15th Academy Awards (1943)
Nominations: 12
Wins: 6
I’m writing about Mrs. Miniver today because this Sunday Adrien Brody broke Greer Garson’s Guinness World Record for longest Oscars acceptance speech, which had stood for more than 80 years. How’s that for a state of affairs for the Academy Awards? Here’s the thing… as much shit as Hollywood gets, I’m rooting for it. I think that, more than most of the world, Hollywood has genuinely tried to be a better, more inclusive place year over year, even if that effort is most often merely superficial. Hey, you know, with so many people decrying the increasingly vague term “woke,” I’m inclined at this point to give props for anyone seeming to sincerely try to be better. More than that, I know that the real people who make movies, the vast majority of these people, are hardworking, passionate dreamers and that’s cool as hell. And yet, every year more and more people seem to care less and less about cinema in general and this ceremony in particular.
As the veil gets pulled back further and also farther, it’s become impossible to deny that the Academy Awards (and all of awards season) is a sport. A game played by some of the worst people in the world who spend ungodly amounts of money in the hopes of earning… clout, I guess? These days, the movies that get Oscars are the movies that are made by studios who hired awards consultant firms when they greenlit the picture. These awards, like so much of our reality now, are defined by billionaires trying to fill holes in their hearts. Oscar prestige, if there ever really was such a thing, is almost totally meaningless in 2025. It’s not really the case anymore that an Oscar will change career trajectories or shine a light on a diamond in the rough. Best case scenario, an Oscar is a trophy that says you played the game best. More often than not, it’s just a piece of bar trivia.
Does it have to be this way? Was it always this way? And what the hell does this have to do with Mrs. Miniver?
