It’s Award Season! Really?

We’re already right in the middle of it! Not that you’d know it. No glamour, no red carpet and certainly no Ricky Gervais embarrassing the heck out of Hollywood’s greatest. Yes, the Golden Globes have come and gone, without celebrities, without an audience and without being broadcast on live TV. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association used the pandemic to justify the more than quiet non-event, when it was actually the whole film industry boycotting the HFPA for reasons of diversity and ethics.

You know what? I’m sure celebrities didn’t have to be asked twice to boycott this year’s Globes. Having gotten slightly lazy and out of practice regarding large public events, it was probably more like: “Yup! I’m in! Let’s not go!” I bet most were THRILLED to be able to stay home and wait for the Oscars to come around. In case of an Oscar nomination (to be announced on Feb. 8^th), there will still be more than enough time for all necessary preparations, because: the ceremony isn’t until March 27^th, giving everyone an unprecedented MORE THAN SIX WEEKS to get into shape, schedule fittings and start practicing responses to stupid questions!

If my theory is correct, then all those movie stars who, at the flick of a switch, go into raptures over how they just love each other, how everybody’s “so great”, “just the best there is”, “so inspiring” and so on ACTUALLY don’t really get along all that well! Come on, there has to be more competition and back-stabbing than they’d ever admit to, don’t you think? Some are just that tad more popular and talented and seem to always get first dibs on the best roles! Actors are also constantly rhapsodising about the tremendous genius of their directors while directors are always “so blessed to be able to work with the best of the best”. Do you believe that big-happy-movie-family story? I don’t. Awards ceremonies must feel a bit like a class reunion – everybody does their own thing all year and then they’re thrown into the same room together and are forced to interact, present their best selves and exchange stories and boasts. Ever so stressful. The difference to a normal class reunion being the cameras and the whole world watching. Well, not this year.

While we, the audience, are waiting for what’s announced to be a “normal” Oscar night with a host yet unknown, there’s more than enough time to catch up on all those strong award contenders, a good part of which went straight to streaming, so no need to get up from that couch! Oh, how our movie watching habits have changed during the past two years! Most of the films we stream at home would be so much better on the big screen, but given the option of cheaper, more comfortable viewing without standing in line for overpriced snacks and then having to sit next to loud chewers, crunchers, slurpers, talkers and phone users, our own four walls seem rather attractive. AND: we’re just generally a lazy lot. If we can get things with less effort, that’s what we’ll go for. So stay where you are, get even more comfortable and check out the following:

“Don’t Look Up”. A black comedy in which lowly scientists discover a comet hurtling towards earth, on course to destroy our planet and its population in six months’ time. They head out to alarm NASA, the government and the media. What happens? Nothing. In addition to the astronomers being portrayed by Leonardo Di Caprio and Jennifer Lawrence, the line-up further includes Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill and a brilliant-as-always Meryl Streep as the US President, a kind of female Donald Trump, complete with narcissism, ignorance towards science and a “Don’t Look Up” baseball hat. While thoroughly entertaining it also, frighteningly, plays to the truth which is modern American politics. Many of the satirical points made are painfully recognisable in what’s currently going on. Anyway: four Golden Globe nominations, zero yield. And: whatever happened to Leonardo? Yes, of course I know he’s been around a while and that he ages like everybody else. Still: him holding on to that door Kate Winslet’s lying on after the Titanic sank – that cannot be all that long ago, now can it? Whatever happened to his eyes? They seem to be caught in a perpetual squint! On the other hand: Jennifer Lawrence gets given the worst short bangs ever and STILL manages to look stunning!

Next, we watched “The Power of the Dog”, winner of three Globes, one of them being the biggie “best picture drama”, making the movie a very serious Oscar candidate. This dark Western is set in Montana in the 1920s yet filmed in New Zealand. The small screen doesn’t do all that beautiful natural landscape justice and those lingering shots, filled with foreboding, struggle to keep the viewer entranced when said viewer tends to keep pressing pause to replenish snacks and drinks, have a chat or answer the phone. Even Cumberbatch is helpless against all that distraction. A piece of art of a movie which maybe deserves a second viewing?

Another big winner of the night was the TV drama series “Succession”. Oh, I do have my problems with that one! After watching the first season, we weren’t sure whether we wanted to continue hanging around with the Roy family, that dysfunctional bunch fighting for control over their media empire. Most probably based on the Murdochs, the fictional Roy family is made up of a collection of despicable individuals. Not one of them is even remotely likeable, so there’s absolutely no-one to root for. They’re a flock of self-centred, loathsome manipulative rats. Still: it’s all very entertaining on the weird level that you’re waiting for each and every one of them to get what’s coming to them. Also: brilliant acting, surprising plot twists, very NYC and Hamptons-stylish and THEN that wonderful dissonant piano jangle main theme which has an irresistible appeal. After several weeks’ break, I guess we ARE ready for season two…   

Back to the movies. So far, my favourite Oscar candidate is “House of Gucci”. No need to introduce this film that everybody’s talking and writing about, praising incredible performances by a stellar cast, first and foremost Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani. What a feast for the eyes. We saw this at the cinema, were completely entranced all 158 minutes of it and didn’t get up once.

I do hope that 20 years from now, we won’t be sitting in front of our full-wall beamers in our sweatpants, telling our grandchildren about the good old times – when we had to get up and leave the house to sit in a large auditorium full of people who may be carrying all sorts of viruses to watch a movie you actually COULDN’T watch at home! Supporting local movie theatres is a good resolution to add to our lists, don’t you think?