It’s Oscars Day! To celebrate, senior staffer and film addict Jake “Jake-Luc Godard” Tibbetts has decided to calculate which living space on campus corresponds to each film nominated for the top award of the night.
Tonight, at 8:00 PM, the 91st Academy Awards, hosted by, well, no one (how could you be so Hart-less, AMPAS?), will kick off. Following a year of festivals, smaller award shows, and whatever the hell the Golden Globes Awards are, this is the end of the 2018 cinematic season—the moment all of the top directors, screenwriters, actresses, actors, cinematographers, producers, and pretentious assholes like me have been waiting for. Eight films were nominated for Best Picture this year. Some of them, like Roma and The Favourite, were absolute masterpieces—some of the best films of the year. Others, like A Star is Born and Black Panther, were perfectly entertaining crowd-pleasers that will likely be talked about for years to come. And then there were Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody, which, uhh, yikes. How did those slip in there? But regardless of differences in quality, these films all are tied together by something unique: Each one corresponds pretty much entirely with one of Columbia’s many, varied dormitories. Don’t know which film to root for? Take a look at which film matches up with your favorite living space.
Black Panther: Carman
Black Panther was the first nominated film to be released, and Carman is the first dormitory that a large percentage of Columbia students find themselves living in. Just as Black Panther is a loud, rambunctious, thrilling film that, above all, excites he who watches it, so, too, is Carman for anyone who happens to find himself there at any time on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night. (Also, Carman has those fantastic music rooms, and Black Panther: The Album is one of the greatest soundtracks of all time.)
BlacKkKlansman: Broadway/Hogan
BlacKkKlansman’s title is an incredibly clever combination of two words that probably didn’t need to be combined. The same goes for Brogan. So there you go.
Green Book: Any frat house ever
Green Book is a film that prides itself on being a feel-good story about solidarity, brotherhood, and open-mindedness. Underneath the surface, though, it is incredibly problematic. The film sidelines the voices of the marginalized people that it claims to care about while patting itself on the back for being oh-so-progressive. A good chunk of the frats here pride themselves on being inclusive and morally sound, but underneath the surface, they still act like, well, frats. This is a match made in hell.
The Favourite: The Quad
No explanation necessary.
Vice: East Campus
EC is an absolute mess. Between the stove debacle, the mold issue, and the fact that the hallways are more puke than carpet at this point, the place is in tatters. Vice is similarly chaotic. The story doesn’t have much of a flow to it, the tone is wildly inconsistent, the overall message is hard to decipher, and Michael-Scott-as-Donald-Rumsfeld is distracting and bad. But just as Vice is a ridiculously enjoyable ride from start to finish despite its flaws, EC is a hell of a fun place to be, as much as I hate to admit it, on most Saturday nights.
A Star is Born: Furnald
The innocent freshman looking out of the window of her Furnald single out at the Butler lawns and feeling nothing but excitement for all that awaits here is Lady Gaga’s doe-eyed up-and-comer. The hard-drinking, messy-haired sophomore who is only here because his housing group fell apart at the last minute is Bradley Cooper’s fading rock star. Just as the two characters grow closer and closer, helping each other progress (you know, until that ending…) and find meaning, so, too, do the freshman and the sophomore who—ahh, just kidding. The freshman will stick to talking to other freshmen on the floor and the sophomore will never leave his room if he can help it.
Bohemian Rhapsody: McBain
Bohemian Rhapsody is an objectively bad movie. McBain is an objectively bad dorm. The only good thing about Bohemian Rhapsody is Rami Malek’s performance as Freddie Mercury. The only good thing about McBain are the Public Safety employees’ performances as people who don’t get annoyed when they see the same drunken sophomore stumble into the building at 4:00 AM three times every weekend.
Roma: Carlton Arms
Many people failed to see Roma. It was released on Netflix—something that many fans of traditional cinema aren’t used to. Many people don’t even know Carlton Arms exists. (Is there really any proof that it does?) Roma is a film that, in the minds of many American filmgoers, was made in a place that is far, far away, even though Mexico really isn’t that far. Many people think that Carlton Arms, located at 109th and Riverside, might as well be located in Tribeca, but, I mean, seriously, y’all, it’s not that far. The bottom line is this: Both Roma and Carlton Arms are underrated gems that deserve nothing but the highest praise. The only thing nicer than the way that Marina de Tavira’s performance complements Yalitza Aparicio’s is the way that the large size of Carlton’s suites complements the killer views that come with them.
Golden Lads via Flickr