It’s probably for the best that the release of Dune Part 2 has been pushed back until March of next year. I mean, if you had a major blockbuster like that starring Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet would you want it to premiere without stars doing publicity? The move also means Barbie will likely dominate the crafts with less competition from friendly fire. That is, with the exception of Visual Effects, which might have been Dune 2’s to lose. The thing is, though, Oppenheimer’s visual effects will likely win, considering they’re practical and astonishing.

This video by William H. Baker is almost as thrilling as the film itself:

There is nothing wrong with CGI, particularly, but come on. Practical effects for the win. The voters must be made aware of how exceptional the work is — they can’t just lazy-vote this category on the basis of “that looks neat!” They have to be TOLD what a big deal all of this is. If the Oscar team do that, Oppie should sail through this category for the win.

Peter Bart asks a provocative question:

Desperate Times Often Led To Groundbreaking Movies – Will They Do So Again?

Bart writes:

Filmmakers like to point to the early ‘70s as a springboard of innovation. Those of us who lived through that period remember that its one overriding mood was desperation: The system was broken. Major studios had run out of money. Top stars had lost their cushy deals and indie producers their funding.

The upshot: Both studios and filmmakers had to think outside the box because the box was broken. An underfinanced non-studio called United Artists took a chance on a British director (John Schlesinger) who had no knowledge of the U.S. to make an X-rated, plotless, mis-titled Midnight Cowboy – and hit paydirt.

And:

A report from the Writers Guild this week argues that the present structure of the entertainment industry is one of shared despair. Hollywood is failing both its employees and its audiences.

Here’s the problem. Hollywood in the 1970s was working through a major political transition. The malaise felt under Jimmy Carter was profound. The Vietnam War, Watergate, and a loss of general purpose for the revolutionaries of the 1960s meant that so many of them tripped out, tuned out, and went to “find themselves” in cults and other movements. Eventually, all of this would lead to Ronald Reagan and the 1980s, when things would change dramatically.

The reason movies were so great in the 1970s was the fracture or divorce between politics and culture. They had been more or less united in the 1950s with Eisenhower and Conservativism. Then, once again, they united during JFK’s time in office. But after Nixon took power, concurrent with the counter-culture revolution, you began to see a split — the Left went one way and the Right took government. This “divorce” lasted until 2008 when government/politics and culture once again formed a happy union.

The Left, or the Democrats, under Barack Obama, became a united whole. There can’t be any kind of subversive art as we saw in the 1970s. There can’t be storytelling that reflects or criticizes the powerful because the Left ARE the powerful. All of their anxieties and fears as depicted in stories now — and for the immediate future — will have to be focused on the counter-culture rising on the Right.

Barbie’s success is remarkable, as is Oppenheimer’s. But did you ever think Sound of Freedom would top Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? From Box Office Mojo:

What you’ll see in the comments here is what I’ve been seeing on Twitter — attempts to explain what they can’t possibly understand, the success of a movie like this. Many “theories” are offered about buying out theaters, motivating ticket buyers, etc. They can’t stand it that people who have zero cultural representation get a win. They just can’t.

The same thing happened when an independent folk singer named Oliver Anthony wrote and performed a song that shot to the top of the charts, and has 40 million views in two weeks:

It contains one line about welfare that has gotten everyone’s hackles up. No one wants to see welfare recipients blamed for the problems in small town America. It isn’t their fault. It’s the fault of the oligarchs at the top. For their part, the Democrats have now become the party of that wealth gap — the very top and the very bottom. They’ve mostly abandoned those in the middle. Hollywood mostly plays to university-educated sophisticates in New York and LA. And they too have abandoned the middle.

Anthony was trashed repeatedly by the Left, and then later, the Right went after him for daring to say in a video that America’s diversity is our strength. But he would be worthless as an artist if he believed one thing and sold one message, or worse, obeyed some Ordnung that says what people can and can’t write about.

Woody Guthrie inspired a young musician out of Hibbing, Minnesota named Bob Dylan. He fashioned himself after Guthrie as he made a name for himself. In 1963, Bob Dylan was singing about the common man, as Oliver Anthony is doing now. Just him and his guitar at the Newport Jazz fest:

By 1965, things in America were starting to explode. With the assassination of JFK, the oppressive war – artists had no choice but to explode outwardly to express the angst of their time. The counter-culture revolution was powering up. Five days before the Newport Jazz festival, Bob Dylan released a plugged song called Like a Rolling Stone. Gone was the acoustic guitar and in its place an ELECTRIC one. When he next played the Newport Jazz Festival you can hear the boos from his faithful fans who could not and did not accept this new Bob Dylan.

But he was singing one of the greatest rock songs ever written. As the Beatles were making landfall, this moment would also change history:

Dylan would not be Dylan had he stagnated, had he listened to his fans and never gone electric. If he’d continued to strum his acoustic guitar singing about the common man. He had to evolve. He had to change. He had to challenge the rules imposed upon him. I might not like Oliver Anthony’s one line about welfare, but his song resonates powerfully in all other ways, especially when he sings about living in a new world with an old soul.

His new song is even more beautiful. 3.2 million views in 2 days:

Videos are being made about people watching his video — all kinds of people from all walks of life:

Not to be outdone, the parodies began — the “rich men” answer back:

This is a whole layer of American life that is running on a parallel track that Hollywood all but ignores.

