The Un-Oscars

Francis McDormand and Chloe Zhoa

Let's cut to the chase. For Hollywood, it was a very strange year, which is why, people say, the Oscars had zilch pop, zilch glamour. Impossible to imagine, but true. I didn't watch myself, but for weeks before the show and certainly any summary since, appear to agree: last night were the un-Oscars.

With good reason. Covid shut down theaters, literally and figuratively. Even had you wanted to, for a long time, you couldn't buy a bag of popcorn, much less sit through a feature. Gadzillions of the Americans tuned in to Netflix or Hulu or Britbox--no shortage of subscribers there. But theater tickets died an agonizing dry-rot death because for long stretches of time no one went, no one could.

I watched Best-Picture winner, Nomadland, the first week it opened in the theater down the road. My wife and I were two of the five people in the audience. Granted, it was mid-week, and granted, also, that Nomadland wouldn't have drawn the masses, even if Covid had spawned little more than a Tylenol headache. It was no blockbuster and wouldn't have been anytime, anywhere. 2020 was long, long way from Goldfinger, and Francis McDormand is no Halle Berry.

Which is not to say, McDormand wasn't a convincing winner. Rarely do movies like Nomadland even get made, movies in which character--as opposed to plot--is the show. The movie's strange setting is a gang of eccentrics who clump together in rugged locales in the American West and live, like nomads, as if they're parked on Walden Pond. The heart of the story is Fern who Chloe Zhao (who won for Best Director) claims is as singularly attractive in character and movement as Charlie Chaplain. People just love to watch her.  Who knows why? They just do.

If I were more steeply invested in the industry--I'm not--I'm guessing it wouldn't be hard for me to spell out a doomsday scenario for Hollywood, both the place and the world. Millions of people didn't see the nominees. Reportedly, even some of the judges had to scramble to find them. There were no blockbusters, no swashbuckling, no gala openings, no red carpets; the Oscars themselves lacked spectacle spectacularly. Woe and woe and woe.

But a friend of ours put up a note on Facebook last week, announcing that she and her husband had finished whatever Netflix series they were watching and were yearning for something just as good to start on once more. It's familiar, painful territory for millions of people these days--you love what you've finished and hate to take up the fearful hunt for something, anything, that good to take its place. "Any suggestions?" she asked her Facebook friends.

She got 'em. Tons of 'em. Suggestions galore. The Schaaps just finished (seven seasons!) The Seaside Hotel, a zany Danish comedy about a cast of well-heeled patrons who spend summer vacations at a hotel on the North Sea. It's just a ball. 

There's irony in the story of the un-Oscars. While Hollywood is tipping toward irrelevance in the era of the pandemic, more people are watching more shows for hours on end than maybe ever before. Television is in a golden era. 

And the result couldn't be sweeter. Francis McDormand, Nomadland, and The Seaside Hotel (the eighth season now being shown in Denmark)--out here on the prairie we're happy as clams, oddly enough, spending all sorts of quality time in front of the screen.

Hollywood? --who cares? Right now, Danish TV is smokin'. There's no end to great shows from all around the world.