Where We're Going We Don't Need Eyes to See
Some quick Oscars thoughts on last night and the horrifying future
Deftly skirting a mental breakdown following, as Tim Heidecker artfully puts it, “Christmas in Tinseltown,” I have come to accept the results of last night’s Academy Awards. A win in some ways (Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Fraser clinched their respective noms which made everyone feel good and nice; “Naatu Naatu” took best original song, Avatar: The Way of Water took visual effects and Top Gun: Maverick yanked the sound award from All Quiet on the Western Front’s wicked and nasty hands), but a loss in most others.
All Quiet on the Western Front was the night’s dark horse, sweeping the technical awards and thereby effectively shutting out any chance at an #ElvisSweep, in addition to a complete and total Tár shut out, the white Daniel saying “mommies” on stage, and an overall predictable ceremony. This is mainly due to Everything Everywhere All at Once winning more than half of its 11 nominations, becoming the most-awarded best picture since Slumdog Millionaire back in 2008.
Ok, some quick thoughts on EEAAO. I don’t think it’s a bad film, I even enjoyed it well enough. I saw a press screening (I think it was actually my first press screening after moving to New York last year?) a few days before the official release back in March. I was a huge huge huge huge huge fan of the Daniels (awful name) debut feature Swiss Army Man in college, and I was excited for their new film, which was getting good reviews out of SXSW.
After my screening, I thought EEAAO was pretty good, it had made me cry a little, but it didn’t leave much of an impression. It was too long, too juvenile, a bit too convoluted yet a bit too simplistic in its emotions. I watched it with the intention of writing something timely on it for an outlet, but the further I got away from the film the less interested I realized I was in doing so because it just felt like there was nothing else to even dig into. It was all right there, laid out for you on a silver platter. And after being inundated with their presence enough over the past year, I have decided I do not like the Daniels and their positively wretched vibes.
On the one hand, I do think it’s cool that EEAAO won, because it’s a comedy and seemingly atypical pick for the sort of stuffy, well-to-do fare that we think of usually taking best picture (even though there were six other films nominated this year that were better and would have been more deserving), and the wins for Yeoh and Quan are incredibly meaningful. None of this is lost on me, and the fact that the Daniels thought of Quan for their film and offered him the one lifeline that has led to his career resurgence is perhaps the most consequential outcome of all this. But similarly to The Shape of Water win, when you think about, it really isn’t all that surprising that EEAAO won. I think I saw an anonymous Oscar ballot a couple days ago that kind of summed it all up for me. It said something to the effect that EEAAO was a feel-good film, and so this person wanted it to win because of that.
That’s what I mean — it’s a simplistic film, the emotions are basic and accessible and uncomplicated. It has all this extra shit flying around that feels “weird” and “strange” but it’s just window-dressing for a film that doesn’t really offer much to chew on. When you strip all that stupid nonsense away, it’s a film for the octogenarians that make up most of the Academy who just want to watch something nice that makes them feel nice. And I think if a film sweeps with the Academy voting body, then it is a film made for those people, not the outsider film that it thinks it is. This latter observation is why I believe the film’s detractors detest it so.
But that being said, while at our viewing party last night, my friends brought up a good and terrifying point: the films that will try and be the next EEAAO. The films that come out of the EEAAO domination will make the people hated the sweep look back on it with fondness, and will make fans of the film wish it had never come to prominence. I tweeted and deleted (because my tweets about the Oscars cease to exist after the ceremony ends) that the EEAAO sweep has set a dangerous precedent for people who are “so random” — people, like the Daniels, who say “mommies” and “imposter syndrome” while on the Academy Awards stage, and feature in their film things like hot dog fingers, butt plug gags, and an all-powerful everything bagel (I distinctly remember this latter inclusion got an eye roll from me during my screening).
But what is leaps and bounds worse, is that it will also lay out the red carpet for filmmakers who are not, like the Daniels, in their heart of hearts “sooooo random,” but are trying to be. It has opened the door for Marvel to cash in on being random as well, as if their sense of humor was not god-awful enough (the Russo brothers are credited as producers of EEAAO, mind you). We saw a glimpse of this forthcoming ripple effect during the Oscars ceremony, when a trailer dropped starring over half the lead cast of EEAAO in a multiverse series from Disney+; meanwhile, the House of Mouse already employs Rick and Morty writers for its declining MCU output.
This is my prediction, this is the new wave of nostalgia: being random. An annoying trend? phenomenon? turn of phrase? that I believe struck its height of popularity with Tumblr scene xD kids (like me) when I was in high school in the late 2000s to early 2010s, this is going to be the new thing films are going to attempt to be in order to be the next Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Have we even properly contended with the horrors that are going to come out of this? Has anyone even considered all the awful copycat films that we are (that I AM) going to have to sit through? Hot dog fingers and “Raccaccoonie” will seem like a quaint relic of the past when we have films with characters saying dialogue akin to “Rawr is ‘I love you’ in dinosaur.” Between nuclear war and the climate crisis, we are sorely unprepared for the real impending apocalypse. All Films Like Everything Everything All at Once, All the Time, Forever.
Well written.
I agree with your point that there will be a wave of copycat films that operate in the mode of "so random", but I suspect any such movies will be easy to spot and even easier to skip.
Incredibly well put!