film awards. The main reason is clear to anyone not in the bubble of online coverage — politics. Politics ruined the Oscars and other live television events.

I could spend a few paragraphs on this but rather than do that I’d like to take these remaining moments to look at what the Best Picture race might look like if there were only five Best Picture nominees and whether that would change how we see this year or any year going forward.

The reason the Academy expanded the Best Picture slate was an effort make room for genre movies, popular movies. The motivation shifted as we moved through the Great Reckoning or the Great Awokening, however you want to look at it. and suddenly it seemed to become more about how having ten nominees would allow the Academy to include more films directed by women, and directed by non-white film directors. Somehow in the midst of all of that, they lost their audience. They lost the public.

Having ten Best Picture nominees has definitely muddied the waters insofar as Best Picture should be the big bang of the night, celebrating a great and grand success, a film that unequivocally reigns supreme.  But we’ve gotten very far away from that. The Academy has sadly become insulated and isolated from the general public. Their answer to this, their solution for survival is to abandon much of what they once were and abandon their pivotal place in American culture. Not deliberately. It was a long, slow slide.

When I look at where things were when I started, I consider how it felt when Gladiator won Best Picture compared to now. Not only did everyone know about Gladiator but when it won Best Picture everyone experienced it. It was a cultural event, not just a game of chess. It was a weird year, of course, because Gladiator didn’t win Screenplay or Director. It was a year split in many different directions.

We are moving through a massive generational shift. The boomers are on their way out as the dominant generation and the millennials are on their way in as the dominant generation. We’re drifting in between worlds, a little like the characters in Everything, Everywhere All At Once. That movie kind of describes exactly where we are in time. One foot in the old world, one foot in the multiverse. There is no doubt that the internet has changed how we live, how we define ourselves, how we watch “content,” how we deconstruct movies. We are also living through a time when everyone can be the star of their own narrative online with their avatars on Instagram or Twitter or TikTok.

Just to show how everything is connected, Michelle Yeoh starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which almost won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2000. Here she is, back again, 23 years later with a film just as inventive and original as that one. Ke Huy Quan started out in Temple of Doom as a kid and now might win an Oscar the same night as his mentor Steven Spielberg, not to mention having starred in Encino Man with Brendan Fraser.

In some ways, our culture — maybe our species — has found a new way to create our storytelling online, within ourselves, such that we don’t need studios and film crews to try to make stories we’re supposed to be interested in. Things are changing dramatically. And permanently. To that end, we can say if Everything Everywhere All at Once is our winner and that is that, it seems to be a fitting end at the kind of moment we’re living through.

It definitely speaks for a portion of our culture that still is invested in film awards.  Still, there is no way to say this film would not be a strong contender even if there were only five nominees. But what other films fit the bill as best of the year and why?

The Fabelmans – When one of the greatest directors of all time makes a film about his life it means something. Spielberg himself has contributed so much to the film industry that even if some of his efforts are not massive hits (not many of those anymore), he always gives back more than he takes. He always has the audience in mind when he makes a movie, to make sure they get their money’s worth. The Fabelmans is a coda to the Spielberg canon.  Spielberg is such a great director it’s easy to overlook what a treasure trove his glance backwards at his own life encapsulates.

If you’re a fan of his, as I am, you recognize the bursts creativity that are seeds of his other movies being planted in this one. It isn’t just about his family. It’s about him – his vision, his imagination. It’s all there. Saving Private Ryan is there. Jaws is there. Schindler’s List is there. E.T. is there. Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I watched the Fabelmans with a smile on my face the entire time. I didn’t know where Spielberg got his unique combination of traits that made him who he is, but he shows us how discipline + artistic vision + a John Ford lesson in composition are part of the equation. It also represents the mighty studio system, our homegrown industry that Damien Chazelle celebrates in Babylon. The Oscars are still representative of that system. It’s an easy call saying it’s one of the best of the year.

If Spielberg wins Best Director he becomes one of only three other people who have won more than two: tying him with Frank Capra and William Wyler at three, topped only by John Ford, with four.  It has been one of the greatest gifts of my life that I’ve been able to grow up with Steven Spielberg movies.

Top Gun Maverick –  In ten years time, no one is going to remember the movies that came out this year but they will remember this one. They’ll remember it forever. Everyone has heard of it and almost everyone has seen it and liked it:

If this isn’t named as one of the best films of 2022, the Academy Awards should just call it quits. Stick a fork in it. At its best, when it’s firing on all cylinders, the Hollywood studio system can do what no other film industry in the world can do: make a perfect film on a grand scale. Effortlessly entertaining, full of humor and sentimentality, a nudge and a wink at the past – it’s the rare film that was made for everybody. The industry and the Academy could do a lot worse than choosing this film to represent them in 2023.  It isn’t just about the money. It’s about reality. It’s about what movies can still do if they understand their audience. Alpha male, hero’s journey, gets the girl, happy ending. There ain’t nothing wrong with any of that. Give the people what they want and the people will come.

