Down in Newport, they are having an Oscar film festival celebration. It is clearly aimed at the one reliable group that might show up for this kind of thing: seniors. Maybe a handful of film nerds will show up, but for the most part, this is aimed at the AARP crowd. At first I thought, are they going to show this crowd the Oscar movies from this and then imagined watching them watch the end of The Substance. But thankfully, this festival is not about this year’s Oscar movies, but about movies from the past:

The Lido Theater Announces Oscar Night Cinema Series Leading Up to the 2025 Academy Awards

Experience a curated selection of critically acclaimed films in Newport Beach’s newly restored movie landmark, Jan 30 – Feb 28, 2025

Image courtesy of The Lido Theater.

What a treat to watch movies in that theater, and here is their calendar:

The Lido Theater Oscar Night Cinema Series Schedule:

Here is the money

Forrest Gump – $330,455,270
Braveheart – $75,609,945
Chariots of Fire – $58,972,904
Titanic – $674,292,608
The King’s Speech – $138,797,449
American Beauty – $130,096,601
The Sting – $156,000,000
Everything, Everywhere All At Once $77,191,785

Everything Everywhere did pretty well, considering. It’s along the lines of Braveheart and Chariots of Fire in terms of the other massive hits, but still, it’s fairly respectable.

This year? It’s really bad in terms of movies people have seen and the voters don’t seem to care, at least not so far. They’re tripping the light fantastic.

It seems clear to me that both The Brutalist and Emilia Perez might resonate over movies like Anora or A Complete Unknown or even Conclave because they are more Trumpy than the others. How can voters express their helplessness and rage? They can vote for movies that connect with how they’re feeling right now. This is why the Oscars can sometimes be a great snapshot to see where American culture is at the time. I can look at the history — I lived the history — and I know why and how things changed.

But the question is, what movie wins this year and why? What’s the Oscar story? What’s the narrative?

Emilia Perez has a narrative: make history for both the transgender community in a year where that community pushing people too far indirectly led to the win by Trump. And yet, the Oscars could be saying “Hold my Beer.”  It’s also a big deal for Netflix to finally win Best Picture. There isn’t anything they want more than that. They want it as much as Karla Sofia Gascon wanted to make history. This is that important to them because it validates everything they’ve been trying to do to change the business, a business that is now collapsing.

Do we have any narratives for any of the other films? Well, sure. If we lived in the real world we would. A Complete Unknown has made money and captured the zeitgeist a bit. A well-liked movie that could come from behind and surprise everyone and win. It’s possible. Conclave is a film that many people see as the strongest film of the year in the Best Picture lineup. It could theoretically plug in to the Trumpy narrative — but it is overshadowed in that regard by Emilia Perez.

And then there is Anora, the most enjoyable film of the lineup for some of us. And yet, there is no Oscar story for it, no narrative to align people around it as a movement.

What we could be looking at is a split year that isn’t just split Picture and Director, but is split in terms of what wins at the various guilds, and at the upcoming Critics Choice Awards.   Here are the key dates:

February 8th – Producers Guild of America Awards  

The SAG Awards this year come after Oscar ballots are turned in, so the teary standing ovation movie won’t have an impact. It might help us figure out what kind of year this will be. Will there be one winner or will there be a bunch of winners?  So I guess we’ll see.

But let’s do a quick rundown  of the history, going back to 1990.

This chart doesn’t tell me much except that things started to shift when they expanded the ballot, especially where the five-ballot Golden Globes were concerned. Moving to the preferential ballot seems to put the shift more on the PGA over the DGA and SAG. Also, Picture and Director match less than they used to. In general, a movie in this new era that wins Picture, wins with either Director or Screenplay and sometimes both. We have not had a year in the expanded ballot era where a movie doesn’t win Director or Screenplay. Gladiator did it in 2000. Chicago did it in 2002. But since then, it hasn’t happened.

So what does this tell us about this year? It tells us nothing. We won’t know until we get to the Producers Guild and Directors Guild in the same weekend. It may go to both. It may split. But PGA and DGA splitting is rare. Because they are such large voting bodies, they tend to think the same way more or less.

The problem is that there is no “Oscar buzz” to speak of. None. Even if the Oscar bloggers still keep the energy alive, there is more happening with Paloma Diamond on TikTok where users continue to invent a much more exciting race than the one we have now. It isn’t exciting because there is no THERE there. None of the movies have been seen, and thus, no on can really talk about them. The election and the fires have muted the mood, let’s say, so it does feel like a funeral march.

And usually, this site is more involved in the Oscar race because I usually have advertisers taking out ads so I am more motivated to write about the contenders. As it is, I am having a hard time finding any enthusiasm for any of it. I remain horrified by what happened to me, and even more horrified by what has happened to the film and Oscar industry under this blanket of fear. We pretend that this industry supports free expression but it does not. It supports conformity. If you go along with everything you’ll be fine. The end result is a very boring Oscar race.

I wish for the days when movies were BIG and when they told stories for everyone, not just the smallest group of people who still care about them. Next year looks a little more promising but we have a large chorus of film critics that savage movies made for mainstream audiences and that’s not the only way we end up here, but it’s one big way. In the old days we have a couple of critics who wrote reviews the Thursday before the movie opened. We don’t have months of critics brought in to see movies for free who then trash those movies.

And then, there’s social media. It’s a mess. Perhaps we are living through the last days of a once mighty empire.

If things change maybe it will suddenly get exciting again. Hope springs eternal.