A NOTE ABOUT THE OSCARS
T
he annual Academy Award celebration has been another ritual re-shaped by the pandemic. In recent years, the ceremony has been in late February with nominations announced in January. This year, the nominations will be unveiled March 15 with the awards to be given out April 25. How do you mount an awards presentation when people cannot safely gather, and how do you justify the annual exercise in glittering self-indulgence when many Americans are sick and/or unemployed? Yet no one in Hollywood is going to completely forego this night. It’s difficult to know what to expect in a year when major releases have been scheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled again, and others have been quietly released via a streaming service. Look for a lot of nominations for films made possible by Netflix and Amazon, and far fewer from the historically-productive Hollywood studios. I expect to see the following films to dominate the categories: Da 5 Bloods, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Mank, Nomadland, One Night in Miami, Soul, Sound of Metal, and Tenet. I also anticipate that the late, great Chadwick Boseman, who died of colon cancer unexpectedly in late December, could be posthumously nominated for two of his final film performances: Da 5 Bloods and Ma Rainey… — Mark Fields
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But the essential difference is experiential, the ritual of moviegoing itself: traveling to a location specifically intended to deliver this experience, sitting in a dark room ideally free of outside distractions, having a shared experience with strangers. That is what I miss the most. There is a great deal of concern within the industry about whether it can return after the pandemic. Will moviegoers decide that the homeviewing experience is good enough, or at least safer than going to the movies? Perhaps some will choose to continue to consume their favorite films at home, but I believe true fans will opt for another, richer experience — one absolutely unattainable from their sofa.
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