The Banshees of Inisherin –  There isn’t better writing in any movie this year than this one. Most directors can’t really write. Most writers can’t really direct. But Martin McDonagh can do both. He is especially great as a writer. His brilliance as a director comes from his background in theater, working with actors specifically. He wrote a script that is all about rhythm and timing. Every word matters. Every beat matters. Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s sad. You never know what is going to happen next.

The conflict at the core of the film is this: what makes our lives valuable? How we treat each other, and other living things, or what we leave behind? In its own way, Banshees is kind of the flipside of Todd Field’s TAR. It is also a rumination on whether we judge artists by their creations or their behavior. Niceness doesn’t last, Brendan Gleeson tells Colin Farrell. Only great music, art or poetry.  But that’s not the message we come away with. We want niceness by the end. We want good things to happen to the characters we’ve come to care about. It’s a perfect film, easily one of the top five of the year.

Avatar the Way of Water – As with Spielberg, it’s easy to overlook or take for granted the accomplishments of Jim Cameron. I want to slap my forehead every time I see a dumb tweet about Avatar. It makes me want to go full Ted Knight on them.

I couldn’t believe my eyes watching Avatar The Way of Water. Is it a perfect movie, script wise? Are there things you might have liked better here or there? Sure. But no one can do what Jim Cameron can do. No one would even try. A fully immersive cinematic experience in 3-D all coming from the imagination and vision of a groundbreaking director. I said that the only movie people will remember from this year is Top Gun Maverick, but Avatar is another one. Attention must be paid to films with this kind of scope, ambition, and reach. Theaters will continue to exist solely because of movies like Avatar. This is the future, whether you like it or not. Sure, Everything, Everywhere All at Once brought people out to the theaters to the tune of $70 million, which is especially impressive considering its modest budget, but it’s also a movie that could be made for streaming, no problem. Avatar isn’t. Avatar doesn’t exist unless movie theaters exist.

These are the films that would likely be the top five, even though Jim Cameron did not get a DGA nomination. But the DGA nominations tell us what might take the place of one of these other films and that’s Todd Field’s TAR. Believe it or not, this film has had cultural impact that has found its way outside the bubble. That’s because it’s the first movie to deal with “cancel culture” in any kind of critical way. It is a film about someone not seeing what’s about to hit them. Here, Cate Blanchett is arrogant enough to think she’s still living in a world where she can say and do whatever she wants and her stature and genius will carry her through.

Not so! Not anymore, as we’ve all lived through. No one is safe from the accusatory finger of the Elect. In Salem Village, the same was true. The higher profile the takedown, the more power bestowed upon the accusers. While I don’t think TAR is necessarily a condemnation of them, doesn’t it speak to 2023? It is yet another film of the year.

All Quiet on the Western Front – I was surprised at how good this film was when I first watched it. In a different kind of year it would tower above the competition. Coming so soon after 1917 probably hurt the movie in terms of its WWI material. The eeriness of the film foreshadows WW2, which is what I loved about it. I still don’t think we’re finished telling the story of these two world wars, especially as we’re likely to head into a third one. These films are all somehow connected in strange ways. The Banshees of Inisherin helps suggest the futility of why we fight wars at all. All Quiet on the Western Front shows how our planet’s civilization was forever changed by the first big one. We should never lose touch with the horror of that kind of carnage. We do forget. It’s a masterpiece of filmmaking, writing, directing and acting. Here’s hoping it gets into the race.

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis has a strong central male performance in Austin Butler, and is no doubt going to come in as one of the nomination leaders. Lurhmann’s movies are whole universes of costume and cinematography and magical realism throughout.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – A film that made over $400 million at the box office, with a strong Black cast featuring substantial roles for women, written and directed by Ryan Coogler — all this can be seen as the fruit of the labor of activists advocating for change in Hollywood. Yes, it’s a sequel. Yes, it’s a superhero movie. But it is well-liked, well-made, and another fine example of the best that the American studio system made in 2022.

That leaves just one open slot remaining to fill. That’s likely to go to:

Women Talking – which would be the only film directed by a woman to get in. It missed a nomination by the Producers Guild but that doesn’t mean, with its strong cast, and all-female production team, that it won’t get in for the Oscars. Sarah Polley is likely getting in for Adapted Screenplay. In their efforts to change Hollywood, it has taken a village to hire more women behind the screen and in front of it. It would be, for those who have worked so hard for these advancements, a sign that there has been no progress made if this film fails to get in.

Had the critics rallied more in unison around Women Talking, it would have probably had the kind of necessary support to be a stronger contender. But many of them went for Aftersun instead, putting their full weight behind a worthy rival, as they sometimes do. Might this get in as the “Drive My Car” slot? Maybe. For the Academy’s sake, I hope they pick one film directed by a woman.

It’s interesting that the same year of the Me Too trials reached verdicts that there were three films about the Me Too era, two of them directed by women. Feels all the more odd that, in the final act, it might be hard for either of them to be nominated. But this is also part f the reason why the Oscars are in the mess they’re in. It’s impossible to satisfy everyone and still have a successful film industry or exciting Oscar race. Either way, it’s all over but the shouting.