All hail Spike Lee for the provocation that is BlacKkKlansman, from the crackerjack force of its storytelling to the filmmaker’s canny modulation of tone to its occasionally disarming displays of empathy. It’s almost a miracle that this “fo’ real fo’ real shit” registered so loudly with AMPAS in the same year where Green Book, whose narrative bothsidesism feels like an extension of the very pathology that BlacKkKlansman lobs a Molotov cocktail at in its incendiary coda, is the de facto frontrunner for best picture.
We’re very much on board with Lee having emerged as a sentimental favorite for this award, but there probably isn’t enough good will in the world for him to buck the trends of an awards culture so reliably drawn to the classicism that Roma embodies to the core of its being. The film has found favor with nearly every awards body during the precursor season, and in no small part because of the transfixing dissonance that results from Alfonso Cuarón applying his maximalist style to a simple tale of two women separated by class but united by abandonment and a shared devotion to a small army of children. And after winning his second DGA award last night, there’s no reason to believe that he won’t complete the hat trick at the Oscars.
Will Win: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
Could Win: Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Should Win: Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
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