The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 2020

I didn’t feel the mixing of the two real actors with the amateurs worked but clearly I’m in the minority on that.

The 91st annual Academy Awards, for the film year 2020.  The nominations were announced on 15 March 2021 and the awards were held on 25 April 2021.

Best Picture:  Nomadland

• The Trial of the Chicago 7
• Promising Young Woman
• Judas and the Black Messiah
• Minari
• The Father
• Sound of Metal
• Mank

Most Surprising Omission:  One Night in Miami…

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  The Personal History of David Copperfield

Rank (out of 93) Among Best Picture Years:  #45

 

The Year in Film: 2020

For the first time in over 70 years, Dickens is great on film again.

My Top 20

1. The Personal History of David Copperfield
2. The Trial of the Chicago 7
3. Promising Young Woman
4. One Night in Miami…
5. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
6. Judas and the Black Messiah
7. Soul
8. Minari
9. The Father
10. Tenet
11. News of the World
12. Sound of Metal
13. Emma.
14. Dear Comrades!
15. A Whisker Away
16. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
17. The Painted Bird
18. Onward
19. Wolfwalkers
20. The Dig

They are **** films through #13.  After that they are high ***.5.  A reminder that Quo Vadis, Aida? was not Oscar submitted for 2020 and didn’t get released in the States until March so it’s actually a 2021 film for my purposes.  If it was a 2020 film it would be at #10.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2007

“And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.” (final lines)

My Top 10

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Atonement
3. There Will Be Blood
4. Away from Her
5. Gone Baby Gone
6. Charlie Wilson’s War
7. A Mighty Heart
8. Persepolis
9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
10. 3:10 to Yuma

note:  An excellent Top 5 but not nearly as strong Top 10.  It’s worth noting that thanks mostly to Harry Potter and the MCU this is the last year until 2020 where none of my Top 10 are franchise films.

 

A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#650-601)

This is the 8th part and the introduction can be found here.  All 50 films in this section earn a 90 which is a lower range **** film.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 2006

Nothing Wahlberg says in the film is anything like the dialogue in the original film but damn it’s brilliant.

My Top 10

1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
4. The Prestige
5. Perfume
6. Casino Royale
7. Army of Shadows
8. The Painted Veil
9. Thank You for Smoking
10. Notes on a Scandal

note:  An excellent Top 5 and Top 10.

 

A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#700-651)

The ongoing countdown of my Top 1000 films through 2011, covering the first century of film.  The film listed below are all 89 (low ****) until The Gunfighter after which they are 90 (low ****).  The TSPDT rankings starting with this post are from the 2021 list.  The introduction can be found here.

 

The Oscars: Even when they make history they blow their chance to make history

Two out of three ain’t bad. Three out of three would have been better.

Well, I realize this may give it away but I would still rather you not make guesses, even if it’s clear what it is.  For the first time since Carol in 2015 my #1 film was not nominated for Best Picture.  For the first time since Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988 my #1 film was not nominated for an above the line Oscar nomination.  For the first time since Winter Light in 1963 my #1 film was not nominated for any Oscars.  For the first time since Touch of Evil in 1958 my #1 film is in English and was not nominated for any Oscars.  Now, beyond that, on to today’s actual nominations, where I wrote down quick picks just to make it easier (then I just circle if right – much faster) and got only four categories 5/5: Actor, Actress, Cinematography, Animated Film.

 

A Century of Film: Film History Through 1949

A Century of Film

Film History Through 1949

There’s not much to say here except to point to my original post that covered things through 1929 and the subsequent post that covers film history through to 1939 and the most recent post that covers the 1940s.

 

A Century of Film: Film History (1940-1949)

A Century of Film

Film History

1940-1949

Filmmaking had supposedly peaked in 1939 just as the war arrived to greatly limit (outside of America, film production was massively down) and influence it (in America, War films took the forefront).  After the war concluded, came the two lawsuits that changed the way of films in America.  First came de Havilland vs. Warner Bros. Pictures which altered the notion of what a studio could put in a contract.  Second came United States vs. Paramount Pictures which meant that production studios would have to sell off their theater chains.  The first hastened the end of the way films were made in the Studio Era while the second altered how they were distributed and brought an to the end to the concept of the “majors” as they had been known.

 

Awards Notes 2020 or I Wish I Knew How To Quit You, Golden Globes (ongoing)

That’s just a reminder that Mark Harris is a funny and smart writer who already wrote one of the single best books about film ever written (Pictures at a Revolution).  He has a new biography of Mike Nichols and even though I rarely buy biographies at all and certainly not new and in hardcover, I will be getting this when it goes on sale on Tuesday.  His Twitter feed is also worth reading and I do that everyday even though I’m not even on Twitter.