Dinner with Oscar: The Post

Each year, I try to watch every movie nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award before the Oscars ceremony. As I do this, I will write a brief review of each movie, along with a suggestion of what to eat and/or drink to pair with the movie.

I’m calling it now: The Post will win the Best Picture statue at the 2018 Academy Awards.

It’s not my favorite of the 8 films nominated; I've liked Get Out and Phantom Thread the best of the bunch. And I know Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won the Golden Globe for best picture even though The Post was nominated as well. But I have a strong feeling that the Academy will favor The Post.

It’s the kind of movie the Academy loves. While the Golden Globe sometimes goes to quirkier, funnier, or more action-y movies, the Oscar award tends to favor more serious films with more serious topics. For example, The Revenant won the Golden Globe, but Spotlight won the Oscar; Avatar won the Golden Globe while The King’s Speech won the Oscar. It's not always true but it is true that the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes don’t often overlap with Best Picture (they have only agreed on 3 movies in the past 10 years, and that’s if you count Slumdog Millionaire which one both but in two different years, since the Globes are months before the Oscars). 

There’s the fact of who is voting: individuals working in the production side of the film industry make up The Academy. The Post has the holy trinity never before come together for a picture: Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. Obviously, those three carry a lot of clout with that crowd.

It’s also just as political as the Academy Awards likes to get -- it’s sort of peripherally political. It’s a story about the press being under attack at a different time in American history that is a fairly obvious comment on our current political/media climate. In addition to that, there’s a focus on women in power in workplaces where they are sometimes disrespected and not taken as seriously as they should be. 

Surprisingly, the only other award nomination The Post garnered was Lead Actress for Meryl Streep. That’s the only point that gives me pause about it winning Best Picture. But I’m standing by it.

What to make: There are a couple of mentions of food and drink in the movie. The scene in which reporters are frantically poring over the Pentagon Papers, and Hanks’s wife brings in sandwiches. So you could do roast beef with horseradish sandwiches, and turkey with mustard. Easy and party ready! I suggest pairing them with vodka lemonades—or just lemonades, for the kids—as a nod to the little girl with the lemonade stand and the amazing Carrie Coon asking if there is vodka in them.

Or, if you want to be really punny, a vanilla and chocolate cake with red icing. It’s black and white and red all over, get it? Please don’t be mad at me, that was my husband’s idea. I’m so sorry.