“The Last Dance” should be the first documentary nominated for Best Picture

Let’s play a drinking game! It’s Day 4,000 of Self Quarantine, anyway. The game is called “Never Has There Ever.” In this adjacent take of “Never Have I Ever,” you drink when the statement is false and you don’t drink when the statement is true. Examples:

“Never Has There Ever Been a Person on the Moon.” Drink.

“Never Has There Ever Been a Person on Mars.” Don’t drink.

Now let’s play “Never Has There Ever- Oscars editions.”

“Never Has There Ever Been A Superhero Movie Nominated for Best Picture.” Drink (Black Panther, 2019).

“Never Has There Ever Been A Cartoon Nominated for Best Picture.” Drink (Beauty and The Beast, 1992).

“Never Has There Been A Documentary Nominated for Best Picture.” Don’t drink.

Yep. In the ninety-two years of Hollywood celebrating its top cinematic achievements, never has there ever been a documentary recognized for Best Picture! The first-year documentaries got their own category was 1941. So really, in the seventy-nine years we’re talking about, all the Best Picture love automatically goes to movies. Why? Well, it’s pretty easy to understand the favoritism towards movies if you think of these two types of genres as siblings.

“Movie” and “Doc” both go to Hollywood High. Their parents “Mr. and Mrs. Film” are kinda big deals. Everyone in school would love to hang with either Film sibling. “Movie” is basically a model while “Doc” is attractive to those who might want to study liberal arts at Sarah Lawrence. “Movie” will make you laugh and cry while you’re driving around town in their brand-new car while “Doc” will make you think and reflect as you go for a walk in your grandparents’ neighborhood. “Movie” might throw a raging summer pool party with all the hot upperclassmen (Leo, Brad, Margot) the same night “Doc” throws a book club gathering for “anyone interested in having a good conversation” (Leonard, Bradford, Margaret).

Then the 70s came rolling in. Young Hollywood film directors were those insiders who brought “Doc” to the beer pong table at “Movie’s” party. Scorsese became a walking cinematic library of the entire medium with credits in both genres. Even in pop culture, documentaries were getting shout outs. There’s an entire sequence in the 1978 Best Picture winner Annie Hall where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton wait in line at a movie theater for admission to a four hour and twenty-two-minute real life documentary, The Sorrow and The Pity. That’s right. Before people waited in line on 34th Street to see Tony and Cap avenge earth, aspiring intellectuals waited on Bleecker Street to further understand the Nazi invasion of France.

Then came the 90s. This was the decade of “the guy who brought more wings to the party that already had wings.” Sure, everyone liked them. But he brought multiple flavors that were memorable. When We Were Kings (spicy), Baseball (smoked, non-spicy, with extra ranch), Hoop Dreams (extra spicy), (Bueno Vista Social Club (grilled mango habanero), The Cruise (raspberry chipotle BBQ with extra carrots).

The 2000s introduced this guy from Flint named Michael Moore with a documentary about the Columbine shootings. He wasn’t cool, but he was cool to talk about. Turns out this guy appears to have a bright future and a resume going back to the 80s with Roger and Me. “I’ll have to check that out sometime” becomes a saying with a growing field of documented stories.

The 2010s brought us streaming services with more and more options followed by the conversation started “Have you watched this yet? You gotta see it!” But still… no Best Pictures nominations. Kind of ironic there were cases of movies being made as Oscar bait (The Walk, 2015) based on the real-life events (Philippe Petit’s Twin Tower stunt of 1974) made famous by a documentary (Man on Wire, 2008). “Doc” outplayed cooler, sexier, and more fun “Movie” at the flip cup table.

We’ve had cartoons and computer animated cartoons get nominated. Summer blockbusters and holiday season character studies have been nominated. We even had ten foreign films receive a Best Picture nomination before Parasite. What will it take for a documentary to get the love it deserves at the big party?

Enter Michael Jeffrey Jordan.

