I knew I was done as a newspaperman when my editor left me a voicemail that we needed to have a phone meeting at 8:20 a.m. the next day.
I knew it was my layoff notice; why else does a boss want to talk twenty minutes past any hour if not to let you go?
I freaked out, of course, and sleep did not come easy that night. But I had been expecting that call for years. The time of newspapers — and newspaper journalists — had ended, at least for me. Given the layoffs in media recently, perhaps the time of news is waning.
It’s time for Hollywood to have an 8:20 a.m. phone call.
Everyday around this time of year, my mailbox and front patio brim with paper: Boxes, posters, screenplays, paperbacks, sheet music, stationery, pamphlets, fliers, hardbound coffee table books and confetti carved as delicately as artisanal string cheese.
All for an awards vote in an industry struggling to remain socially relevant and fiscally solvent.
This is hardly new ground for studios. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association took so much junket and awards swag that it had all the credibility of a Tom Selleck reverse-mortgage ad, and The Golden Globes’ clout spiraled into oblivion.
Now, the Critics Choice Awards, of which I’m a member, is second to Oscar in industry back-pattery. If Academy members get as much studio spam as CCA members — and I’d guess they receive two-to-three times as much — they’re drowning in dead trees as well.
There’s no kind way to say it: Studios try to buy awards. And some critics may be swayed by the ad campaign. Last year, studios sent piano sheet music to the 600 CCA members for the James Bond song and movie No Time To Die. Eilish autographed the sheets. The song won at the CCAs and the Oscars.
After the Oscar win, I went on eBay to see if any sheets were for sale. There were two: one with a Buy It Now price of $350 and one with an open auction that began at $250. I’ll admit: I probably would have sold mine too if I could work the ebays and Charlie did not have an Eat It Now policy on all paperwork left unattended.
Maybe the movie business doesn’t see many parallels with the newspaper business, but I can’t see anything else: A storied American tradition that is an exercise in craftsmanship and cost and existentially at risk in a rising technological tide.
Like newspapers, film feels bulky and slow — at least compared to its digital counterparts. Like newspapers, film faces a daunting stream, chock full of young fish willing to swim on the cheap. Like newspapers, film takes time, the most fleeting quality in a click-bait ecosystem.
Most puzzling, perhaps, is Hollywood’s egregious hypocrisy. I’ve been off the daily beat for eight years now, but I can remember a time when studios boasted how green their productions were. Some movies, studios beamed, left virtually no carbon footprint. Now, with the movies industry gasping for air, studios are clearclutting acreage for a tin trophy.
I get the swagger. When USA Today hired me away from the Post, the editor touted a “near-limitless” travel budget. But swagger fades fast; now journos are lucky to get mileage reimbursed.
Some studios and publicity firms do this right. Apple and Universal, for instance, send e-versions of their movies along with its mountainous paperwork. Bardo and Pinnochio were delights delivered digitally.
And honestly, I can’t say the ads and swag do a goddamn thing. I love the candy and wine and long-play albums (yup) you send. But I ain’t changing my vote. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once was my favorite movie this summer, and it remains my favorite movie of this year. I didn’t need the EEAAO Christmas wrapping paper to remind me.
Beware low-hanging fruit that hangs from withering vines, Hollywood. Roads filled with pulp go up awfully quick. If…hang on, I’ve got someone on the other line.
The Academy Award for best documentary, feature and short, often goes to the non-fiction movie that not only takes a revealing snapshot of the nation or world, but also changes the way we look at it.
Think Bowling for Columbine, the 2002 movie by Michael Moore and Michael Donovan that examined America’s gun culture, inspired by the Columbine High School massacre. Or An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim’s 2006 film about global warming.
They’re usually films that have sizable budgets and notable stars. While less spectacular affairs than commercial feature films, documentary features often boast the traditional trappings of Hollywood: Moore is one of the movie industry’s most famous reporters; Truth had Al Gore as its narrator.
