It’s Time for the Oscars, So Never Mind the Slumping Industry and the War

At the heart of this year’s Academy Awards, there’s a wonderfully suspenseful Best Picture race between two great films from remarkable filmmakers, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners.”

It’s all the stuff surrounding that race that has made this a messy, troubled and exhausting season.

So let’s start with the good news, OK?

“One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” appear to be locked in one of the tightest Best Picture races in many years...