THE PARTY’S OVER

BY: Michael Arkin

Who’s your pick for Best Actress this year? How about Best Picture? Best Actor? Perhaps the better question is do you care? In this annus horribilis, when there’s been more drama on the news than on the big screen, are you even thinking about the Academy Awards? Traditionally, by the holidays, we’d have spent the better part of fourth quarter sitting in darkened theatres catching up on the Oscar hopefuls. They’d be conversation starters, the source of debate at dinner parties, the common denominators that everyone shares. In short, they’d be last year’s equivalent of this year’s “what are your streaming?”

Even if it meant having to suffer through Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s same old, self-deprecating schtick, or even worse, Ricky Gervais, this time last year we’d be looking forward to the Golden Globes’ early January telecast. Not this year. The official kickoff of 2021’s Awards Season will be celebrated on February 28th at what the Hollywood Foreign Press still touts as “The Party of the Year”. Didn’t anyone tell them that the party’s over? The last thing the ailing movie business needs is a Hollywood super-spreader event. That’s why the 93rd Academy Awards abandoned the February 28th date, which The Globes snatched up like the last roll of toilet paper at Costco. Back in June when these rescheduling decisions were being made, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, like the rest of the world, was still hopeful that the pandemic would be remedied by April 2021.

The delay comes at a time when the Academy, like the motion picture industry itself, is struggling to remain relevant in the new entertainment world order. Part of that struggle concerns making the Academy membership more reflective of the overall population so that nominated films appeal to a wider spectrum of audiences. That in turn translates to a wider audience for the Oscar telecast, which is where the Academy makes the majority of its money. When the Academy was formed in 1927 its membership consisted of 36 white industry professionals, only 3 of which were women. After being taken to task by the #OscarSoWhite movement in 2016, the Academy revisited their diversity goals and claims to have achieved them this year by adding 819 new members, of which 45% were women and 36% people of color.

In addition to its diversity goals, the Academy has amended their eligibility requirements, at least for this year. In order to qualify for consideration, a film used to have had to play in a theatre in Los Angeles for 7 consecutive days with no less than 3 screenings a day. Now a film can premiere on streaming and VOD services as long as they are made available on the secure Academy Screening Room Members-Only site within 60 days of the film’s streaming or VOD release. This also marks the last year that DVD screeners will be sent out to Academy members. Bummer. Despite the FBI warnings at the start of every screener, everyone in LA knows that borrowing your friend’s Academy DVDs is one of the holiday season’s most treasured traditions.

Nothing in Hollywood will be the same after COVID. For years, studio executives looked down their noses at their unglamorous but highly prosperous home entertainment divisions. Now, those once maligned cousins are the economic lifeblood of the business.  According to Screen Engine, one of the industry’s leading research firms, 37% of moviegoers said they will wait until they receive the vaccine or the pandemic is under control before returning to theatres. By then, many may have fallen out of the habit. Especially since the cost of going to the movies for a family of four is basically the same as buying five streaming services for one month. That may be why, after conferring with epidemiologists, Warner Bros. made the groundbreaking decision to release their entire 2021 slate of films to its HBO Max streaming service for 31 days on the same day they are released in theatres. Among the 17 films included in this game-changer are Matrix 4, Dune, and Godzilla vs King Kong – all of which were made to be seen on the big screen. While the studio maintains that these rules are only to be employed during the pandemic, as Julius Caesar said before crossing the Rubicon, “The die is cast.” 

 

Like the Awards shows and theatrical distribution, film festivals are trying to find their footing on COVID’s shaky ground. At an elevation of 8750 feet, The Telluride Film Festival is as close to heaven as any film festival can get, but being that close to God didn’t prevent them from having to cancel their Labor Day weekend events. Similarly, The Palm Springs International Film Festival recently announced that for the first time in its 31-year history, the show will not go on. Traditionally a stop on the road to the Awards, Palm Springs does plan on staging its Film Awards Presentation on February 25th. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle what has always been a jam-packed event.

 

The buzz meter will need to be recalibrated for this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Now in its 42nd year, the festival, per their website, will be presented “digitally via a feature-rich, proprietary online platform and in person (public health permitting) on satellite screens. Festival attendees can gather in virtual waiting rooms, participate in live Q&As, and congregate in new, inspired online environments.” I don’t know about you, but a Brady Bunch Zoom-like virtual cocktail party doesn’t sound inspiring or nearly as fun as seeing Quentin Tarantino slipping into TAO Park CIty after participating in a snowball fight on Main Street or going home with a suitcase full of freebies. While there’s bound to be snow, this year Sundance may no longer be cool.

 

The perfect storm of the pandemic, and the economic crisis it spawned, have people reevaluating what’s important in life. After 4 years of the Trumps and the Kushners, do we really care about who Nicole Kidman is wearing on the red carpet? Do we need to hear an actor explain why he took a role? Even Kris Jenner (aka the exploiter-in-chief) raised a manicured finger to the wind and realized after 20 seasons and a pandemic, that people are exhausted from Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Something tells me we will survive even if we can’t watch Kim, Kylie, Kendall and Chloe Losing it in Lockdown (the actual name of a recent episode). The question is, will they? As Warren Beatty said of Madonna in the documentary Truth or Dare, “She doesn’t want to live off camera, much less talk.” Maybe during the Kardashians’ post-production down-time they could get out and work in a food line. Now that’s an episode I’d tune-in for.

 

In a world where Dr. Fauci is played by Brad Pitt on Saturday Night Live and has higher Q scores than Chris Hemsworth, the question isn’t “How many Oscar contenders have you seen?” but rather “How many have you heard of?” Other than the four that have already streamed on Netflix and Amazon, it’s likely you don’t even know the movies that Variety considers the frontrunners for this year’s awards. For the uninformed, they include:

• Nomadland
• The Trial of the Chicago 7
• Minari
• Mank
• One Night in Miami
• The Father
• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
• Judas and the Black Messiah
• News of the World
• Promising Young Woman

2020 was a never-ending anomaly in so many ways that it’s hard to predict where the future of the movie business lies. But based on the data that exists, the future has a name, and it’s Netflix. Research conducted prior to the outbreak of the pandemic showed that streaming accounted for 19% of all television watching. One can only imagine that number being dwarfed when 2020’s stay-at-home measurements are published. Out of that 19%, Netflix has a 31% market-share compared to You Tube’s 21%, Hulu’s 12% and Amazon Prime’s 8%. 

With statistics like that, the question that has network executives reaching for their Xanax is: will people abandon streaming to tune into ABC’s Oscar telecast? Maybe, maybe not. Here’s a frightening factoid to keep you up at night. A Recode study shows that parents spent more time watching Netflix than watching their kids. Welcome to 2021: “It’s 10PM do you know where your parents are?”

 

Copyright 2021 by Michael Arkin. All Rights Reserved.