It’s crunch time for movies looking to be singled out for excellence for Awards season. As the PGA, WGA, and other major guilds begin to firm up their nominations, and following both the New York and Los Angeles Critics Circles weighing in, alongside the Gotham awards, marketing campaigns have hit a fever pitch. And after the PGA recently announced their deeply disappointing list of nominees for Best Documentary - onlyTowerandO.J.: Made in Americareally stand out - the Oscars category for the very same award is starting to tighten up, asVarietyhas revealed that we’re down to 15 entries. Here are the titles:O.J.: Made in America,Cameraperson,Weiner,Gleason,13th,I Am Not Your Negro,Tower,The Witness,Zero Days,The Eagle Huntress,Fire at Sea,Life, Animated,The Ivory Game,Hooligan Sparrow, andCommand and Control
This is a very good list. I’ve yet to seeHooligan Sparrow,Command and Control, orThe Ivory Game, but the glut of the remaining titles are amongst the most insightful and immensely entertaining movies of this year.13th,I Am Not Your Negro,Fire at Sea,O.J.: Made in America, and Weiner are amongst the very best films of this year period, andZero Days,Tower,Cameraperson, andThe Witnessare awfully strong contenders. Though it’s a staggering work, there was little likelihood thatWang Bing’sTil Madness Do Us Partwould get attention, andLife, AnimatedandGleasonare openly inspirational, to an occasionally unnerving point, and are therefore major contenders.
Still, this whole game seems to beO.J.: Made in America’s to lose. There’s good reason for the raves: the sprawling narrative makes exhilarating use of exhaustively researched video clips, sound bites, and photographs, adding complexities upon complexities to the character of O.J. Simpson, one of the greatest football players to ever touch the pigskin. It would be nice to see something so hauntingly timely asFire at Seatake it, and both13thandI Am Not Your Negroare new classics in an emerging howl of fearless films about the black American experience in the U.S.A. The next cut to the list of contenders will say a lot about where the decision will land.