This year, however, there is no star, issue or publicity campaign that is going to rival the most important documentary of 2020 — or, perhaps, the decade. Or millennium.
That movie is the the 8 1/2- minute video of the murder of George Floyd, filmed by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier in Minneapolis.
After all, what movie, documentary or otherwise, has sent a cultural ripple like Frazier’s cellphone footage? Consider the impact it’s had on America since the May 25 death:
The city council of Minneapolis has vowed to disband the city’s police department.
The mayors of New York and Los Angeles—America’s two biggest cities by population—announced plans to cut funding for their police forces.
Cities nationwide are set to ban choke holds by police, make all local police shootings subject to review by independent agencies, or reduce police presence at schools. Congress promises similar federal reaction.
State lawmakers in Mississippi started drafting a resolution to change the state flag, which contains the Confederate flag in its upper-left corner.
The U.S. Marine Corps banned displays of the Confederate flag on its installations.
Monuments honoring Confederate leaders have been or will be removed in Asheville, North Carolina; Birmingham, Alabama; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Mobile, Alabama; Alexandria, Virginia; and Louisville, Kentucky. (The governor of Virginia also announced plans to remove a large Confederate statue in the capital city of Richmond, but the plan now faces legal challenges.)
The city of Philadelphia removed a statue of Frank Rizzo, a former mayor and police commissioner who in the 1970s implored residents to “vote white”; the city of Antwerp, Belgium, removed a statue of King Leopold II, a monarch responsible for countless atrocities in Congo more than a century ago.
The Senate’s Armed Services Committee voted to include a measure in a defense-authorization bill requiring that military bases named for Confederate leaders be renamed.
Corporate leaders, facing criticism for racial insensitivity, have resigned from positions atop CrossFit, the Poetry Foundation, the city of Temecula, California, the co-working company The Wing, the publication Refinery29, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, gave up his seat on the company’s board of directors and requested that his replacement be black; the company honored his request, appointing Michael Seibel, the CEO of the start-up-investment firm Y Combinator.
NASCAR banned displays of the Confederate flag at its races. U.S. Soccer, the organization overseeing the country’s national soccer teams, repealed a rule that banned players from kneeling during the national anthem.
LeBron James and several other athletes and entertainers are forming an advocacy group that will encourage African Americans to vote in the 2020 presidential election, as well as work to protect their voting rights.
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, apologized for ignoring the complaints of African American players for years, and said he recognizes their right to protest peacefully, as Colin Kaepernick had by kneeling while the national anthem was played before games.
IBM ended research into and sales of its facial-recognition software, citing concerns about racial profiling when the software is used in the context of law enforcement; Amazon suspended the use of its facial-recognition systems by police departments for a year, which it said “might give Congress enough time to put in place appropriate rules” regulating the technology’s use; Microsoft pledged not to sell facial-recognition software to police departments until such rules are established.
Walmart said it will stop keeping beauty products marketed to African American customers in locked glass cases; the cosmetics retailer Sephora said it will start dedicating 15 percent of its inventory to products made by black-owned businesses.
The Paramount Network canceled the TV show Cops, which presented a flattened moral universe in which the cops (many of them white) were good and the people they confronted (many of them black) were bad.
HBO removed Gone With the Wind from its streaming service and said it plans to eventually present the movie “with a discussion of its historical context” and a denunciation of its portrayals of race.
You can argue how many of these measures were directly due to that riveting short film. And you can argue the merits of the reactionary steps taken. But, regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, there can be no debating this: That movie has forced America — and the world — to examine how it sees race.
Perhaps more so than 12 Years a Slave, the 2014 film that captured Oscar’s grand prize, Best Picture.
The problem is, the viral movie does not qualify under the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ (AMPAS) guidelines for eligibility for an Oscar. Those rules, which were changed this year due to the COVID pandemic, include that an entrant run in “qualifying” theaters if and when movie houses reopen at large. Short of that, the new academy rules stipulate that qualifying movies “be made available on the secure Academy Screening Room member site within 60 days of the film’s streaming/VOD release or broadcast.”
