OVP: Best Picture (2018)
The Nominees Were...
Kevin Feige, Black Panther
Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele, & Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Graham King, Bohemian Rhapsody
Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, & Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite
Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly, & Nick Vallelonga, Green Book
Gabriela Rodriguez & Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper, & Lynette Howell Taylor, A Star is Born
Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay, & Kevin Messick, Vice
My Thoughts: We are officially at the finish line here after tackling 19 different Oscar races, so it's time for us to round the bend. Some housekeeping for loyal readers-we'll publish this today, head into the My Ballot (who I would've nominated in each category) tomorrow, and then we'll kickoff our new season of the series on either Sunday or Monday (we're still backlogged with years, so we aren't skipping a beat), with Best Makeup for that year (I won't spoil our next featured ceremony just yet but know we're still in the 21st Century) coming up late next week. We'll also resume more regular blog posts (including some more elections coverage, which I know we've been slacking on) as I get back from vacation-mode throughout next week, with us resuming our regular output on November 22nd. But for now, let's sit back & grab the popcorn, as we discuss the eight films that Oscar deemed its very best in 2018.
We'll start with the movie that is going to have the longest legacy of any of these pictures, Black Panther. Though others before it came close (The Dark Knight) or kind of skirted the line into the genre (Birdman), Black Panther was the first traditional comic book movie to get nominated for Best Picture. The movie is solid, one of the better outputs from Marvel. It has a self-contained story, and the acting is good. Ultimately while this is a landmark in terms of diversity & having our first major Black superhero, the story itself doesn't elevate enough to be a truly seismic film for me (I still prefer Captain America: Winter Soldier of the Marvel pictures), but this is special for a reason.
BlacKkKlansman is in a similar boat for me when it comes to this list. This is a solid movie-Spike Lee does not always make movies that I love, but he's consistent & distinctive enough that I always find myself intrigued by what's onscreen. There are moments in BlacKkKlansman where it gets ahead of itself, Lee giving us too many ideas at once, particularly in the film's first half before the central story has captured us. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't work well, taking a sharp look not just at the racist institutions of the past but also how they have bled into the constructs of the present.
Our third colorful film title, Green Book, also deals with the subject of "race in America," but it does so in a tactless way. Green Book is not a bad movie in a normal sense-it looks good, its story structure works...it's a feel good movie that gets from Point A to Point B without needing a layover. Its racial politics are troubling, though, as is the way that Mahershala Ali's character is approached (both by the script, and it has to be said, the actor himself). Green Book I maintain is the sort of movie that feels more disposable than heinous...no one would give a crap about this movie had it not been nominated for (and then won) a Best Picture Oscar.
I don't know that that's the case for Vice. This film, one of three movies with problematic politics in this list, is attempting the biggest artistic swings of the bunch, using random Shakespearean monologues & a mid-film credits sequence to feel absurd in the face of atrocities from the Bush administration. But here's the thing-the filmmakers don't deserve credit for standing up to these men a decade after they took & left power, and the movie forcefully rubbing the American public's noise in Dick Cheney's legacy, disregarding that a vast swath of Americans (including, in 2000, a near majority of them) turned down the administration. This is a bad movie, and quite frankly an offensive one from a director who took the worst parts of his last picture & decided to amplify them.
Since we're already on the "films that cause heartburn" section of 2018, we might as well round out with Bohemian Rhapsody. Obviously the politics of Bohemian Rhapsody are a giant red flag-the movie is ridiculously homophobic, and the sort of hatchet job look at one man's life that should've been in the $2 bin at Wal-Mart within three months of its release rather than a gargantuan, Oscar-winning blockbuster. But it's also just a truly terrible movie. The editing, acting, cinematography, writing-they are all pedestrian & working in the worst kinds of cliches imaginable. I don't get the appeal of this movie beyond its soundtrack, and if you want that...just listen to your old Queen albums? A perplexing black mark in Oscar's track record.
It feels strange to put Bohemian Rhapsody and Roma into the same hemisphere, much less into the same category for Best Picture the movies are such polar opposites. A personal love letter to both his childhood and to cinema, Alfonso Cuaron brings a warm approach to this film, not just with rich cinematography, but also with a story that feels full without every needing a lot of exposition. I am someone who doesn't need a film like this to be richly-plotted, since film is a visual medium & we should embrace that, and Roma is a picture that leaves you immersed in its feelings & dialogue.
A good example of a movie whose plot gets in its way is A Star is Born. I really liked the first 30-40 minutes of this movie. I thought it was taking a sort of abstract approach not just to the most timeless of Hollywood tales (everyone knows how this is going to start & end), but also to the concept of these two specific celebrities, not wanting to get bogged down in the trivialities of where this is headed. The movie falls apart for me after "Shallow," though, when Lady Gaga can't handle the weight of the acting, and the movie tries to present the tale as if it's new & fresh when it's stale (we've done this five times now, this isn't a story with a lot of curves). As a result, this is the "good movie" of the bunch that I relegate to the bad.
Our final movie is The Favourite, a movie that while it will never have the pop culture cache of Black Panther, is probably going to have some of its staying power in arthouses. That's what happens when you get three beloved, Oscar-winning actresses (one wasn't there when it came out, but this got her the designation) at the top-of-their-game, and then give them a script to die for. Honestly while Roma might hit different heights in terms of cinematography that are beyond Favourite, this movie is the best traditionally-structured film of the bunch, totally original despite telling a story that's been around for hundreds of years.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here. Drama gave its top prize to Bohemian Rhapsody (I had honestly totally blocked that out) over Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, If Beale Street Could Talk, and A Star is Born, while Musical/Comedy went with Green Book against Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, & Vice. BAFTA went with Roma for its win, besting BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, Green Book, & A Star is Born, while the PGA went with Green Book over Black Panther, BlaKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Roma, A Star is Born, & Vice. In terms of ninth place, I know Crazy Rich Asians got the most precursor love but considering it scored in no other Oscar categories, I would assume Beale Street or Cold War, given their respective writing & directing nominations, would have been closer.
Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow. 😉
Oscar’s Choice: In what was considered a slight upset at the time, Green Book bested Roma and a surging Bohemian Rhapsody to take an ill-advised Best Picture trophy.
My Choice: Roma is my winner, with The Favourite shortly after, the only two films that I genuinely loved of this lineup. Following them would be Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, A Star is Born, Vice, and Bohemian Rhapsody, in that order.
And there you have it-another OVP in the books. Tomorrow we'll do the My Official Ballot, but in the meantime-are you with me on Team Roma or did you prefer the Academy's Green Book? Do you think Crazy Rich Asians had a shot at a Best Picture nomination or was it just not Oscar's jam? And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2018? Share your comments below!
Also in 2018: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018
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