93rd Academy Awards: A Review

 

The 93rd Academy Awards reminded me of the Best Picture winner Nomadland: started out interesting then dragged, and dragged and dragged. Add to that one of the most disastrous closing moments and you had a muted feel to what is meant to be the highpoint of a year in film.

Much history was made last night. Let's hit some of them.

All but one of the Best Picture nominees won at least one Oscar. Only The Trial of the Chicago 7 went home empty-handed, losing all 6 of its nominations. 

Best Actress winner Francis McDormand is one acting Oscar short of tying Katharine Hepburn's record four wins in this category. McDormand also won as a Best Picture producer.

Best Actor winner Anthony Hopkins at 83 becomes the oldest winner in any acting category.

Best Supporting Actress winner Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) becomes the second Asian actress to win in this category. Unlike the previous Asian actress to win here, Miyoshi Umeki for Sayonara, Yuh-jung won for a primarily Korean-language performance.

Yuh-jung's fellow nominee Glenn Close now has tied Peter O'Toole for the most acting Oscar nominations without a win at eight losses in total.

Best Original Song nominee Diane Warren has it worse. Her loss for the The Life Ahead song Io Si (Seen) is her twelfth loss with no win yet.

Nomadland's director, Chloe Zhao, is the second woman and third Asian director to win in this category (after Ang Lee and Bong Joon-ho).

Best Costume Design winner Anne Roth (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) becomes the oldest female winner in any category at 89.

Best Hair & Makeup winners Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neil and Jamika Wilson (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) become the first all-non-Caucasian winners in this category.

The record of the Best Film Editing winner (Sound of Metal) ending up losing to Best Picture to a fellow Film Editing nominee (Nomadland) continues for the eighth year. 

There were a few genuine surprises. I don't think anyone expected Mank to win outside Production Design, so its Cinematography win over the heavily-favored Nomadland led Film Twitter to audibly gasp. Most people, I think, also didn't think Sound of Metal would take anything outside Sound, so its Film Editing win was also a surprise. Best Original Song going to Judas and the Black Messiah's Fight For You may have surprised, but this category never had a favorite or frontrunner. However, it says a lot about this year's Oscars when the biggest upsets were in Live-Action and Documentary Shorts (Two Distant Strangers and Colette respectively). 

Most winners were expected, so even the highly divisive Best Documentary Feature winner My Octopus Teacher wasn't a surprise. However, it was near the end that things fell apart in spectacular fashion. 

This year, the Academy Award producers Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher and Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh, with the Academy's blessing, opted to restructure the award presentations. Some elements worked (not cutting off speeches), some did not (having clips for a few categories but not for the acting ones). Why exactly Best Documentary Feature had clips of the nominees but Best Actor didn't is a puzzling and curious choice. 

Other elements drew tedious to the small audience who braved the entire presentation. Presenters waxing rhapsodic about each nominee's history soon lost its luster and become both rote and boring. However, it was the final three awards that made the 93rd Academy Awards a fiasco that somehow has eclipsed the La La Land/Moonlight chaos as among if not the worst final presentation in the Academy's history.

Since time immemorial the final award is Best Picture. For reasons still unclear it was decided that the final three awards would be Best Picture, Best Lead Actress and Best Lead Actor. Once Nomadland was announced as Best Picture the entire affair had an anticlimactic feel, as if we were done. I figure some viewers probably changed the channel to the more competitive and suspenseful San Diego Padres vs. Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game. Instead, it went for a "Hollywood ending" that blew up spectacularly in their faces.

It was highly expected that the late Chadwick Boseman would win for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, a sentimental wave carrying him to victory. The Academy and the award producers could see how it would all play out: a standing ovation for someone taken much too soon, a weeping widow accepting an award her late husband had a very good chance of winning had he lived, a beautiful, iconic crowd-pleasing feel-good moment. Television viewers would have had a beautiful end credit scene.

Instead, a very unenthusiastic Joaquin Phoenix unenthusiastically, almost catatonically, read Anthony Hopkins' name for The Father before unenthusiastically accepting on his behalf and the entire show ended almost abruptly (and probably unenthusiastically).

Immediately pundits and Boseman fans began howling with rage, going so far as to attack and belittle Hopkins for committing the horrible sin of winning. Unsurprisingly racism was thrown about to explain this loss. People were angry that Hopkins had won over Boseman, and things grew to almost idiotic levels. "Why didn't Hopkins give a speech?!" the Boseman group howled. "Why didn't Hopkins show up?!" they bemoaned.

The concept that an 83-year-old man could be asleep at 4 A.M. in his Wales home versus opting to fly in to a COVID-infected area when so many people (including probably himself) thought he had little to no chance of winning somehow escaped those enraged over something said 83-year-old man had no control over.

As shocking as it may be, Anthony Hopkins had no say in whether or not he won an Oscar.

Worse, those whose emotions ranged from being "in shock" to "devastated" over Boseman's loss either never saw The Father or let their feelings for Boseman blind them to a sad fact: Best Actor was highly competitive. Anyone who saw all five nominees and was honest with him/herself knew the race was between Boseman, Hopkins and Sound of Metal's Riz Ahmed. Many were reporting that voters were checking off Hopkins because they "knew" Boseman was going to win anyway, a warning sign that Glenn Close supporters willed themselves into ignoring last year. Those who do not learn from history...

Hopkins had as good a chance of winning as either Boseman or Ahmed (Mank's Gary Oldman and Minari's Steven Yeun were highly unlikely to win). Finally, and perhaps most shockingly, Anthony Hopkins gave a brilliant, devastating performance in The Father.

It wasn't as if Chadwick Boseman lost to James Coco. 

