Airing this Sunday, March 15 on ABC, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) will put on its 98th annual ceremony of self-congratulatory back-slapping while likely insulting over half of the United States citizenry.
Deriding Middle America is something AMPAS largely avoided until the mid-2000s. Over time, the gig dismissed subtlety in its disdain for traditional values and the ratings began to steadily decline until bottoming out in 2024.
The Perfect Storm
Dubious hosting choices were just one factor contributing to the AMPAS maelstrom. Incorrectly fearing it was too old and too white, AMPAS began including younger people of color, many outside the United States. Not surprisingly, this had an effect on what kinds of movies were chosen for awards consideration.
Beginning in 2018, movies with distinct social and political messaging, regardless of quality, began winning Best Picture. Not only has the overall quality of movies taken a nosedive of late, the people deciding what films and performers should be rewarded know far less about movies than past generations. This is why most people simply don’t care about the Oscars anymore.
For the last 30 years, I, like every other professional critic and amateur movie fan, has put together a list of predicted winners. My batting average is about .700 as I usually get around 20 out of a possible 27 (now 24) right. For this year, at least, I’m done with predicting all of the winners for reasons to follow.
From 1995 through about 2010, picking winners was fun. Most of the Oscar recipients in all categories were those that were also my personal favorites among the nominees. I’ve yet to meet anybody who has ever been happy with all of the winners, which is how it should be. This is how Oscar winners are determined—the majority voting opinion of AMPAS members.
Had Enough
I pretty much gave up on the Oscars in 2017 when the race for Best Picture was between “Moonlight” and “La La Land.” I didn’t care much for either title and the only two that I did like out of the nine nominees were “Hell or High Water” and “Arrival,” neither of which stood a snowball’s chance of winning.
As with every year since 2010 (when Best Picture nominees went from five to 10), there are only two probable winners this year: “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” (“Battle”). The former has a total of 16 nominations (an AMPAS record), and the latter 13.
At least one Oscar record will be broken on Sunday. In the history of AMPAS, no movie to receive 13 or more nominations has ever lost the Best Picture prize. Either “Sinners” or “Battle” will win the Best Picture award.
For the record, both movies are technically impressive. Each will win multiple awards in categories such as cinematography, set design, costume design, original score, and the like. These awards have nothing to do with content, but merely aesthetics.
My Issue Is With Messaging
“Battle” is a movie that not only condones but celebrates illegal immigration and domestic terrorism. “Sinners” is slightly subtler. It is set in 1930s Mississippi where a blues musician reportedly made a deal with the devil.
Prior to last weekend, I would have said two of the eight major awards were a lock. The first (and still remaining) would be Paul Thomas Anderson to take Best Director. The other was Jessie Buckley for Best Lead Actress in “Hamnet,” which is still likely but possibly—not.
The ‘Norbit’ Factor
At the 2007 ceremony, Eddie Murphy was the heavy favorite to win Best Supporting Actor for “Dream Girls.” It was speculated, with some degree of accuracy, that the early February release of Murphy’s universally panned comedy “Norbit” cost him the Oscar. Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” ended up winning.
Last week, Buckley played the title character in the tepidly reviewed box office bomb, “The Bride!” As problematic as that movie was, Buckley was amazing in it and only further displayed her incredible range. If she loses to Rose Byrne in the super depressing “If I Has Legs I’d Kick You,” I’ll be very surprised and disappointed.
As far as the three other acting categories are concerned, everything is up for grabs. The leading contenders in the Best Lead Actor category are Timothee Chalomet in “Marty Supreme” and Michael B. Jordan playing dual roles in “Sinners.”
Early on, Chalamet was in the driver’s seat. He was two for two out of the gate with wins at the Critic’s Choice and the Golden Globes. Since then he has been shut out in every other major awards competition. His Marty is an unlikeable character with no redeeming qualities. Chalamet’s acting skills are formidable, but his campaigning for the award is tacky, self-serving, unprofessional, and shrill.
No Lesser of Three Evils
For Best Supporting Actress, this year’s crop is as unpredictable as those in years past. It’s extremely rare when three nominees nabbed the prizes at other major awards shows leading up to the Oscars, yet here we are.
The problem is all of the characters played by the top contenders, in one way or another, come with considerable unsavory baggage.
In “Sinners,” BAFTA winner Wunmi Mosaku plays Annie, a black magic shop owner and Hoodoo priestess.
In “Battle,” Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor stars as Perfidia Beverly Hills, the member of a fictional, ANTIFA-inspired domestic terrorist sect. If that weren’t enough, Hills also robs banks, has sex to avoid arrest, and abandons her newborn child.
Currently the razor-thin front-runner, Golden Globe and Actor (SAG) award winner Amy Madigan is the lone nominee representing the horror thriller “Weapons.” In the movie, Madigan plays Aunt Gladys, an initially innocuous biddy, but in reality is a malevolent supernatural witch. Through voodoo, she turns people—most of them children—into relentless killing machines.
I would be remiss by not mentioning that Sean Penn, as a dirtbag Army officer in “Battle,” has already won multiple awards for his performance and is favored to win his third acting Oscar. Penn’s only formidable competition is Stellan Skarsgard in the (foreign language) drama “Sentimental Value.”
In a career spanning nearly six decades, this is Skarsgard’s first AMPAS nomination and he could pull off an upset via the infrequently employed “career achievement” vote.
The Writers
Last weekend, the Writers Guild awarded their top two prizes to Anderson (“Battle”) for adapted screenplay, and to Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”) for original screenplay.
This surprised literally no one. Over the last decade, the WGA has matched the Oscar winner 70 percent of the time for original and 60 percent of the time for adapted. Those are good odds, but neither is a lock.
Between 1998 and 2022, Anderson was nominated for 11 Oscars in four categories for six movies without a win. His total is now 14 nominations for seven movies.
In this season, Anderson has won every major award for Best Director. While it’s far from his best effort (that would be “There Will Be Blood”), he is way past due. An Anderson win here is as close to a sure thing for the night.
The Big Kahuna
As stated above, Best Picture is a two-horse race between movies the majority of Americans in general, and mainstream audiences specifically, find unappealing. “Battle” promotes domestic terrorism, the death of innocents, sexual promiscuity, child abandonment, drug use, and illegal immigration.
“Sinners” more than suggests the birth of American blues was in a part a deal with the devil that took place in 1930s Mississippi. Halfway through, the movie morphs into a bloody and ultra-violent vampire flick.
If I had to pick a winner right now, it would be “Battle.”
Let’s go Team Coco!
After his triumphant performance last year as host, O’Brien was offered the gig again, less than two weeks after the show aired.
If O’Brien and his writers can deliver more of the same politically-free content Sunday night, he could become a legitimate candidate to break Billy Crystal’s second-best number of nine. However, it is highly unlikely O’Brien or anyone else will ever get close to topping Bob Hope’s record 19 times as the host.
Another winning performance from O’Brien will go far into diverting our attention from what might be the most deplorable overall roster of nominated movies in AMPAS history.
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Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
