How a movie about a flavour of crisps ended up with an Oscar nomination
As the most prestigious ceremony of the annual awards season calendar, the Oscars reward the technical and artistic merits of movies that have excelled in their field to such an extent that they’ve been shortlisted as among the best of the best in their chosen category.
This year, that extends to a biographical drama about a flavour of crisps, directed by a well-known star in their feature-length debut and released exclusively on streaming. Ironically, the nod it secured has very little to do with the actual content of the film, either, other than a tangential connection in the title. And yet, that was enough to secure it a spot on the Academy Awards shortlist.
The memoir A Boy, a Burrito and a Cookie: From Janitor to Executive was penned by Richard Montañez, who ended up changing the face of American crisps – or potato chips, in local parlance – by coming up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos when he was working as a janitor for Frito-Lay.
Seasoning a standard packet of Cheetos with his own spicy flavourings, he reasoned that he’d stumbled on a potential goldmine. The only issue – which was admittedly a major one – was that the company actively disputed his claims, not that it prevented Montañez from leaving his janitorial duties behind to become a motivational speaker and author, all thanks to his claim over the Flamin’ Hot crisp.
The feature-length adaptation proceeded under the belief that Montañez was telling nothing but the truth and carried on even after Frito-Lay intervened to inform the production of an internal investigation. Undeterred, director Eva Longoria and the rest of the team continued on in their established vein, regardless of how heavily the subject’s claims were being disputed.
A fairly conventional and perfunctory biopic, Flamin’ Hot was hardly going to set the cinematic sphere alight. It was never considered as being even remotely plausible as an awards season heavy hitter, but thanks almost entirely to the presence of Diane Warren, the track ‘The Fire Inside’ went down in the history books to ensure the film about crisps would always be remembered as an Oscar nominee.
Although Warren has never won a competitive Oscar, whenever she pens a track for a flick, it’s virtually guaranteed to make the shortlist, considering ‘The Fire Inside’ marked the 15th time she’d found one of her tunes acknowledged as a contender for ‘Best Original Song’. She has at least won an honorary gong in 2022 for her overall contributions to the musical accompaniments of cinema, but with two tracks from Barbie to compete against, the chances of Flamin’ Hot pulling off a monstrous upset and walking away with an Oscar under its arm are slim at best.
