The awards season to me is at first exciting, and by the end exhausting. Its relentless plugging of talent and puffing of egos wears off at about this point of the festivities. To the outsider film fan looking in, the circus still remains a grandiose exercise in self-congratulation; even if this year (perhaps more than any other) is one when Hollywood should be at its most reflective.
In between the black dress and pin badges, however, behind the endless press and pomp (I mean, what publication hasn’t mentioned Greta Gerwig in the last week?), this year’s class is actually damn strong.
The release (and subsequent press) delay in the US/UK release gap often forgoes this fact. A regular reader of the movie pages will feel as though they have made up their mind on a film before it even hits screens.
Take Lady Bird, which has just hit the UK on a wide release. Premiering last September at Telluride to rave reviews, then going to New York to attract yet more buzz; hype hit its ‘highest ever Rotten Tomatoes score’ fever pitch by the time of its November opening in the US. This momentum carries through aaaall the way to the Dolby theatre.
This filtration process of the awards season is an odd one for us fans. It starts at the festivals and often ends in the cinema, when we can confidently take our opinions to the awards show.
We all play our part by participating, debating and discussing films like racehorses, having a gander on what films might have a chance of winning the trophies.
It’s the former that I resent but all too willingly participate in. As a sports fan that understands the appeal of speculation, it’s not difficult to get drawn into hamming out ill-informed opinions lifted from the actual people in the know.
Unless you’re willing to put money to them, sporting predictions are (mostly) pointless, but I’m more than happy to shoot the crap, even if there’s the underlying feeling that we’re all pawns in the awards season game.
After all, we’re the ones that buy the tickets from a media elite that get them at the glitzy festivals that we all pore over.
This might amount to something of an outsider status to this moviegoer, but it makes the hit all the more resounding when you finally get to the cinema and watch a film that blows you away.
All of a sudden everything else doesn’t seem to matter.
You leave the cinema, affirmed that your fandom isn’t ungrounded after all.
I suppose that’s how I pick favourites during the Oscar season: whatever film papered over my anxieties the best, that makes me the happiest to be a movie nut and to participate in this award circus.
In sense, the season might be curative, it presents and champions movies to encourage and foster creativity. It rewards those that push boundaries: remaining within the bounds of being palatable to a mainstream audience, but adventurous enough to move things forward.
It's either that, or its just a glorified sales show... I think I know which I'd prefer to believe.
It's either that, or its just a glorified sales show... I think I know which I'd prefer to believe.
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