Peter Bart is right in that desperate times often lead to groundbreaking movies. But he’s probably wrong to expect that those groundbreaking movies will come from a Hollywood united with the Democratic Party. This year there is a movie headed into the Oscar race executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama. Can you think of another time in history when a former president had that much influence over government and politics and culture to the same extent? You can imagine Kennedy might have had he lived long enough. But being that aligned with the Democratic Party has crippled Hollywood in a way that prevents them from evolving.

Killers of the Flower Moon is very much a film that sits in exactly the right place for the modern-day Left – it confirms how vicious and malicious so many white people were to Native Americans in this country as recently as 100 years ago. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer pushes back somewhat against the kind of authoritarianism we see on the rise — thought policing, censorship, expanded political powers, and witch-hunt-like paranoia. It isn’t that it’s only on the Left, it’s just that the Left has all of the power and they’re using it to their full advantage, which has choked the life out of art.

There will be other movies this year that, I think, will stand out for either their neutral or their subversive stance. I imagine this will be true of David Fincher’s The Killer. I hope it’s true about Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. Films made in other countries aren’t constrained by the same adherence to a specific ideology, which is probably one of the reasons Anatomy of a Fall is so good. But so many filmmakers now attend the same garden parties as politicians. That means they are never going to be allowed to step outside the box.

Considering that we now have ten Best Picture slots, one might hope to expect that we would get an exciting variety of all different kinds of movies. Take, for instance, the top twenty lineup of box office champs in 1973:

The Exorcist
The Sting
American Graffiti
Papillon
The Way We Were
Magnum Force
Live and Let Die
Robin Hood
Paper Moon
Serpico
Jesus Christ Superstar
The World’s Greatest Athlete
Enter the Dragon
Sleeper
A Touch of Class
The Day of the Jackal
High Plains Drifter
The Last Detail
Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

And these were the five Best Picture nominees:

The Sting+
American Graffiti
Cries and Whispers
The Exorcist
A Touch of Class

It was most definitely an interesting array of films. But audiences mattered because box office mattered. That was the best way to measure success. Having film critics and Oscar voters measure success only works if they aren’t insulated from the rest of life on the outside, which is where we find ourselves today.

On the other hand, there stands Barbenheimer to prove me wrong. Two films that popped unexpectedly and created a cultural phenoms unto themselves that everyone felt excited about participating in. Just in time for the crippling strike.

Onward to Predictions!

Here are Erik Anderson’s latest Best Picture predictions:

1. Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures) (-)
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures) (-)
3. The Zone of Interest (A24) (▲)
4. Maestro (Netflix) (▲)
5. Barbie (Warner Bros) (▲)
6. Anatomy of a Fall (NEON) (▲)
7. The Holdovers (Focus Features) (-)
8. The Color Purple (Warner Bros) (▼)
9. Saltburn (Amazon Studios) (▲)
10.  May December (Netflix) (▲)

And here are Gold Derby’s combined predictions and odds:

Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Past Lives
Barbie
The Color Purple
The Holdovers
Maestro
The Zone of Interest
Anatomy of a Fall
Saltburn

And here are mine for this week:

Best Picture

In bold are films written or co-written by their directors:
Barbie (directed by Greta Gerwig, and co-written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach)
Oppenheimer (written and directed by Christopher Nolan)
Killers of the Flower Moon (directed by Martin Scorsese, co-written by Scorsese and Eric Roth)
The Killer (directed by David Fincher, written by Andrew Kevin Walker)
Past Lives (written and directed by Celine Song)
The Holdovers (directed by Alexander Payne, written by David Hemingson)
Poor Things (directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, written by Tony McNamara)
The Color Purple (directed by Blitz Bazawule, written by Marcus Gardley)
Rustin (directed by George C. Wolfe, written by Dustin Lance Black and Julian Breece)
Anatomy of a Fall (directed by Justine Triet, written by Arthur Harari, Justine Triet)

Also keeping my eye on: Napoleon, Next Goal Wins, The Boys in the Boat, Zone of Interest, Napoleon, The Bikeriders, Ferrari, Saltburn, Maestro, Rustin, Anatomy of a Fall

Best Director
Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
David Fincher, The Killer
Celine Song, Past Lives

Keeping an eye on: Alexander Payne, The Holdovers; Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall; Taika Waititi, Next Goal Wins; Blitz Bazawule, The Color Purple; George Clooney, The Boys in the Boat; Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things; Alexander Payne, The Holdovers; Sofia Coppola, Priscilla; Ridley Scott, Napoleon; Michael Mann, Ferrari

Best Actor
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Alts: Michael Fassbender, The Killer; Joaquin Phoenix, Napoleon; Adam Driver, Ferrari

Best Actress
Annette Bening, Nyad
Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall
Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Helen Mirren, Golda
Alts: Greta Lee, Past Lives; Emma Stone, Poor Things; Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey into Night; Helen Mirren, Golda

Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers
John Magaro, Past Lives

Supporting Actress
America Ferrera, Barbie
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Tilda Swinton, The Killer
Alts: Jodie Foster, Nyad; Taraji P. Henson, The Color Purple; Vanessa Kirby, Napoleon

Original Screenplay
Past Lives
Rustin
The Holdovers
Saltburn
Air

Adapted Screenplay
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Poor Things

Editing
Oppenheimer
The Killer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Barbie
Zone of Interest

Cinematography
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Saltburn

Sound
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Napoleon
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
The Color Purple

Production Design
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Napoleon
Saltburn
Priscilla

Costume Design
Barbie
Wonka
Oppenheimer
Napoleon
Priscilla

Visual Effects
Oppenheimer
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
Napoleon
Wonka
Poor Things

Original Score
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
The Killer
Dune: Part Two
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

That was all she wrote. Have a great weekend.