Oscars 2022: Will David beat Goliath? Will the little studio come out on top?

A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ 'Dune'. (Screen grab)

Media conglomerate ABC has the rights to the Academy Awards until 2028, and they’re going to present the awards in person this year. The award ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre (earlier known as the Kodak Theatre) in Los Angeles.

The last couple of years have been bad for award ceremonies as well. Last year, due to the COVID restrictions, the Oscars were held at the Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. It was oddly discomforting to see the small audience of nominees attempting to match the grandeur of the train station in their Oscar finery. Reminded me of the massive crowds in 1998 (that year the Oscars had a record-breaking international audience, and Titanic ruled the ceremonies) when I was a tourist gawping at the limousines lined up to deliver the stars…

Over the years we have seen the big fight between traditional studios that produced blockbusters and new entrants who were small, but packed a punch. The first time we heard about Amazon Studios was way back in 2008 when Amazon ventured into the filmmaking business with The Stolen Child, and in 2015 Amazon Studios came into their own when they acquired Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq. When Manchester By The Sea was nominated for six Academy Awards and it won two, there was huge upheaval in the world of cinema. Can an online streaming platform really create cinema in the original sense of the word?

Netflix, too, has muscled in and stepped up to many old, established studios. No one treats Netflix as just another streaming service. Apart from TV awards, Netflix can boast of winning 15 awards in eleven categories from 116 nominations in twenty-four categories. That’s showing the old studios. The Irishman, Mank, Marriage Story and more are Netflix movies.

Amazon last year acquired MGM - the Hollywood TV and film behemoth.

Miramax started out as a small studio that gambled with great stories, and though the reputation of the studio has been tarnished by Harvey Weinstein, the studio created cinema magic with Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, No Country for Old Men and more.

The Academy of Motion Pictures has a rule that requires that a film must be released in the theatres to qualify as an entrant and then a nominee. And award-winning movies like Roma do have an impact when you watch them on the big screen, but then most aficionados have gigantic screens in their home theatres…

This year, at the Oscars, there are Davids too. And yes, the Goliaths, the behemoths that have ruled the movie business. After watching Drive My Car (it releases on Mubi and if you can access it, on HBO Max), I have found something I really, really hope wins. I had not ever imagined that a 49-page Haruki Murakami story could become such a heart-wrenching tale of lost love and broken friendships and a strange new beginning of an uneasy alliance between an actor and a slip of a girl who is his substitute driver. The movie is an ode to silences between people. This film has come to us from a big Japanese Media Company Asahi Shimbun who are primarily in the newspaper business - their name translates to Morning Sun Newspaper (but their stylish culture magazine ‘T Japan’ is published in New York). They have produced the best picture nominee Drive My Car, script-written and directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

The shoo-in for this year, though, is Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog - you’d have to be living under a rock to have missed the controversies, beginning with how can an Australian make a movie about life in the American West… What I love about this film is that it’s already on Netflix in India and you can experience first-hand the cruelty of one man who does not want to adjust to new additions to his family and watch his downfall… The film is a Netflix and BBC original.

Nightmare Alley is a Searchlight Pictures movie, nominated for best picture. It will be streamed by Disney (on Hulu and HBO Max). That’s a big name, you will say, but Guillermo Del Toro is not an ordinary director. He can create fantasies for the young and adults alike. Nightmare Alley is a story about Stanton Carlisle who swindled the rich with the help of a clairvoyant and her husband…

Don’t Look Up is one of the best satires that has come out this past year, and is a sharp political as well as a social commentary. You will discover parallels with life during COVID and its politics worldwide. This wonderful sharp rebuke in the form of a film is brought to you by Netflix. The star cast is stellar, and I do hope it wins!

The most unusual film this year is CODA which stands for Child of Deaf Adults and it is sure to bring tears of frustration and joy to your eyes. I am cynical about movies that show underdogs winning music contests, so this movie did not impact me too much. But then when you see that it’s been helmed by Pathe and picked up by Apple TV, you know you want to cross your fingers and hope that this David wins too.

But the Goliaths have put up some brilliant movies too. King Richard (a story about Venus and Serena Williams’ dad) is produced by Westbrook but it’s got the backing of Warner Brothers.

Dune is a tough book to read and even tougher to imagine for the big screen. Denis Villenueve has created such a visual masterpiece, you know it has needed a big backing. This is only the first part and we as audiences have wanted more. The film is under the Legendary Pictures banner but with Warner Brothers backing.

The movie that did not work at all for us crazy romantics was West Side Story. And it’s understood that it has been nominated because of Steven Spielberg and his Amblin Entertainment and the big 20th Century Pictures. This film showed us what amazing actors and performers Ariana DeBose and Mike Faist are, but the story just feels like a pointless adaptation of a Broadway show. Besides, the 1961 version of the film is still better than this film.

Belfast is helmed by Universal Studios and is a little biographical nugget from Kenneth Branagh, and it will win because, nostalgia.

MGM Studios also brings to the best picture competition a film that looks more like an Indie film than a ‘Best Picture’: Licorice Pizza. It’s a coming of age story of teenage love, and if you want to see strange little creatures falling in love (which the academy members seem to like, and critics rave about) I’d rather watch Shape Of Water or ogle at Daniel Day Lewis’s strange obsession in The Phantom Thread.

We shall all wake up early in the morning on March 28, Monday (the red carpet arrivals will be asked ‘Who are you wearing?’ even before 4.45 am our time), when it is Sunday evening (March 27) in Los Angeles, like old-times Oscars. The COVID restrictions have been lifted and we shall be entertained by three hosts this year: Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes. The ceremony has been cut short and will present the Oscars for only the top categories. But we’re armed with all the information. And I am rooting for the Davids in the best of the movies category, and my fingers are crossed around the coffee cup… Although Dune…