Jessica Calhoun, Kristen Meyers and Brittany Brooke Crow toasted the Oscars at the Varsity Cinema’s watch party in 2023. (Photo: Des Moines Film)
By Michael Morain
This year’s Oscar nominations will be announced bright and early at 7:30 a.m. Thursday at Oscar.com, Oscars.org and the Academy’s platforms on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube — and TikTok, too, if it’s still a thing. It’s hard to guess from one day to the next.
Hollywood has other things on its mind these days, as fires continue to burn across Los Angeles. The Oscars voting deadline was extended twice in light of the disaster.
But the show must go on, one way or another.
“It’s been amazing. Everybody’s kept the wheels turning even when you know they’re going through really challenging times,” said Ben Godar, who leads Des Moines Film and the Varsity Cinema, which plans to host its annual Oscars ceremony watch party March 2.
Godar went to grad school in L.A. and keeps in touch with friends there, as well as movie distributors and other folks in the industry. He recalled how strange the virtual Oscars ceremony seemed in 2020, when the pandemic hit, and expects this year’s in-person event to be a “positive and healing” symbol of resilience.
Besides, “it’s one of the few awards ceremonies that creates a cultural conversation,” he said. “It’s like the Super Bowl. It’s one of the last things you can watch and then go to work the next day and know that most other people saw it, too.”
So, does he have any predictions? He does indeed. His favorite this year is “Nickel Boys,” about a pair of Black teenagers who are sent to an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida. “The way it uses the form to tell the story is something we haven’t seen before,” he said.
He also likes “The Brutalist,” about a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who escapes the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States. It’s long — 3 hours and 35 minutes with an intermission — but Godar said it’s worth it. He said it was the kind of “sweeping American epic” that was more common through the ’70s but is rare now.
Godar saw both of those movies last fall at the New York Film Festival. He encourages people to watch as many Oscar contenders as possible in an actual theater. For several years, he explained, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon made a run for the Oscars by producing their own highbrow movies for subscribers to watch at home. But “we’ve seen them migrate now, chasing the next ‘Tiger King,’” so the momentum around movies has shifted back to the big screen, Godar said. “It’s still the best place to see most nominees.”
Many of this year’s Best Picture nominees will be re-released to local theaters over the next few weeks. The Varsity also will screen this year’s Oscar-nominated short films, adopting a popular annual tradition that used to take place at the Des Moines Art Center.
Check out the Varsity’s website for tickets and details to its ceremony watch party, “A Red Carpet Affair,” with a live broadcast, games and contests during commercial breaks, and movie-themed snacks and cocktails.
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