Is a thing unto itself or is it defined by everything around it? In our American capitalist society we measure everything in winners and losers. Who is on top? Who is in control? Who has the most? Who is the greatest? Nothing can be defined as having inherent value without relating it to what it stands aside. This thinking extends to the physical world. A young patent clerk named Albert Einstein purported a theory that time, space and motion are not absolute, but all dependent on the observer. That kid had some good ideas.

If measurement is always a relationship between a measuring device and the object being measured, then of course this extends to a subjective idea like art… or basketball.  

Looking towards this weekend at the 2026 Oscars, the momentum seems to show that Leonardo Dicaprio has little chance of winning his second Best Actor Award. He hasn’t won at any of the major ceremonies leading up and it very much seems like a two horse race between Timothee Chalamet and Michael B. Jordan for Marty Supreme and Sinners respectively. In all likelihood, Leo is going home this year still the winner of only one solitary Oscar... or is he? What if I told you that Leo already has his second award... or at least half of a second one? To fully understand why, we must first talk about basketball and why, in a very similar way, Lebron James already has his 5th Finals MVP. 

In 2015 The Cleveland Cavaliers played the Golden State Warriors for the NBA Championship. Lebron James was in the first season of his return to the Cavs after having taken his talents to south beach, won two NBA Championships, two finals MVPs, and had silenced a heap of critics who doubted his greatness. He returned to his hometown Cavaliers to team with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, younger versions of co-stars he left behind in Miami.    

That same season the Golden State Warriors were ascendant. Steph Curry was coming off his first all-star season and the young warriors had won 50 games for the first time in 20 years, a numerical benchmark for a team to be taken seriously. Rookie head coach Steve Kerr had shifted the starting lineup from the previous season, sending veterans David Lee and Andre Iguodala to the bench for the younger Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes. Kerr was then able to bring Iguodala off the bench for center Andrew Bogut creating a small-ball lineup the media would dub the “Lineup of Death” which would terrorize the league for years to come. 

On the way to the finals Lebron James’ two top costars would get injured. Kyrie Irving would only play 1 game in the best of 7 finals, and Kevin Love would miss it completely. This left Lebron to shoulder an impossible burden going up against a young hungry and incredibly talented Warriors team. Against all odds, after 3 games the Cavaliers were leading the series 2 games to 1. For game 4 Steve Kerr made the adjustment to insert their best perimeter defender, Andre Iguodala, into the starting lineup for one sole purpose - to slow down Lebron James. The switch worked, the Warriors won the next 3 games, and took home the championship trophy. 

Every year the NBA gives out two MVP awards, one for the regular season and one for the finals. And every year there is consternation among the NBA pundits about what makes an MVP. Is it the best player in the league? Is it the best team’s best player? Is it the player who is most valuable to his specific team? The reality is the MVP is a narrative award as much as it is about stats or team record. That is how you get a player like Derrick Rose winning in 2011 because there was too much voter fatigue to give Lebron James 3 in a row or why Russell Westbrook’s triple double average got him the award in 2017 when James Harden was having the better season. Numerous different things can grant a player the award, but with a league this talented there are always a deserving 5-8 players. It usually comes down to simple vibes. The finals MVP is no different. 

In 2010 Kobe Bryant won the finals MVP after his Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in 7 games, even though Pau Gasol had the better 7 game series. Kobe was by far the most important player on the Lakers in that series and throughout the whole playoffs, so he won the trophy. The narrative was that he should win. 

Only one time in the entire history of the NBA has a player from the losing team won the Finals MVP was when Jerry West put forth a herculean effort in 1969. The Lakers were defeated in 7 games against the Celtics, but West won the league's inaugural Finals MVP anyway. 

I think his reaction to the win ensured it never happened again. The viciously competitive Jerry West saw the award as a pity consolation prize. He resented being seen as a tragic hero. The trophy was small potatoes compared to the championship ring he craved. He’s on record saying the award should have gone to someone on the winning team. This rebuke of the award set the stage to ensure the award always went to a player on the winning team. It’s just how things are done now. It aligns with the narrative. 

Lebron James was by far the best player in the 2015 finals. He had a similar outline as West’s tragic hero - a player putting his team on his back, stretching himself to his absolute limit, and coming up just short. The Warriors won, but their best player, Steph Curry, did not win the Finals MVP. That award was granted to Andre Iguodala. Why? Curry averaged 26 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals over the course of the series while Iggy only averaged 16/6/4/1. Stats never tell the whole story, but Curry was the best player on the Warriors. Iguodala won because he was inserted into the starting lineup to slow down Lebron James and did it just enough to help the Warriors win. His greatness was only defined by its relationship to Lebron’s greatness. Howard Beck wrote in Sports Illustrated in 2022: 