A New Oscar Category
I have no idea whether there’s an effort underway to meet AMPAS’ guidelines to make the footage eligible for an award, but it shouldn’t have to. The Oscars should make a new category to recognize that kind of movie.
After all, viral videos have become part of our moviegoing experience, even if we’re just going to our computers. Just as Netflix and other streaming services have managed to get on the Oscar radar (think Roma, The Irishman, etc.), viral videos have managed to get onto ours. Think everything from the Rodney King beating to Donald Trump’s “pussy grab” tape. They have altered the very landscape of political discourse.
There should be a formal acknowledgment of that impact from someone in the movie industry beyond a celebrity wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. Hollywood directors can be finicky about who should qualify for a statuette (Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan, for instance, vociferously challenge Oscars that do not encourage the in-theater experience, and they make strong arguments. The theatrical experience is unmatched in a theater. And cannot be replicated
But in the YouTube/Twitter/Facebook era, we cannot ignore the impact of seeing something on a screen no bigger than a cellular phone.
Oscar Would Become Relevant Again
If the Floyd video underscores anything, it’s that the time to act is now. And it just so happens Oscar is looking for a way to become once again relevant.
In recent years, the Academy Awards have developed a reputation for being too white, too male, and too out of touch with everyday Americans. And it’s cost the award show dearly in ratings.
Viewership for the 2020 Oscars plunged to a new low in February, with an audience of 23.6 million tuning in to watch the broadcast on ABC, according to Nielsen. That’s a 20 percent drop from last year, and roughly three million fewer than the number of people who tuned in for the 2018 ceremony, the previous low.
Imagine the viewership for the first Oscar telecast to honor a viral video. It would attract young viewers. Minority viewers. Viewers who don’t watch movies. The very people the Academy cannot coax now. The same could probably be said for any film critics circle that makes room for viral videos. If, for instance, the Golden Globes were the first with such an award, which show would you watch if you could only see one?
The Public Service Pulitzer Of Movies
An Oscar for the video with the largest cultural impact of the year could also serve as a sort of Pulitzer Prize for the everyday citizen. The granddaddy Pulitzer is the Public Service Pulitzer, but it does not recognize viral videos either. For once, an Oscar could mean more than an impressive trophy on a Hollywood shelf.
The effect of such an award could be seismic. The public is already infatuated with Hollywood. Think of how many people would begin documenting what actually occurs in their corners of the world. They would illuminate everything from hunger to homelessness in ways that even the most creative filmmakers cannot imagine.
This runs a risk, of course. People may be tempted to stage movies or embellish the circumstances they’re portraying. But America’s Funniest Home Videos has run a similar risk for years, and managed to weed out the forgeries. The Academy could stipulate veracity rules into its guidelines just as it has vets content for other types of films.
Frazier Deserves Recognition
Even on a filmmaking level, Darnella Frazier deserves recognition. Like a war correspondent, Frazier faced immense challenges and dangers, yet displayed profound bravery in making her movie. She confronted the very real possibility of being arrested, Maced, or forcibly removed from the scene.
But she stood her ground, in broad daylight, and openly recorded the injustice she saw unfolding before her. How many filmmakers have demonstrated that much courage, calmness and on-the-spot thinking as Frazier. The list is surely short.
And she’s received so much grief for her actions. Some critics have excoriated her online for seeking recognition or reward for the video. Just look at her tweet following the airing of her movie:
This is a teenager we’re talking about. One who spoke up, stood her ground — and caught more than a little hell for it. Michael Moore even said on his podcast that her movie was the documentary of the year. The young woman deserves a trophy. A raft of them, in fact.
Someday, a Hollywood documentary filmmaker is going to make a movie about the video and the aftermath. Perhaps they’re doing so right now. Netflix may have already secured film rights.
