What On Earth Should the Oscars Celebrate This Year?

I am tempted to careen into Saturday night’s Governors Awards, the glamorous event the Academy holds annually to deliver its honorary Oscars, dropping f-bombs like Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; whipping a lasso of truth like Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman; whacking back at smug chauvinists like Emma Stone in Battle of the Sexes; flinging myself out of a moving car like Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird; running the presses in my pearls like Meryl Streep in The Post.

But maybe I’ll just start by doing this: acknowledging that this is not a normal Oscar season. Yes, there will be parties and panels and red carpets and pretty gowns and teary speeches and, on March 4, 2018, some happy souls will go home holding little gold statuettes. Along the way, I’ll be documenting our champagne-soaked journey together every Friday in this space, toasting the movies and the sometimes silly rituals by which we celebrate them.

But this year’s awards season arrives as the industry is at a reckoning, weeks into the revelation that sexual predators have lurked at the top of the movie business. Many in Hollywood have told me they are grateful that this moment of truth-telling is here. “People used to tell me, ‘You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,’” producer and Women in Film president Cathy Schulman said. “There was a rejection of the idea that this is a biased community. But the dam has broken. There’s a sense of relief that this whole culture, this acceptance of the eccentric behavior of male hysterics, is finally being looked at.” Producer Stephanie Allain also described to me a watershed moment. “It’s an amazing time,” Allain said. “Everywhere women are meeting. We’re talking about changing the culture.”

Though many in town are having closed-door conversations about the sexual harassment and assault scandals, the Academy, which is often chided for its slow response to events, has been among the few Hollywood institutions to take on the issue publicly. Within days of stories about Harvey Weinstein breaking in The New York Times and The New Yorker, the group booted the producer from its membership rolls and pledged to draft a code of conduct for members which will include a policy for evaluating alleged violations and determining if action is warranted.

Stills from movies Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Battles of the Sexes, Lady Bird, and Wonder Woman.

The news of the Academy taking on this expanded role has not been entirely welcomed—some Academy members have told me they worry the group will overreach in efforts to address the issue, that it will create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. “I’m of a mixed mind,” one female Academy member told me. “Where do we draw the line?” That’s clearly a question the Academy and the town at large will be asking in the months to come. And it’s worth—if you’ll forgive my borrowing a phrase—your consideration.

When Vogue editor Anna Wintour recently asked Meryl Streep if she thinks this awards season will be different because of the stream of revelations about men like Weinstein, the 20-time Oscar nominee answered that this awards season will be “more aware.” “It might lead to the moment, at least in my business, where people walk into a room and they look around and they see three women and nine men and they think there’s something wrong, that it’s off,” Streep said. We can certainly hope she’s right. We can hope that this year, “for your consideration” does mean something different, something deeper. That it means considering more women holding seats on the boards of media companies, running the studios, directing the movies, controlling the budgets, and calling the shots. And until that’s the case, Oscar season or not, women in Hollywood are under no obligation to pretend things are normal. Flip a bird to the “mani cam,” ditch the pretense of behaving like an ingénue, and feel free to speak your minds.

A SUPERHERO’S JOURNEY

On November 7, I watched Dunkirk for a second time—this time followed by a Q&A at the Directors Guild between the movie’s maker, Chris Nolan, and Jon Favreau, who is currently in production on The Lion King for Disney. Naturally, the conversation turned to how Nolan shot his harrowing World War II movie on open water, using old-school techniques instead of computer-generated images. But Favreau’s line of questioning also brought up an interesting idea I hadn’t considered—that both men are to thank, and to blame, for our current bumper crop of comic-book movies. (Nolan for bringing new levels of craft and seriousness to the form with his Batman films, and Favreau for kick-starting Marvel’s Renaissance with Iron Man.) “We both came out of the superhero-movie tradition, and we’re both partially responsible for how things have developed and evolved,” Favreau said.

In responding, Nolan suggested that the money he had made for Warner Bros. on the Batman films was what had earned him the chance to make Dunkirk, a movie that looked pretty uncommercial on its face. (In fact, Dunkirk has made more than $500 million worldwide.) “You feel a responsibility with success to take more risks,” Nolan said. “There are so many great filmmakers out there who don’t have the opportunity to make a film with a big budget. You have a responsibility to grasp that opportunity, and really try and take a risk and stretch yourself and do something maybe they wouldn’t let somebody else do.”

HOT TICKETS

Sunday, November 12: Quentin Tarantino is hosting a screening and reception for Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled at Estrella in West Hollywood. This isn’t the first time Tarantino has helped get the word out for Coppola, whom he dated back in 2004. At a sold-out event in June at his theater, the New Beverly Cinema, Tarantino programmed a double feature of Coppola’s Civil War-set drama and the 1971 Clint Eastwood movie that inspired it. Expect Sunday’s gathering to attract more of an awards crowd. Come for the film, stay for the low-key female-revenge fantasy conversation.

Thursday, November 16: A.F.I. Fest’s closing-night film was supposed to be Ridley Scott’s All the Money in World, but since the director is re-shooting it to replace Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer, that prized spot is now open. In the past, A.F.I. has snuck secret screenings of anticipated year-end films like American Sniper, The Fighter, and Skyfall into its lineup. Might there be time to sub in Steven Spielberg’s The Post, which just locked? Or, likelier still, Dan Gilroy’s Denzel Washington vehicle, Roman J. Israel, Esq., which is due from Sony, the same studio as Scott’s film, just a week after A.F.I. closes. Whatever it is, we’ll be there. See you at the popcorn stand.

SMALL PLATES

Martin McDonagh tells Nicole Sperling why he wrote a John Wayne character for Frances McDormand to play in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: “I want little girls to have someone to walk into a bar and be like.”

Saoirse Ronan reveals the secrets behind her Lady Bird transformation to Julie Miller. It involves reading Joan Didion, watching Pretty in Pink, and being cool with acne.

Krista Smith toasts Mary J. Blige, Carey Mulligan, and Dee Rees at a Vanity Fair party for Rees’s Mississippi Delta-set drama, Mudbound, which hits theaters and Netflix November 17.

That’s the news for this week on the Hollywood and awards beat. A programming note: I’ll now be seeing you every Friday in this space. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, valet-line gossip, big deals you overheard at the Polo Lounge, bad vibes you picked up on at Craft, good vibes you picked up on at the ArcLight, flattering hem lengths you saw at Milt & Edie’s, and Chris Nolan’s tea order to rebecca_keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.