Michael Cieply: Warnings Are Up For A Stormy Film Awards Season

Michael Cieply
·3 min read

Whoa, here it comes, just like Hurricane Hilary, an off-kilter, sidewinder of a movie awards season that’s tearing up the rule book even before it starts.

Thanks to El Niño, unholy weather is almost a given. Look for ceremonies that look a lot like 2010, when shivering assistants sheltered the rich and famous with big green golf umbrellas at a Golden Globes ceremony that used to be run by something called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (defunct, but the Globes still exist). That was the upside down year when Avatar shut out The Hurt Locker, which went on to whip Avatar at the Oscars, and Sandra Bullock, a Globe winner for The Blind Side–now shaded by football vet Michael Oher’s suit against the real-life inspiration for Bullock’s role—said her rain-challenged hair was turning into a Chia Pet.

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Too early to worry about awards? Hardly. As Pete Hammond notes, festivals are looming. The Oscar screening portal is open. And just four weeks from last Friday, as the sun sets on Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 15, comes a crucial Oscar moment, the deadline by which all would-be Best Picture contenders from the first half of the year must file race, gender and disability data to meet new inclusion standards imposed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

That adds one more twist to an already twisty process. But things aren’t as complicated as they might have been. After a two-year “soft launch,” during which pictures reported data but weren’t penalized for falling short, the Academy has quietly adjusted its Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry platform (short form, RAISE) to allow for a kinder, gentler approach. The names and personal identity status of individual stars and filmmakers are no longer required. Contenders, previously advised to report under all four possible standards, are now told it’s okay to apply only for those they hope to meet, and “move on.” More, contenders can skip reporting altogether if they decide to “opt out” of the Best Picture race.

If enough films opt out, Oscar voters could face a much smaller list than the usual 300 or so qualified Best Picture contenders. But the front-runners will presumably stay in, so the end result should be about the same—although, this being a hurricane year, we can’t be absolutely sure when the end result will arrive.

At this writing, the 96th Academy Awards remain scheduled for March 10, a fairly normal date. But striking writers and actors are still on the street (though with Monday picketing scratched by the storm). The primetime Emmys have been bumped four months, to Jan. 15, smack in the middle of the Oscar nominations, and day behind the Critics Choice awards. If labor strife, God forbid, isn’t settled by then, the Oscars will be looking at some sort of Plan B.

Not that thunder, lightning, strikes, changing rules, fresh rumblings about Covid and a disintegrating HFPA are the only hazards lying in wait. There’s also that nasty national mood. Prosecutors, now having saddled a former President with charges threatening something like 700 years imprisonment, have pretty much guaranteed that we’ll be arguing for the next six months about Donald Trump when we’re supposed to be talking about Barbie.

(Over at Awards Daily, pundit Sasha Stone has already declared that “Yes, Barbie Can Win,” while holding out for Oppenheimer as “the Film of the Year (So Far).”)

Things are churning and turning all over the place. Storm warnings are up. We’ll be sheltering from the wind, and fighting about heaven knows what—the legitimacy of Bullock’s Blind Side Oscar? The John Waters/Drag Queen children’s story hour at the Academy Museum?– before it’s over.

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