Andre Iguodala won Finals MVP, with seven of 11 votes. LeBron James got four. If Jerry West had not defined winning a Finals MVP from the losing team as such a travesty would Lebron have gotten more votes? Was he denied by the narrative? Matt, isn’t this newsletter supposed to be about movies?! Yes to all. I believe that Lebron should get some of Iguodala's MVP. Maybe the top half. No disrespect to the great player, but through the relational lens we know that things exist and are defined only in relation to other things, rather than possessing independent, intrinsic properties. No performance exists in isolation, and everything gains its meaning and identity through its connections and interactions within a larger system. Igoudala’s performance only achieves greatness in relation to the greatness of Lebron James, much like a performance awarded an Academy Award which should have gone to Leonardo DiCaprio–or maybe like Lebron, it sort of did.  
The 2013 academy awards saw Christolph Waltz win his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Dr. King Shultz in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. My personal opinion is that Philip Seymor Hoffman should have won for his portrayal of Lancaster Dodd in The Master, but Waltz won, and in a Lebronsian Relational way so did Leo.

In Django Unchained Leonardo DiCaprio played one of the most despicable humans who’s ever lived, a cruel, tortuous slave owner, and like Lebron James playing for the losing team in the finals, his depravity kept him from Oscar gold. Playing a villain is not always a disqualifier for winning the award. Javier Bardem won for No Country for Old Men, Kathy Bates won an Oscar for Misery, and basically any actor who plays the Joker gets one, but there is a level of evil that, no matter how good the performance is, the Academy can not bring itself to honor. Ralph Fiennes didn’t win for playing a Nazi in Schindler’s List. Jackie Earl Haley didn’t win for playing a child molester in Little Children. The Academy finds it distasteful as if they are somehow endorsing the actions of the character, not simply the actor’s performance.

The late Roger Ebert wrote about this very issue several times. On the Late Show with Joan Rivers, Ebert coined the term “Star 80 syndrome” when discussing Gary Oldman’s Oscar chances for playing Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy.  

Ebert is referencing Eric Robert’s role in Bob Fosse’s Star 80 where he played an abusive, murderous husband so well that he was completely ignored by the Academy. And the same happened to Leo in Django. He played a character so despicable so well that the Academy had to award his opposite, Christolph Waltz, the Andre Iguodala to his Lebron James.

In 2009 Waltz won the best supporting actor award for a part written by Quentin Tarantino where he speaks 3 language, has a loquacious charm, devious wit, and is capable of intense violence, then in 2013 he won the best supporting actor award for a part written by Quentin Tarantino where he speaks 3 language, has a loquacious charm, devious wit, and is capable of intense violence. Dr. King Shultz is the chaotic good to Col. Hans Landa’s chaotic evil in Inglorious Basterds. I love both performances, but it’s a lot of the same character. I believe he won, like Iguodala won, because the Academy just could stomach giving the award to the performance of a character as evil as Dicaprio’s Calvin Candie, so they gave it to Waltz because he played the best defense.     

I am loath to take anything away from Iguodala or Waltz, but in this world of winners and losers, I do think it’s important to contextualize their wins against the “losers.” James should get credit for being the foundation upon which Iggy’s greatness was measured, so I think he should receive half of Iguodala's Finals MVP. And while we’re at it, he should get half of Kawhi Loenard’s 2014 finals MVP who won for the same reason. That will bring his total to 5 Finals MVPs which is a better reflection of his play across his career. And just so, I think we should give half of Waltz’s Oscar to Leo, bringing his total to 1.5. Sometimes the losers are just as important as the winners. What is John McLane without Hans Gruber? Who is Clarice without Hannibal? Not in real life, but in art and sports, the villains and the losers complete the narrative, and without them greatness cannot be measured.      

Ebert On Sid and Nancy:

_{Written by Matt Strickland
Edited by Colby Smith}

One Battle After Another lived up to the hype. It’s as good and hilarious and thrilling as everyone says it is. Every performance is note perfect and I can’t believe Chase Infiniti didn’t get nominated. Her delivery of “Why is your shirt so tight?” will live in my head forever. Sean Penn’s toddler-like gate had me in stitches every time he walked across the screen. But the performance I found the most terrifying was James Raterman's bone-chilling work as Penn’s sidekick. The non-actor Raterman, is a retired Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security Investigations special agent and brings every bit of that background to his scenes interrogating Regina Hall’s and Paul Grimstad’s characters. It’s hard not to imagine all the times he made similar threats in real life. 

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein was exactly what I thought it would be, and while it was a feast for the eyes, It left me asking, how many times do we need to see this story portrayed. I thought it was a fun twist to basically give the creature Wolverine’s powers from X-Men, but del Toro didn’t give me much else that James Whale hadn’t already.

Both Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are national treasures. They’re basically never bad any time they’re on screen, but this movie ended up being a real tweener for me. Sometimes it was so much more mean-spirited then I was ready for and sometimes is was way too light. Some thrills, some laughs, an ending that I found a little predictable, see it for Emma and JP.