*Cue up on Spotify “Chicago Bulls Theme Song” by The Alan Parsons Project.

The Last Dance, although not fully released at the time of this writing, is special. The story itself plays like our country’s most beloved and retold hero’s journey. Our protagonist, “His Airness,” starts his path in North Carolina and continues onto a mountaintop none of us can truly comprehend. But we still thirst for his story, especially when it’s him telling it with Scottie and Phil and “The Worm.” This documentary might seem to only be a reminder to millennials that Jordan was The Man before The King- there’s probably some truth to that no matter what MJ’s BFF Ahmad Rashad says. Like any good movie though, this is a real emotional and thought-provoking piece story; MJs God given abilities, personal demons fueling those abilities, miscalculations of others (sorry Blazer fans), the stars perfectly aligning (Celtics and Lakers on their back nine), and a epic cast of supporting teammates with incredible talent and worthy ego. It’s got everything a story needs! The drama? Aaron Eckhardt in The Dark Knight could have been referencing Bulls GM Jerry Kraus when he said, “You either die a hero… or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Remove the documentary classification and The Last Dance is a legitimate story of people wanting something so badly, achieving it through much adversity, and then giving us their perspective on how they feel about its resolution. That’s Gladiator. It’s The Lord of The Rings: Return of the King. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II.

*You can probably stop the music. But if you miss those 90s Bulls, then do you.

My first surefire memory is my parents taking my sister and I to the movies. And, of course, we saw every child’s favorite Christmas classic, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (four and seven-year olds LOVE Randy Quaid humor). My first date with my wife was at a restaurant somewhere in Brooklyn. She could tell you the place. What I can tell you is that our second date was at the Upper West Side AMC on W84th Street to see Gone Girl (twenty-seven-year-old self-labeled “film buffs” LOVE David Fincher directing). But if I had a kid now or a girlfriend now, I’m not stepping near a movie theater with a bunch of strangers coughing in the row behind me. So I have to miss out on catching the Oscar worthy films because 2020 sucks?

The Oscars are meant to represent the best of the previous year. ESPN wisely moving up the release dates of The Last Dance is a worthy example of a major entertainment company listening to the calls on social media and acting accordingly. It’d be wise of the Academy to do the same. Make this unprecedented year of isolation that transcendent Oscar year where we celebrate the best of the films no matter where we saw them or what the genre.

Even if we are not allowed to go movie theaters for all of 2020, we’re still going to fall into our annual “What was the best movie you saw this year?” conversations. Here’s how mine will go (probably done over Zoom):

Someone- “So, Matt. What should win Best Picture?”

Me- “The Last Dance.”

Someone- “… The Michael Jordan doc?”

Me- “Yes. It’s un-fucking-believable. It’s the best thing I watched all year.”

Someone- “Docs don’t get nominated for Best Picture.”

Me- “What do you want to see win?”

Someone- “That new Wes Anderson movie could be a make-up Oscar for Grand Budapest Hotel.”

In case you find yourself with this Criterion Collection naysayer, they will surely bring up one of the six points on why a documentary shouldn’t be nominated for Best Picture. Here are all six along with the counterpoints I plan on using. And yes… I did choose six to honor the six Bulls championships:

Point One- “Oscar movies don’t go straight to streaming services. Theatrical release is a major qualifier.”

Counterpoint One- Yes. Movies, historically, can only qualify for Oscar nominations if they spend some time as a theatrical release. This was true last awards season with The Irishman. But even without any Oscar victories, what Scorsese and Netflix did was redefine the possibilities of what we the audience will consider “Oscar worthy.” If you saw The Irishman, you’ll know deserved its Best Picture nomination because it was excellent film that was also famously brought to us on a streaming service much quicker than other films. The Irishman continued what Roma started and The Last Dance can heighten what we consider a Best Picture worthy film; especially going forward in a post Covid 19 world. Bulls beat Lakers, 4–1.

