Oscars 2022: Do We Really Care?

Oscars 2022

 

 

 

This is the time of the year in which fellow movie fans ask me what I thought of the Oscars. Answer: I didn’t think about them and wasn’t tempted to watch. I’m only surprised when Oscars go to the right people because Oscars are mostly about Hollywood. Its exalted view of itself notwithstanding, Hollywood simply doesn’t matter anymore unless your idea of a good movie is a trip to the mall to sit in soda-splattered stickiness with a 100-decibel soundtrack pounding in your ears.

 

Everything I know about the Oscars came from my morning news feed. There is no point in watching hours of gushing over movies we’ve never seen and probably never will. I have no opinion about Best Documentary, Short Film, or Short Subject. Didn’t see any of them. I didn’t even see the animation this year. Were I redoing the Oscars, these awards would go with the clips of the technical awards that are shown as a two-minute highlight reel. Add the Best Original Song to that too. Please! There’s only so much schmaltz the human soul can endure.

 

I couldn’t care less about Hollywood’s self-proclaimed celebrities cavorting on the red carpet. The men all look like maître-des at cheesy restaurants and the women wear gravity-defying dresses that suggest a busload of Vegas showgirls took a wrong turn. No one wears this stuff in real life, nor could they; it would require a fortune in double-sided tape, wire, and polyester. Not to mention a bail bondsman to cover the public obscenity charges.

 

I only saw a clip, but does anyone else smell “stunt” regarding the Will Smith slap of Chris Rock? If it’s not a stunt, Chris Rock ought to be talking to lawyers.

 

Let me skip to the awards people do care about. I’ll start by saying that I thought CODA was a sweet and enjoyable film. Still, it is not the Best Picture. It’s not the joke Rocky was back in 1977 when it defeated Network and Taxi Driver, but there is an analogy. Is Rocky taught in film classes? Of course not! Is Taxi Driver? If not, drop that class, kiddos, because the prof is off the rails. Don’t think for a second that Martin Scorsese’s 2007 Best Director award for The Departed is because it really was his best effort. He won because in retrospect he was jobbed when he didn’t win for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, or The Last Temptation of Christ. 

 

This brings me to this year’s outrage. I don’t care who thinks it was too long or off-putting, The Power of the Dog is so superior to any other film that it’s hard to imagine Academy members have a collective brain between them. I do not exaggerate when I say it’s a contender for the best film of the 21^st century thus far. Why didn’t it win? Well New Zealand director Jane Campion did, but her film also uncomfortably challenged American mythology about cowboy culture, a phenomenon in which Americans believe though most of it never happened.

 

Since I’m on my bucking high bronco, how can anyone take the Oscars seriously when a film like The Power of the Dog wins one award and Dune wins five and The Eyes of Tammy Faye wins two? Dune isn’t awful, but it’s not very good either; The Eyes of Tammy Faye is, however, as trashy as its subjects, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. I think Jessica Chastain is a decent actress, but to give her a statue for this is like saying “Nice shoes!” to Bozo the Clown.

 

Now for the flat-out dumb. Dune for cinematography? That’s risible. Visual Effects, sure, but you can take any 30-seconds of The Power of the Dog and it’s more majestic and artistic than all of Dune. All Ari Wegner did in Power of the Dog is make you think New Zealand’s South Island is Montana in 1925. Gaze upon the fading wooden mansion with the hills and mountains of Otago as a backdrop and tell me Dune had better cinematography. I know good therapists. You can be helped.

 

Let me flame Dune one more time. I thought we were done with overblown Star Wars-like scores. John Williams has apparently passed his histrionic baton to Hans Zimmer. A great score enhances a film by setting moods unobtrusively; if you notice the score, it’s inappropriate. You often only appreciate quality work in retrospect, not because your ears hurt as you watch. Jonny Greenwood should have won for Power of the Dog.

 

If you’re wondering if anything met with my approval, the answer is yes. Jane Campion absolutely deserved to win, though I still think Best Director and Best Picture should be one award. (Does a Best Picture direct itself?) Tony Kotsur was terrific in CODA and I was delighted he won in what will likely be the role of a lifetime. Carpe diem, Tony! I’m okay with a Visual Effects win for Dune, which is all it should have gotten. Kenneth Branagh was deserving of Best Original Screenplay for Belfast.

 

The rest? I can’t say much. I’ve not yet seen West Side Story, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, or Drive My Car, which are on my list. Not much of the rest holds any interest. I saw The Lost Daughter and found it creepy in a bad way; Parallel Mothers? Almodóvar is Spanish for Woody Allen.

 

Rob Weir