Awards season is beginning to feel like finals week of a graduate cinema studies course: sad and weird. This year’s field of films i🦄s packed with capable entries, several made on the cheap, that are relentlessly lauded for thinking small.
“La La Land,” a wispy musical all about how pretty disappointment can be, is getting a big liked-it-didn’t-love-it response from ticket buyers. New England clam-downer “Manchester By The Sea” pummels people with Greek tragedy but comes up short on catharsis. And “Moonlight” — the bestꦇ of the three — is a quiet meditation on growing up black and gay in the poorest൲ neighborhoods of Miami.
Don’t misunderstand me: All three are very good movies, but cumulatively they’re a drag. The question should be, “Who will tak🌱e home Best Wet Blanket?”
Thankfully, another drama has entered the race, and it’s actualꦏly giving audiences what they — gulp — want: a stirring story with some heart. And it’s getting plenty of love in return.
“Hidden Figures,” starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, ha🍷s raked in more than $100 million at🌞 the box office since it was released on Christmas Day. On Sunday, it won the coveted Screen Actors Guild award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.
The movie, which tells the story of three black female mathematicians who were invaluable to NASA during the early days of the space program, harkens back to Oscar bait of years past. Back when acclaimed films didn’t need to apologize for entertaining. Back before being as warm as Lake Ontario was a prerequisite for Hollywood’s top prizes. Bacꦡk when the tagline was “Run, don’t walk!” rather than “Wait till it comes out on Netflix, don’t bother leaving your house!”
More than any other recent film, “Hidden Figures” makes viewers feel oh-so-good, while provi🍷ding information through strong storytelling and performances𝓡. Spencer is receiving accolades for her supporting role, but Henson and Monáe are just as impressive. Is the movie innovative? Are Flamin’ Hot Cheetos healthy? Sometimes you just want to skip the molecular gastronomy and go straight for the lasagna.
While “Hidden Figures” snapping up Best Picture at the Oscars next month is still a long s🐷hot — “La La Land” star Emma Stone would need to be revealed as the cruel proprietor of a sweatshop — SAG members make up the largest voting body of the Academy, and the group’s support is meaningful. Perhaps it’s an indicator that the Hollywood snobs are emerging from their palace of prestige to meet the plebs.
It wasn’t so long ago that “Chicago,” “Chocolat,” “Sideways,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” were considered logical Oscar contenders. These were sweeping movies with a romantic spin on life. The sort of movies fictional directors film in today’s movies about making mജovies. The sort of stories that were told before filmmakers suc𒉰cumbed to a uniformly dark view of the world.
The sort of movies tha🎃t audiences actually want to see.