Point Two- “Documentaries have their own category! They don’t need to be included in Best Picture.”

Counterpoint Two- So do foreign films. And Parasite broke the glass ceiling on what a Best Picture nomination, and winner, could also be. And it did so to the standing ovation of many A listers including America’s Dad Tom Hanks (stay well if you’re reading this, Tom). Sometimes, major league pitchers do deserve to be the MVP even though they have their own award with the Cy Young. Bob Gibson’s ERA in 1968 was so low (1.12), the league lowered the mound to make it easier for the hitters. Changing your game/industry deserves multiple awards! Furthermore, to keep making the point through the lens of baseball, would we have even witnessed Bob Gibson’s Hall of Fame greatness if in 1947 the Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey listened to the naysayer who said, “They have their own league.” Bulls beat Blazers, 4–2.

Point Three- “Best Picture nominations have to be original stories!”

Counterpoint Three- What do these Oscar nominated movies have in common? 12 Years A Slave, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Catch Me If You Can, Dunkirk, Green Book, The Imitation Game, The Kings Speech, Reds, Lawrence of Arabia, The Revenant, Selma, The Social Network, Spotlight, The Theory of Everything, Vice. Answer- They’re all stories based on real events and adapted for film. And of the sixteen films above, fourteen are from this century, ten are from the last five years, and five have won Best Picture. At some point, this wave of retelling or reimagining real-life events into cinematic stories will best be done with documentaries. The appetite for consuming our previous reality is rising at the same time as the number of talented documentaries with a focus on entertainment as well as education are ascending. Bulls beat Suns, 4–2

Point Four- Best Pictures are the culmination of acting, directing, writing, music, editing. It’s all the major aspects of the craft pulling together in one direction to tell one story.

Counterpoint Four- And how is that any different with documentaries? The Last Dance has incredible characters that drive the story over a span of multiple decades. Crisp editing matters in all films. The balancing act of present-day commentary, past interviews, and game footage spliced together with fantastic rhythm is superb editing. The music… God bless 80s and 90s hip hop! Music is so important in any film and The Last Dance is a time capsule of a story that, like any other traditional movie, selects it’s music just like a casting director looking for the right actor. But it all starts with excellent writing. And this story, which is too fantastic to make up, curves up and stitches every detail together over a 10 episodes arch with all the right cuts made for narrative momentum! Bulls beat Sonics, 4–2

Point Five- “Classic and traditional movies need actors! Doesn’t matter if it’s an A lister, a voiceover actor, or a CGI actor. Actors (and actresses, of course) make movies.”

Counterpoint Five- Pretty soon we’re not going to care as much for the portrayal of real-life figures by trained actors. It was mighty impressive to see Rami Malik’s physical transformation in Bohemian Rhapsody. But when I YouTube Live Aid 1985, I’m not interested in the lip sync final act of Bohemian Rhapsody. All the iconic and outstanding “bio performances” like Jamie Foxx for Ray, Daniel Day Lewis for Lincoln, or Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator are award worthy because they had directors who elevated their extraordinary performances in already exceptional screenplays. Having spent eight years working in the New York theater scene at The Drama Book Shop, I learned one truth about the difference between the stage and the screen: the stage is elevated by actors and the screen comes alive with directors (writers are vital and undervalued in both media). Now we have documentarians more talented than any other point in film history. Shout out to The Last Dance director Jason Hehir for his work so far! Bulls beat Jazz, 4–2

Point Six- Do we really need a sports documentary winning Best Picture?

Counterpoint Six- No. We don’t. But it’d be pretty damn nice right now to celebrate the story of an iconic figure who pulled people together. The 90s Chicago Bulls spread headed by Michael Jeffrey Jordan pulled the entire world together at a time when everyone was watching. Everyone loved and wanted to “Be Like Mike.” Even us Knicks fans. What’s wrong with honoring unity? Bulls beat Jazz again, 4–2.

And the Oscar goes too…