The Academy Awards sometimes bring unexpected winners, but this year it seems like most of the big awards are sewn up. As Rolling Stone says, there’s no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to the Oscars, but I’ll eat my Oppy-style fedora if “Oppenheimer” doesn’t win Best Picture.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no interest or excitement to be had from Hollywood’s big night — if you turn away from the main talking points. We’re curating them all in Flipboard’s Oscars 2024 Magazine, which I’ll be updating throughout the night.
One interesting fact about the Best Picture category? Three of the contenders — “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Past Lives” and “The Zone of Interest” — are non-English-language films. The Conversation makes the point that this is the result of demographic changes in the people making movies, and the people rewarding them. “The future of film seems to be shaped by those who think beyond the limitations of what was once considered ‘foreign,’” writes Kerry Hegarty, an associate professor of film studies at Miami University. (For more insightful stories like this, take a look at the Conversation’s Arts & Culture Magazine.)
The incredible composer John Williams is the oldest ever Oscar nominee at age 92 (he takes over from himself, since he was nominated last year for “The Fabelmans”) and has just been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This year, his “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” music is battling it out in the Best Original Score category. Williams is the most-nominated person of all time (he took over this year from a guy you may have heard of named Walt Disney). He told the Associated Press he was retiring when he turned 90, but Variety reports that he subsequently said he could be tempted back.
On another note (pun intended), can you feel the Kenergy? “I’m Just Ken” was probably the most played song in our household last summer — I blame my two under-10 daughters but for some reason, they blame me. Ryan Gosling will be performing the Best Song-nominated number at the ceremony this year. To find out how that goes, follow Entertainment Weekly’s Oscars Magazine.
Some categories garner all the headlines, but I’m always interested in technical awards like Visual Effects. They often honor films that otherwise would not interest the Academy but that have enormous, talented teams working on making them look phenomenal. This year, nominated movies include “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” and “Godzilla: Minus One.” You can watch a panel about how those effects were all put together on the Academy’s YouTube channel.
Finally, her win may be all-but guaranteed, but it will still be extraordinary: Lily Gladstone is set to be the first Native American woman to win the Best Actress Oscar, for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” In December, she told the Hollywood Reporter about the Indigenous actors who inspired her through her childhood — Graham Greene, Dan George, Wes Studi, Tantoo Cardinal and Sheila Tousey — and the responsibility she felt towards the people who inspired the movie. “Once all my interviews are wrapped up, I’m going to make my way around Osage County and just gonna do my little protocols and give thanks for what this nation, these people, this land has given all of us by sharing this story.”
— Aileen Lalor, Senior Lifestyle Editor, is curating Oscars 2024 on Flipboard’s Culture Desk