The Oscars telecast taking place this opening weekend in January is filled with excitement, and not just because it’s the first awards show of this new decade of 2040.
Contenders in the top three categories of best organic picture, best AI picture and best hybrid picture have been running neck and neck since those late-summer festivals.
And why not? All 10 nominees in each category are worthy. And each category caters to its own niche.
Voters for best organic picture tend to keep things gritty and real — otherwise why exclude machine creations in the first place? That means a certain hardscrabble drama and a certain period tearjerker — you know the downers I’m talking about — are pretty much running even. You can always count on the orgos to send us running for our meds.
Photograph by Art Streiber
Best AI picture, meanwhile, favors those big swings, those fantastical sets with all those long-gone figures commingling with one another. And sure, this year’s leading contender according to the Feinberg Forecast can seem too ambitious for its own good — a studio executive may have been hitting the nootropics just a little too hard when they decided we needed Humphrey Bogart, Meryl Streep and Abraham Lincoln in the same scene. But what’s the AI category for if not ambition? So don’t expect too many of the Academy’s 30,000 members to hold that against it.
But it’s best hybrid that always vexes. What to make of this category that drops in the realies with the digis — that lets us see how human actors interact with the programmables and programmers adjust to the humans? Three years in, and it’s still hard to make heads or tails of what voters like in this category. But an AI-actor hybrid winner never lacks for interest, if only to see them fight over who gets to give the acceptance speech.
By the way, one AI trend that absolutely needs to end immediately is bringing back Donald Trump in every AI picture. I get the appeal of not having to create a villain anew. And satire has its place. But last year’s best AI actor race was three Donald Trumps campaigning against one another. Three! Needless to say, things got nasty. His real presidencies were long enough; we don’t need OpenAImazon to keep them going. And on the subject of nominated AI resurrection projects, how are we feeling about that biopic All These Opinions Are Killing Me? I thought it was … a lot, though I have to admit that the AI that played Stephen A. Smith was pretty great.
The human performance categories are actually hard to game out this year. Ever since best human actor became one big genderless category — 20 lead actors and 20 supporting actors — handicapping the contest has gotten damn near impossible. But at least we get the best every year, no “this is a weak year for men” silly talk from consultants.
Plus the chaos makes for a fun betting foray. All those odds shifting up and down onscreen throughout the ceremony — it’s thrilling. A savvy Oscars-watcher could make themselves a fortune.
On that note, I gotta say, all those anti-gambling protests from earnest Hollywood types look a little silly in retrospect, don’t they? Gamifying the show with buttons you can press mid-speech to stake your cash brought in millions of viewers who never would have watched otherwise. Not for nothing was last year’s Oscars the most consumed piece of content of 2039 among viewers 18-to-24 — after Poet Swift-Kelce’s middle-school graduation, of course. And it’s not just the kids tuning in. Who among us oldsters doesn’t enjoy a good VFX-costume parlay? It’s a chance to make the Oscars mean something, finally.
On the broadcast front, expect Apple Vision Pro, in its second year airing the show, to really stick the landing. I was one of the few who felt they already nailed it last year, finally giving us the immersiveness the ceremony needs instead of that old 2D stream, which even Disney-Netflix CEO Bob Iger had to admit was getting stale. Who wants to watch a show on a flat-screen when you can be in the room? The room where it happens, as President Miranda would say.
Like, I don’t know about you, but to see June Squibb finally get her first Oscar and then give that speech … it just makes the hairs stand up on the old neck, being right there with her onstage as the moment unfolded. Expect even more excitement this year when Will Smith shows up for Chris Rock’s 75th birthday tribute. I just hope he doesn’t give him a birthday, well, you know. Though it would be fun to see how hosts Jenna Ortega and Addison Rae deal with that one!
And I’m kind of excited to see the new toned-down In Memoriam. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy last year’s segment of all the holograms of dead celebrities coming back, pointing at the audience and singing “Not Like Us.” I just didn’t need them to perform the Tyla Dance while doing so.
I would be remiss not to call out a few other categories. Best live-action short will be an exciting race to watch now that they expanded it to anyone who has posted on a social platform over the past year (and now that MrBeast has finally been disqualified for trying to give $1 million to every Academy member). Let’s just hope we get one of the faster nominees. Films more than a minute long really start to drag on. I mean, it is the short prize. It’s bad enough that all the best picture winners over the past few years have clocked in at more than an hour; do we need interminable shorts, too? On best original song, I’m wondering whether Diane Warren will finally get that Oscar this year. What’s the old saw, 50 nominations is the charm?
The stage of the first televised Academy Awards in 1953 at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Much has changed, and much more is sure to come.
Courtesy of ©A.M.P.A.S.
And on best human actor, I am kind of curious to see if Timothée Chalamet can win yet another Academy Award. It would be fitting, especially because the role he’s nominated for this year — playing Timothée Chalamet in The Life Story of Timothée Chalamet Until This Point — is one he truly nails.
Finally, best cinematic video game should be a barn burner. It might get a little awkward because a shooter has won five years in a row; what the Academy has against survival games, I’ll never know. But this could be the year the streak gets broken. By the way, if you want a kick, check out Ninja, Pokimane and Kai Cenat’s parallel livestream during the telecast. Cool stuff. When the Academy will wise up and let them host, I don’t know. Hopefully soon.
Here’s also hoping that with so many awards, the show still manages to stay under 90 minutes. The past few years have started creeping toward two hours, and you can really feel the audience begin to drift off. Two hours is a long time to sit and watch people give speeches.
Having gone through this weekend’s high points, I should say that I’m curious about what the Oscars will look like 15 years from now, in 2055. All kinds of new digital simulations and innovations and interactions await, not least a likely separate category for best AI director. And maybe by then, Americans will finally be ready to elect a woman president.
Enjoy the show!
This story appeared in the Feb. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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