The joy of the Oscars getting it right

Maybe we should have seen it coming.

In the days leading up to last Sunday’s Academy Awards, critics, Hollywood folks and strangers on Twitter alike sang the praises of Bong Joon-ho’s masterful Best Picture nominee, “Parasite.” It seemed like everyone, myself included, was rooting for it to win, yet few were willing to predict a victory over the award season’s commanding front runner, “1917.”

For one, “1917” director Sam Mendes and his technical crew were cleaning up at all the major precursor award ceremonies. The movie is a legitimately impressive technical achievement, though some of those cool #FilmTwitter folks harped on the movie’s “one-shot” aesthetic for being too much like a video game.

“Parasite,” meanwhile, would have to overcome a daunting Academy statistic. In its 90-plus year history, the Academy has never awarded Best Picture to a foreign language film. Wrong or right, it seemed like many voters clung to the idea that the Best Picture prize should celebrate American films. Well, and British movies about old white guys.

With that in mind, you can’t blame us “Parasite”-heads for being pessimistic. The Oscars don’t have the best track record for choosing the best movies. Just last year, this same voting group gave the utterly mediocre “Green Book” the Best Picture trophy. A guy who lip-sang Queen songs won Best Actor.

Long before the “Green Book” debacle, I learned not to care too much about the outcome of a silly Oscar race (it was probably somewhere around “Crash” winning Best Picture where I really, really stopped caring). With four young kids in the house, my Dad Brain can’t even remember most of the Oscar winners from a couple years ago. Before kids, I could fill my brain with all sorts of worthless stats. Now I just remember the movies I like, and I shrug off whether anybody else cared as much as I did about them.

BUT. It feels really good when the Oscars get it right. Watching Bong Joon-ho and “Parasite” collect prizes for International Feature, Original Screenplay, Director and Best Picture collectively became a definitive Oscar moment. “Parasite” is masterfully written and directed, features the strongest acting ensemble of the year, and has some insightful ideas about class structure and universal human behavior.

Its historic victory also celebrates international cinema. For anyone complaining about there being too many superhero movies and sequels out there, “Parasite” is just one film from an enormous international pool of exciting ideas and talented original filmmakers.

It just feels good when the Best Picture actually feels like the Best Picture.

Another thing to celebrate: “The Farewell” at the Independent Spirit Awards

The day before the Oscars, the Independent Spirit Awards did a fine job filling in a few of the gaps left by the Academy. Adam Sandler got his moment onstage winning Best Actor for his stunning (and Oscar-snubbed) performance in “Uncut Gems.”

Even more exciting for me though was Lulu Wang’s superb family drama “The Farewell” winning Best Feature and the Supporting Actress prize for Zhao Shuzhen. The Awkwafina-led film was one of my favorites of the year, right up there with “Parasite,” “Us,” “Little Women” and “The Irishman,” but the Academy nominated it for exactly ZERO Oscars. More people need to check it out too.

Don’t let subtitles stop you from enjoying incredible movies!

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com. He’s been writing professionally about movies since 2000 and is the co-host of Old Millennials Remember Movies, available everywhere you get podcasts and at OldMillennialsRemember.com.