Oscar's Best Picture 2021

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And the Oscar for Best Picture will go to...
5.88%
1 votes
The Father
5.88%
1 votes
Judas and the Black Messiah
5.88%
1 votes
Mank
11.76%
2 votes
Minari
47.06%
8 votes
Nomadland
5.88%
1 votes
Promising Young Woman
0%
0 votes
Sound of Metal
17.65%
3 votes
The Trial of the Chicago 7
17 votes. You may not vote on this poll




Watched Minari yesterday which means I have seen all the nominees except The Father. After last year's win for Parasite, I wouldn't be surprised if this dark horse snuck in and took this award from Nomadland, which for me is the frontrunner, but if it was up to me, this award would still go to The Trial of the Chicago 7



1st time I can ever remember I have no desire to see any of these.
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101 Favorite Movies (2019)



It will be close between The Father and Nomadland. I chose Nomadland. It was heart warming and brilliant in an otherwise bleak year. The best actress category is a hard call this year!
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Sadly this past year, without having been able to visit the cinema as it's been closed, have not been able to sit through even a single one of the nominees prior to the awards, which is the first time that has happened since like 1986. So have zero idea or opinion about this year. Have been told Judas and the Black Messiah is very good though, a friend I trust has recommended it very highly, so will be checking it, and all the others, out at some point down the line.



Mr. Holden, I did not see a poll for the most important category at the Oscars. Best Foreign Film. And Best Documentary too. Are they in the latter pages?



Not sure if it's coz of Covid or not. Almost all categories are tight. Apart from animated segment, most other awards, there are two or three choices, the Academy can give the award to anyone and it won't be a bad pick.



Mr. Holden, I did not see a poll for the most important category at the Oscars. Best Foreign Film. And Best Documentary too. Are they in the latter pages?
Nope. Every year I create polls for "The Big Eight" categories - Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Screenplay - as well as Animated Feature (because enough people are interested) and Cinematography (because it is one of my personal favorites). Any of the other categories anyone would like to make polls for, have at it.
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A system of cells interlinked
Still really behind, but I did get Sound of Metal in over the weekend, which was excellent. Will try to get the rest in ASAP!

Minari up next.
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I will tell you .. Nomadland wayyy in the lead!



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
At this point, you can't "skew" the results.

Nomadland 7
The Trial of the Chicago 7 3
The Father 1
Judas and the Black Messiah 1
Mank 1
Promising Young Woman 1
Minari 0
Sound of Metal 0
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Nomadland did win Best Picture along with Best Director and Best Actress, three of its six nominations. Alphabetically it is only the second winner starting with the letter N, joining No Country for Old Men (twelve winners start with G as the most frequent letter while high-stake Scrabble tiles J, Q, V, X, and Z have never won Oscar's top prize).



While I was not surprised by this win, since it was a juggernaut this Oscar season, I wouldn't have chosen it. To me, it was a well done film technically, but it doesn't really embody what I think a Best Picture should be, which is a movie that you find thoroughly entertaining that whisks you to another time and place and that you want to watch again and again. I can't see myself ever watching this a second time. I think this kind of win in Best Picture highlights an increasingly growing divide between what the average moviegoer likes, wants to see, and enjoys, and what the elite Academy membership finds award-worthy. Even without the pandemic, I can't see this movie ever doing well with audiences. I watch a lot of foreign and independent films, and even I would have rather seen a documentary about these nomadic homeless van wanderers than a feature film about them. To me, it's not a very cinematic subject to center a film around.



Welcome to the human race...
How much of that divide is necessarily the Academy's fault? I've been reading the Popcorn Champs over at the AV Club as it does columns on each of the highest-grossing films of the year for the past 60 years and it's fascinating to see how the instances where the biggest hit of the year overlaps with Best Picture just got less frequent and mostly less mature as mass audiences shifted from watching mature works like The Godfather or Kramer vs. Kramer to the likes of Shrek 2 and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It's a Morton's Fork for the Academy - they focus on the prestige pics that mass audiences no longer really give a damn about and their popularity dwindles or they give awards to the popular movies and compromise their credibility (remember the "Best Popular Film" fiasco from a few years back?).

As for your idea of what a Best Picture should be, how many of the winners actually line up with that ideal?



Iroquois, while what constitutes a Best Picture is inherently a subjective determination, I think quite a few Best Picture Oscar winners historically, in the not too distant past, are closer to that than you might think. Historically, Best Pictures used to be pretty widely liked and widely seen. If you think about movies that won like "A Beautiful Mind," "Return of the King," "Braveheart," "Million Dollar Baby," "Unforgiven," "Dances with Wolves," etc. these were movies that even if everyone might not agree they were artistic masterpieces of the highest order, most people would agree that they were entertaining, that they were good films, and that they reflected aspects of the human condition that resonated with a broad, representative cross section of the American people.

The Academy has increasingly been moving further away from that as they cleave to films that are more insular, that center more around spotlighting marginalized groups than they do universal themes, and that serve more as messages that the Academy wishes to promote. They often seem to be more about representation or the promotion the Academy's own values, politically, socially, culturally etc, even when that results in the promotion of movies that don't necessarily serve as an exalting of what most people outside of elite critics and the Academy membership might broadly consider to be the Best Picture of the year.



Iroquois, while what constitutes a Best Picture is inherently a subjective determination, I think quite a few Best Picture Oscar winners historically, in the not too distant past, are closer to that than you might think. Historically, Best Pictures used to be pretty widely liked and widely seen. If you think about movies that won like "A Beautiful Mind," "Return of the King," "Braveheart," "Million Dollar Baby," "Unforgiven," "Dances with Wolves," etc. these were movies that even if everyone might not agree they were artistic masterpieces of the highest order, most people would agree that they were entertaining, that they were good films, and that they reflected aspects of the human condition that resonated with a broad, representative cross section of the American people.

The Academy has increasingly been moving further away from that as they cleave to films that are more insular, that center more around spotlighting marginalized groups than they do universal themes, and that serve more as messages that the Academy wishes to promote. They often seem to be more about representation or the promotion the Academy's own values, politically, socially, culturally etc, even when that results in the promotion of movies that don't necessarily serve as an exalting of what most people outside of elite critics and the Academy membership might broadly consider to be the Best Picture of the year.
Imagine saying Unforgiven wasn’t an artistic masterpiece of the highest order... and that too while having a Clint avi

I’d argue Parasite, despite being a Korean movie did arguably fit into your first category.