Monthly Archives: February 2024

Why ‘Oppenheimer’ Deserves The Oscar

(By The New York Times)

Over the weekend, “Oppenheimer” won both the award for best picture from the Producers Guild of America and the top award from the Screen Actors Guild, completing its sweep of nearly every major industry award and establishing it as a near lock to win best picture at the Oscars on March 10.

Good.

In the past, I’ve personally bemoaned the lack of suspense at the Oscars, given the gantlet of preceding awards that draw on some portion of the same voters. But this year I’m rooting for “Oppenheimer” to steamroll its way to best picture — not because it’s my personal favorite film of the year (it’s one of many I admired) but because failing to recognize a film like “Oppenheimer” would be a catastrophic misstep for the film industry in a year when it needs every win it can get.

The history of best picture winners serves as a parallel history of the state of the industry. Many exceptional (and a few forgettable) films have won best picture recently, but it’s arguably been more than a decade since a big Hollywood film won Hollywood’s top award: “Argo” in 2012. Since then, the films anointed have either been small indies (“Coda,” “Nomadland”) or films largely developed outside of Hollywood’s traditional studio apparatus (“Parasite”).

Occasionally, though, Hollywood gets a rare chance to fete what Hollywood does best: big, expensive, expansive, impressive epic films that resonate with audiences and critics alike. When “Titanic” swept the Oscars back in 1997, it felt less like an awards show than a celebration of proof of concept. A similar outpouring greeted “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2003, which served as a reminder that Hollywood remained the gold standard for cinematic spectacle.

After the pandemic disruption, two strikes and an industrywide panic over the basic business model, Hollywood needs a W. “Oppenheimer” is that, wrapped in a bow: a crowd-pleasing biopic that made nearly a billion dollars from a respected blockbuster-making auteur.

I realize, of course, that between streamers and indie studios thriving (and old studios wobbling), no one’s sure what “Hollywood” as a collective noun means anymore. That’s exactly why, for one night, the industry needs to celebrate “Oppenheimer” and bask in the collective triumph of doing what Hollywood has always done better than anyone else, while there’s still a Hollywood around to celebrate.

The Prodigal Jon


What the hell took so long?

After nine years, three presidents and no hit television show, Jon Stewart returned to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. And it’s glorious. 

Sure, Stewart took a pummeling for “bothsidesism” on his official return last week, and I’ll admit: Watching Stewart skewer Biden for his senior moments was almost too painful to watch (especially given Trump’s own run of them lately). Critics even suggested that he take another nine years off. 

They are, to the last, blithering slackwits. Perhaps they forget what it’s like to watch someone read from a teleprompter. They stutter, misread, misspeak, and otherwise clod over prepped lines. Don’t believe it? Watch any Oscar show. 

But Stewart does not read like a normal human. He seems so aware of his words that he doesn’t read them: he tells them, as if recalling a vivid story.

Watch him skewer newswhore Tucker Carlson for his interview with Vladimir Putin. Stewart blasts him not only for softball questions, but for Tuck’s larger slobbering over lifestyles in Russia, where average family incomes routinely run $200 a week. The cherry on top was Stewart’s trademark “Moment of Zen,” a Russian outlet’s subsequent interview of Putin, who called Tuck a feeble mouse. 

At least one of them was accurate.

And unlike, say, Trevor Noah, The Daily Show replacement, Stewart knows American politics inside and out, sometimes better than stumping politicians. No one interviews on-camera as seamless as he.

Stewart ended his sophomore return show with a simple, devastating rebuke of Carlson and his conservative douchebag fans: a picture of Alexei Navalny, the Putin critic killed in Siberia. That, Stewart said, was the true motive behind Tucker’s constipated visage and mission: To put a shiny happy face on tyranny. 

Welcome home, Jon. Make yourself comfortable.