Why F1 the Movie should win the best picture Oscar

It may not be in pole position, but Brad Pitt and director Joseph Kosinski’s sleek, technically inventive ode to motor racing definitely qualifies for the Academy podium Could, should, would F1 the Movie win the best picture Oscar? Well, we have to be realistic here: F1 is currently a massive outsider, at 200-1 along with The Secret Agent , which has no chance either but for very different reasons. It’s not hard to see why: this is a swaggeringly mainstream film, where tech and branding dwarf the human input, with the film itself acting as a front-end battering ram for a sports organisation desperate to break into the promised land of the US auto racing circuit. (I mean it’s right there in the title.) So even the most reactionary, conservative Academy voter is going to find it hard to mark F1 with their tick. So no, I don’t think it could win. That’s not to say F1 doesn’t have quite a bit going for it. The Oscars, as we know, have historically had a problem with so-called “popular” ...

Hanging around: how Planet of the Apes became Hollywood’s most resilient franchise

The success of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes shows how, for almost 60 years, the series has managed to sustain audience interest

By pure hot-streak longevity, the most impressive feat in Hollywood franchising is the Mission: Impossible series, which began in 1996 and may – may – finally wrap up next year, after eight entries and nearly 30 years without a single continuity reboot. But true to the fictional history of the Planet of the Apes series, it may be the apes who ultimately inherit this title from the petty, small-minded humans. The original Planet of the Apes came out in 1968 – and based on first weekend box office and positive reviews for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the latest installment of a rebooted series that began in 2011, the series will probably remain when the first movie reaches its 60th anniversary in just four years. This may be the most purely resilient series in Hollywood.

Yes, when you factor in reboots, the James Bond series has been kicking around for longer (though not by all that much). But the Bond movies have a lot of things that a lot of people traditionally like in their motion pictures: cars, guns, globe-hopping locations, attractive human beings triumphing over supervillains. The majority of the Planet of the Apes movies have little of this, and instead feature – multi-spoiler alert? – humans losing, badly. It’s a hallmark of the series, whether through the psychological damage inflicted by the original movie’s now-famous twist ending (the ape world isn’t a far-flung planet at all, but Earth!), the deadly Covid-like flu that spreads over the end credits of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the savage beatings and killings administered for 30 solid minutes at the end of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, or the total destruction of all life on Earth – amazingly, that last one happens in the second film.

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