THB #490: Oscargasm - Oscar’s 10 Commandments (Pt 2)

Yesterday, the first 4 “Commandments” came down from The Mountain (not the Paramount Mountain). Today, it’s back up the mountain for the other 6.

6. It’s very hard to unlock a lock.

Every Oscar season, there are categories where there seem to be locks fairly early in the season. This season, it’s been Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers. There were a few potential contenders to knock her off that throne, but none got close.

Last season was interesting, as there were no clear locks until Everything Everywhere All At Once became the Best Picture frontrunner and then swept the entire crew along, making the result seem more locked than it actually was… while Brendan Fraser, who seemed to be a lock early, de-locked a bit… then came in for the win.

The year before, the 94th Oscars, was a year of locks. Jane Campion, Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Troy Kotsur, and Ariana DuBose were all pretty much locked in early. Picture, not.

Frances McDormand, two years in three. Joaquin as Joker, Renee as Judy, Pitt, Dern, Rami Malek as Freddy, Mahershala Ali (again), Olivia Colman, Oldman as Churchill, Allison Janney, Emma Stone, Leo, Brie, Mark Rylance, and Vikander, Redmayne, Simmons, Arquette, and Julianne Moore… it is not terribly rare, hope as many do for an upset.

So how do you get a lock unlocked? Well, the Everything Everywhere sweep last year was as good an example as there is. Cate Blanchett, Gleeson and Hirsch, and Angela Bassett all might have expected to have statues that night were it not for the energy of the sweep.

There was nothing normal about the 93rd Oscars show, delayed and expanded by COVID. But Anthony Hopkins was an upset, perhaps driven by the timing of it all and the pressure to give a posthumous win to Chadwick Boseman.

Olivia Colman won her Oscar when both Glenn Close (due) and Last Gaga (new) were expected by many to be likely winners. Willem Dafoe was due when Sam Rockwell took home gold for a character under a lot of attack for being a forgiven racist.

I don’t know that there is a real answer to unlocking someone once they are “a lock.” This current season presents one of the more complicated examples of this, with Lily Gladstone seeming to lock in early when people started seeing Killers of the Flower Moon. But she decided to run in Lead rather than supporting, which is what her character is. Then the movie lost some of its luster. And Gladstone was put in the awkward position of riding the fence when questions of how successfully the film told the story of the Osage nation. And then… Poor Things and Emma Stone’s singular performance.

Objective logic suggests that Stone will win The Oscar. It is much more the lead. It is an active character who drives the movie. It is undeniably daring work (which may also be its downfall). But the sense that Gladstone, the early lock, will still take the statue - especially since the messaging has been massaged and fixed in the last month or so - is still hard to argue against.

There has been no effort against Gladstone. A friend with a vote actually asked whether voting against Gladstone might be considered racist. (Someone will think so… they will be wrong, morally and otherwise.) But The Lock could be unlocked… time will tell.

5. The line between accessibility and whoring is razor thin.

“It’s a long, long road… from which there is no return… while we're on the way to there… why not share?”

Oh, it’s heavy… it’s your self-promotion.