I’m not generally in the business of caring about award shows (too busy writing about Duolingo), but this year certainly feels like one of the best years for American movies that I can remember, and the Oscars felt appropriately Not Bad. Given their usual rating of “completely intolerable,” that’s pretty high marks!
A Busby-Meets-Marilyn musical number so boldly executed that even Simu “Bring Me the Head of Martin Scorsese” Liu couldn’t cork it. A genuinely great speech from Cord Jefferson, who won Best Adapted Screenplay for a genuinely loathsome movie, arguing for the importance of mid- and low-budget film. A weird hallway that nobody knew how to navigate. All in all, I think it was a great way to spend three hours.
But before I get Deeper Into Oscar moments, a reminder: These are the Academy Awards. These are not the dirtbag Letterboxd Wrap-Up Prizes, for liberal arts graduates by liberal arts graduates. Nor are they the recent and legendary inaugural Deeper into Movies Awards. There is a curve here, and it is adjusted for American studio films that are popular. Be glad that we got fewer ads for the US military than last year, and that we only had to deal with one toy commercial based discourse. Consider that no movie that actually indicted Hollywood for its chicanery could ever be honored by said chicanerers (May December, last year’s Nope). Cry about Past Lives (still mid) on your own time.
Enough preamble. My eyes … see … my favorite moments from this year’s Oscars!
Godzilla’s Reign
I did not get to talk about Godzilla Minus One, a movie I saw at the end of last year, but it’s not because I didn’t love it. This was one of my favorites of 2023, a fifteen million dollar miracle that probably wasn’t what Cord Jefferson was talking about, but what I hope we get more of. I’ve mostly observed Godzilla in a way I find deeply sacred: late at night on random antenna tv channels, with low quality resolution and even lower quality dubbing.
But Godzilla Minus One does something I thought was impossible in a monster movie: it displays Godzilla with both reverence and pure terror. Godzilla Minus One is a rejection of the last decade of Western monster movies, presenting a monster that is neither animal, machine, alien or dour metaphor. Godzilla is a god, with a purpose and consequence that eludes mortal minds. Each scene of destruction reflects not just a scale of unprecedented power, but also the magnitude of importance Godzilla has in Japanese and global filmmaking.
A Win for Ireland, A Win for All Of Us
I’m not sure when Ireland became the favorite nation of millennial film freaks, whether it began with the popularity of Derry Girls, Cillian Murphy’s loud hatred of England, or Ireland’s eager adoption of Ayo Edibiri as a chosen daughter. But this video of students congratulating Cillian reminded me why the Oscars still hold meaning. In a studio system obsessed with scraping profit from every available avenue, this is one of the rare times we publicly celebrate pure artistry.
I hope none of these kids have actually watched Oppenheimer (which is neither Nolan’s best movie nor his Nolaniest; they should at least start with Batman Begins) and though I was pretty lukewarm on ol’ Oppy, I’m very excited to see the star of Deeper classics Sunshine (2007) and 28 Days Later (2002) receive recognition.
Oooohhhh boyyyy 😬 um, my dress is broken 😓 I think it happened during “I’m Just Ken” 👉 I’m pretty sure 😔 oh boy 👋 this is really … 😥 this is really overwhelming 😰 sorry I 🖕mmmm ☹️ okay 😣 my voice is also a little gone 🫨 whatever 💁♀️
I adored Killers of the Flower Moon, and I adored Lily Gladstone’s performance. I have been a Gladstan since Certain Women, where she gives a performance that remains one of the most haunting portrayals of loneliness that I have ever seen.
I am frustrated by some of the commentary about her performance that seems primarily interested in her status as the first Indigenous woman to be nominated in a racist industry with a racist body of awards. When we use those parameters to define the remarkability of Gladstone’s performance, we collapse the importance of her as a likely once-in-a-generation artist. We boil down what she can do on screen to a checkbox that the Academy can scratch off and then ignore (see: Troy Kotsur not appearing in a movie since he made history as the first Deaf man to win an Oscar for his performance in CODA in 2021).
I was enchanted by Stone’s performance as Bella Baxter, a vibrant, physical portrayal of someone falling in love with the world while absorbing its cruelty — a tightrope that can often fall into sentimental clichés of awe and power (see last year’s truly dismal winner, Brendan Fraser for The Whale). I liked Vulture’s estimation of how this win might have happened, and Stone would not have been who I voted for, regardless of how many Oscars she has and hasn’t won. But I’m not an Academy voter!
In any case, I remain mesmerized by Stone’s emotive, rambling moment. And ultimately I hope the award doesn’t matter, as it rarely does. Between The Curse and Poor Things, Stone has had a banner year. And if directors are not climbing over each other to keep Gladstone from abandoning acting in favor of a data analytics certificate, that’s not the fault of a little bronze trophy.
I 100% agree this was a good year for the oscars. I also love what you wrote about Lily Gladstone!!
Couldn’t agree more re: Gladstone in Certain Women - she is next level in that movie.