lifestyle musings of a literary clown (5)
And the nominees are...
On Sunday the 26th, it’s the Oscars, and most years, I feel I am almost as excited as the nominees. I just love watching people cry while delivering totally rehearsed ‘I never thought I would win this!’ speeches in gowns that cost more than my monthly rent. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for opulence.) Yet this year, I just don’t find myself all that excited.
Perhaps because I haven’t been to a cinema in a year, and so many of the movies came out in 2021. At the start of the pandemic, I thought this Oscars season would be a shakeup with so few films released in cinema. My roommate Krys Fox and I even began praying for a Margo Robbie Birds of Prey nomination, which seemed to have an outside chance in May 2020. Beyond the inclusion of more female directors and increased diversity in the nominations, this year’s Oscars is not grabbing me as they did in previous years, perhaps because a glamorous award show does not reflect the lived reality of the pandemic.
So as I sat there trying to decide who would win (my money is on Nomadland for director/picture, come on Chloé Zhao,) I found my mind drifting to the performance and moments that really stuck with me through this season of bingeing media from my sofa. Here are my nominees and winners for my very own Pandemic Oscars 2021.
And the nominees for ‘Best Big Picture Foreshadowing of what my Year was Going to Feel Like’ are:
The Invisible Man
Tiger King
Survivor
Great British Bake Off
…And the award goes to Tiger King.
Tiger King was everything my year ended up being. Just like Joe Exotic, I, too, was a deranged, primarily shirtless, gay, hanging out with animal bones in a field pretending I’m a King writing myself musical numbers as my sanity slowly deteriorated. Plus, I relate to the actual tigers, longing to rip down the walls of their confinement.
My roommate and I doing some Tiger King cosplay early in quarantine.
The series came on so early in our quarantine experience that it bonded many of us Americans together in a televisual moment that we will never experience again in our lifetimes. I think there was a solid two-week period where all of my group threads just deteriorated into complex questions around Carol Basken’s missing husband. Plus, the announcement today that John Cameron Mitchell is playing Joe Exotic in the NBC adaptation of the Tiger King saga alongside Kate McKinnon just makes me so excited. I'm ready to feel the Tiger King fantasy once more.
And the nominees for ‘Best Performance of their Actual Life’ are:
The octopus from My Octopus Teacher
Megan Markle in The Oprah interview
Joe Biden in The 2020 Election
And the award goes to... The octopus from My Octopus Teacher
That octopus gave me everything, drama, passion, and an utterly badass fight sequence that had me on the edge of the bean bag chair. I am terrified of sharks and watching that octopus fight for its life inspired me to bring the same unrelenting energy of perseverance to my existence. But it was the LQQKS that won me over. Watching that one octopus change and adapt its shape into so many different configurations was breathtaking. I, too, love dressing up, and I tell you I learned a thing or two watching that Octopus; When the club opens up, I want to do a look inspired by an octopus hiding from a shark with a bunch of rock realness.
The intelligence that creature displayed across the entire film blew me away. While I have often heard that when humans inevitably die out, the octopus will emerge as the dominant life form on earth, I never really believed that till this movie. While I did not connect with filmmaker Craig Foster as much (though I did love how he served some serious aqua man vibes with those long fridges takes and impressive lung capacity), I am indebted to his work with this creature. The energy of their friendship was beautiful, and I loved the film’s message of seeing oneself as part of a larger global community that includes all sorts of creatures above and below the water.
And the nominees for ‘Best Supporting Performance’ are.
@BonusAffirmation on TikTok. (if you’re not following them, do it now)
Dr. Fauci in The American Shit Show
Mecha-Godzilla in Godzilla vs. Kong.
And the winner is… Mecha-Godzilla
Oh my god, this is so unexpected. Being both our industry veteran and literally wide ‘laser-eyed CGI ingenui, Mecha-Godzilla was not expected to take home the award in this blog post. But like Judy Dench in Shakespeare in Love, Mecha-Godzilla steals the show even though they’re barely in the movie.
Mecha-Godzilla has had a serious glow up this year, and looks 100% more like an influencer, compared with 1974.
To be clear, the film is garbage. The plot makes almost no sense, and Milly Bobby Brown serves some serious Qanon vibes that I frankly found ridiculous, but let’s talk about that final fight scene. If you’ve not seen it, please let me indulge you with a brief recap.
It begins when Gozilla blasts a hole to the earth’s core with its atomic lizard breath. (Typical) Moments late Kong, (who went to the center of the Earth to pick up a cute ax) comes barreling up the newly created hole, and the two of them begin an epic CGI smackdown that destroys about 90% of Singapore. The whole time they are fighting, the city is lit up in this luscious neon lighting that made me feel I was at a Miami beach club. I felt like those two monsters were serving the same energy my pod and I will bring to the clubs when they open—stumbling around like hot messes, destroying everything. As their fight draws to a climax, I found myself thinking that there is no way they will top this bisexual neon lighting fight sequence.
BUT THEN MECHA GODZILLA shows up. The first thing he does is eat the evil CEO, and if that’s not a big mood in 2021, I don’t know what is. Of course, being that Mecha-Godzilla is the big bad, Kong and Godzilla have to learn how to overcome their differences and support one another. I interpret Kong as a symbol of my raw-animalistic desire to scream and beat my chest after ages of not socializing. While Godzilla represents the cold anti-social behaviors, I have developed, having hidden away from crowds and people for so long. Watching them team up to take down an evil robot which reminded me of all the bad sides of ZOOM come to CGI life, was deeply cathartic. Living, breathing, antisocial creatures can unite to destroy the technocracy! For his help in making me realize this, Mecha-Godzilla genuinely deserves to win this Best Supporting Performance award.
So there you have it, the unexpected winner of my very own Pandemic Oscars 2021. For me, it was a year of binging media, and so many stories spoke to me, but I want to know what films or shows got you through the last year, for having run through all the selections Netflix had for me, I’m ready for yours. Go to @arspoetica.us and @shelton_whimsy on Instagram and let me know what film was your Best Picture of the year.