And someday, that film may qualify to officially compete for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Already, I can see the title (which I offer to Darnella Frazier, who has more than earned the right of first refusal): I Can’t Breathe.
But instead of acknowledging the sea change that’s occurring in the wake after her film, why not be a part of it?
In 2019, Netflix scored its first Oscar nomination for best picture. A year later, the streaming service is leading the field in total nominations.
Movies released by Netflix earned 24 nominations this year, nearly doubling its all-time total. Leading the way for the company this year are The Irishman and Marriage Story, which earned 10 and 6 nominations, respectively—including best picture nods for both. As Netflix’s impact on the world of cinema becomes increasingly undeniable, the younger and more diverse film academy is no longer shunning the streaming service as the old Hollywood guard tried to do.
In addition to its two best picture nominations, the haul from Netflix, which released its first feature in 2015, reached virtually every category, from acting (where it received seven nominations) to writing to visual effects.
Netflix’s 24 nominations were two more than Disney’s total, even when combining all of the nominations earned by Disney’s various studios into a single number. (Disney’s empire now includes 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight.)
2020 Oscar nominations, by film studio:
Netflix
24 nominations
Disney
22
Sony
20
Universal
13
Warner Bros.
12
Counting its two best picture nominations, the haul from Netflix, which released its first feature in 2015, reached virtually every category, from acting (where it received seven nominations) to writing to visual effects.
Netflix’s 24 nominations were two more than Disney’s total, even when combining all of the nominations earned by Disney’s various studios into a single number. (Disney’s empire now includes 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight.)
Threatened by the implications of Netflix’s arrival on the film scene, the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—the industry professionals who vote on the Oscars—had resisted awarding the streaming service with nominations. Hollywood has not been pleased with Netflix’s decision to release most of its films to subscribers online the same day that they’re put in theaters, which challenges the century-old relationship between distributors and theater owners. Nor are they happy with the small number of theaters that Netflix does allow its movies to be screened in.
But now voters are clearly warming to the idea of internet flicks, and we are entering the third age of television; streaming.
Though film viewers might not be in movie theaters, more people are seeing these films than if they were given a traditional theatrical release. Director Martin Scorsese—as Hollywood as Hollywood gets—said that he wouldn’t have been able to make The Irishman with a traditional studio. The major studios were unwilling to take on the financial risk of the three-hour mob drama, the director said. The deep-pocketed Netflix, however, was more than game, since it didn’t have box office receipts to worry about.
Netflix has used those deep pockets to launch historically expensive Oscar campaigns, hoping to woo voters the old-school way, with lavish parties and elaborate advertisements. The result has been an annual increase in Oscar nominations for the streaming service:
Helping Netflix’s case is a voting pool that has grown more diverse in recent years, in reaction to controversies like #OscarsSoWhite. In 2016, after the second consecutive year of an all-white slate of acting nominees, the academy made a much-publicized effort to invite more women and minority members. These new members, many of whom hail from outside the United States, are probably Netflix users themselves and can understand the appeal of releasing a film to everyone in the world at the same time.
While it may have helped Netflix ingratiate itself among the Hollywood elite, the change in membership hasn’t adequately addressed the actual problem it was meant to correct. The acting nominations this year were still blatantly homogeneous. Nineteen of the 20 nominees were white. The only black nominee, Cynthia Erivo, was nominated for portraying the former slave and abolitionist, Harriet Tubman. As usual, all five directing nominees were men.
That’s another area where Netflix can help the industry improve. The service has championed Oscar-worthy films directed by diverse filmmakers or ones featuring diverse casts, like 2017’s Mudbound and this year’s dramedy, Dolemite Is My Name, starring Eddie Murphy. Dolemite Is My Name was not nominated for any Oscars, even though its costume designer, Ruth E. Carter, became the first black designer to win an Oscar in history last year.
Netflix’s record nominations total is only going to convince even more talented filmmakers that the streaming service is a smart place to take their films. A world in which a majority of nominated films are distributed by Netflix and other streaming services may not be so far off.
