How the History-Making 2021 Oscars Went Down, from Chloé Zhao to Anthony Hopkins’ No-Zoom Anticlimax
However low the ratings turn out to be for the two-month-delayed 2021 Oscars, the three rookie Oscar show producers, Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher, and Glenn Collins, took advantage of their pandemic limitations to apply a fresh twist to the tried-and-true awards-show formula. They wanted viewers to escape into a cinematic experience miles away from the trapped-at-home feel of watching television and Zoom. Soderbergh’s watch-a-movie Oscars deployed roving wide-angle lenses, 24 fps images, and a live Questlove soundtrack to take audiences closer to attendees, sitting two by two at plush banquettes and small tables in the blue-curtained intimate amphitheatre erected inside iconic Union Station. As Soderbergh promised beforehand, “I want the whole thing to announce itself out of the gate as different.”
Sure enough, right off the bat, actress-turned-director Regina King strode into Union Station in a dazzling blue gown clutching an Oscar like she owned the place. She was covered by...
Sure enough, right off the bat, actress-turned-director Regina King strode into Union Station in a dazzling blue gown clutching an Oscar like she owned the place. She was covered by...
- 4/26/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
This year’s Oscar race was defined by a pandemic, lockdown, movies streaming on small screens, a more diversified Academy membership, and a slate without big-budget nominees. Some titles had a festival launch and received critical attention, but no one can claim box-office success, word of mouth, or consensus. Online viewings and Q&As made popularity difficult to define. Perhaps for this year only, all nominees have one thing in common: No one knows how they played in a room.
With a record 36 Oscar nominations, Netflix morphed from feared Hollywood disruptor to welcome savior as it kept industry workers employed and picked up studio movies such as Paramount’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” as theaters shut down. Streamers Netflix, Apple (“Wolfwalkers”), and Amazon laid out more Oscar campaign cash than the studios, which did back loss-leader movies like “Judas and the Black Messiah” (Warner Bros.) and “News of the World...
With a record 36 Oscar nominations, Netflix morphed from feared Hollywood disruptor to welcome savior as it kept industry workers employed and picked up studio movies such as Paramount’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” as theaters shut down. Streamers Netflix, Apple (“Wolfwalkers”), and Amazon laid out more Oscar campaign cash than the studios, which did back loss-leader movies like “Judas and the Black Messiah” (Warner Bros.) and “News of the World...
- 4/22/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
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