We wrap up the year-end lists and pick some honorable mentions

I know we said we're not ranking these, but there's totally a number one

It’s Tuesday, February 15, and here’s where we are…

The Oscars are going to have to accept at a certain point that their moment in the sun has passed, and they can either be graceful about how they accept it or continue to flail as if there’s any way to turn things around. I understand how many people are invested in the financial success of the Oscar industry, but ultimately, the truth doesn’t give a shit how many people draw a paycheck from something. It’s just the truth.

There’s not much you can do to change the direction things are heading. If younger audiences and mass audiences aren’t going to movies, then it goes to follow that they’re not tuning in to an industry-focused celebration of movies in which people they don’t know give each other awards they don’t care about for films they haven’t seen.

Your hosts are Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall? Cool. Great choices. I am sure they will be very entertaining, however you structure the show. I think it’s a great idea to put on the most entertaining show possible… if that’s your goal for the show. If the goal is to suddenly reverse the slide from cultural relevancy that the Oscars have been experiencing (along with the Grammys and the Emmys and every other awards show there is) for a while now, you will fail. It’s not about the show. It’s not about the hosts. It’s not about the movies you’re nominating. It’s about the idea that audiences increasingly do not feel like spending an entire night glued to a television to watch celebrities give each other statues. It’s just not culturally important anymore, and if that stings, then so be it. At some point, adding Twitter-voted categories is just embarrassing for everyone involved, and when you have to give an Oscar to Zack Snyder’s Justice League because it wins your poll, you’re going to regret your very silly decision.

I know there is an entire industry that exists around the Oscars, people who make money based on advertising or because of the parties or because of the publicity campaigns or who run websites that dig into all of it, and I appreciate that it’s got to be scary watching the cash cow lurch around the barnyard coughing up blood. The gravy train was really good for a while there, I’m sure, and if there was a magic switch everyone could throw that made awards shows a major cultural force again, you’d throw it. I’d do the same thing for about a half-dozen things I’ve worked on. But that decadent, frivolous moment has passed, and everything that’s written about “fixing the Oscars” is like watching someone try to bail out a swimming pool with a sieve while standing fully submerged in the deep end.

I’m not making my list because I want to influence anyone or because I think my list is important. I’m doing it because I digest so much media in a year, and before we put 2021 to bed, I want to spotlight the things that really made it worthwhile for me this year. That’s all. This is a list that’s for me as much as for anyone, so I feel like I give all my favorite things at least one moment before we move on. There is so much media that it’s easy to feel like you’re constantly on to the next thing without really taking any time to digest, and that’s what the lists feel like for me each year… my chance to digest things and set them into context.