I confess that I would have voted for Hopkins over Boseman, though it would have been an extremely difficult choice. I wavered between them and Ahmed, but I ultimately decided that while Boseman was brilliant in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, he was still "acting". His performance seemed stubbornly stagey, as if he was acting on the stage. Hopkins was "being" as this proud, stubborn but ultimately lost and pained man. Ahmed, Boseman and/or Hopkins were all worthy of a win, but that it was ultimately Hopkins was and should not be seen as a slam or rejection of Boseman.

Too many pundits wanted Boseman to win because it would be "the last chance" to honor him. I'm not big on turning a category into a de facto Lifetime Achievement Award, which is what those pulling for Boseman seem to have wanted. Yes, Chadwick Boseman gave a sensational performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, but sentiment alone is not a reason for someone to win an Oscar. Would there have been the outrage we've seen if a living Boseman had won over a living Hopkins or a dead Hopkins had won over a living Boseman?

Anthony Hopkins deserved to win. He did not "steal" anything from anyone. To say otherwise, especially after Hopkins' classy and brief acceptance speech where he paid tribute to Boseman is disgusting. Toxic fandom hits new lows when people feel free to beat up on an 83-year-old for winning for a performance said fans probably haven't even seen.

In retrospect, it's more boggling that the Academy opted to have Best Actor presented last when Best Actress was the more competitive and suspenseful category. Best Actress simply had no frontrunner. It was anyone's guess who would win. One day it was Promising Young Woman's Carey Mulligan who had it in the bag. Next day Ma Rainey's Black Bottom star Viola Davis was about to make history as the second black Lead Actress winner. Day after that, The United States vs. Billie Holiday's Andra Day could also be the second black Lead Actress winner. 

Instead, it was McDormand, and her accepting right after accepting Best Picture felt bizarre, almost uninteresting, anticlimactic.

It seems more and more clear that the Academy and producers thought Boseman would win and wanted to end on that note. It was a cynical use of a late beloved actor for a "big moment" versus actually focusing on those nominated. This disastrous moment will haunt the Academy for years to come.

Speaking of those no longer with us, the In Memoriam was shameful. Playing at what looked like double speed, the Academy rushed through the montage to where it was almost impossible for viewers to match the name with the face, let alone their accomplishments. In a year we lost one of the last figures of the so-called Golden Age of Cinema (Olivia de Havilland), to give her 3 seconds of remembrance is galling. The use of Stevie Wonder's As isn't to me horrifying or in bad taste. Dubious, yes, but not monstrous. 

However, given the hyperdrive In Memoriam followed a bizarre comedy bit about Best Original Song nominees/winners trivia that concluded with Glenn Close shaking her money-maker to Da Butt, it seemed so tone-deaf and coarse. The Academy should really just hand over In Memoriam to Turner Classic Movies, which manages to give the honored dead both time and context.

The 93rd Academy Awards started well only to slowly speed up to a rushed, chaotic and disastrous finish. And I'm sure the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will wonder why ratings continue to fall.

92nd Academy Awards: A Review

With regards to the 92nd Academy Awards, I can take a certain satisfaction that I was 20 out of 24. Since publishing my last predictions I had changed my mind on a few categories.

First, the list of winners, with asterisks on where I missed.

BEST PICTURE: Parasite *
BEST ACTOR: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)
BEST ACTRESS: Renee Zellweger (Judy)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Laura Dern (Marriage Story)
BEST DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) *
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Toy Story 4
BEST ANIMATED SHORT: Hair Love
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Jojo Rabbit
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Parasite
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: 1917
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: American Factory *
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT: Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl)
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM: The Neighbors' Window
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM: Parasite (South Korea)
BEST FILM EDITING: Ford v Ferrari
BEST SOUND EDITING: Ford v Ferrari *
BEST SOUND MIXING: 1917
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Joker
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again (Rocketman)
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING: Bombshell
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Little Women
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: 1917

I had 1917 winning Best Picture, Director and Sound Editing. I also had originally thought Judy would win Makeup and Hairstyling but switched to Bombshell. Try as I might, I could not get Documentary Feature right. It really was an open category, where I thought Honeyland would get it.

For those interested in tallies of films with multiple winners, here they are:

Parasite: 4
1917: 3
Ford v Ferrari: 2
Joker: 2
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: 2

All other Best Picture nominees won one, meaning only one film was completely shut out.

No wonder Martin Scorsese looked as if was dropping off during Eminem's performance. The Irishman's fall was not unexpected but still disappointing. One simply wonders why the film failed so spectacularly after earning raves. My own theory is that other, "hipper" films stole The Irishman's thunder.

With regards to the winners there weren't any big surprises. Actually, I'd say there were no surprises. Sure, Film Twitter is elated about Parasite, and it is a good film. Maybe not my choice but not one that causes such anxiety as did Green Book last year. Every winner was if not predicted months ago at least well within the conversation.

My theory revolving around Best Film Editing/Best Picture continues to hold. I maintain that the eventual Best Picture winner is nominated but does not win Film Editing and that the film that wins Film Editing loses Best Picture. Parasite was nominated for Film Editing but lost to a fellow Best Picture nominee, Ford v Ferrari. As such, Parasite was really the odds-on favorite, since Irishman was dead on arrival, 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood were not nominated and Jojo Rabbit, Ford v Ferrari and Joker had no chance in winning Best Picture. We should have seen it from the get-go.

The only win that I actively disliked was Best Original Song. Even after hearing Cynthia Erivo perform Stand Up from Harriet (giving her a standing ovation), they still went with the bouncy, peppy and inconsequential (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again from Rocketman. Subconsciously or not (I'm thinking not), Elton John sowed the seeds to his victory by pointing out he and his longtime writing partner Bernie Taupin had never won anything as a team. The Academy members, already enthralled by John's big Oscar bashes, voted for him regardless. I note that John did not get a standing ovation for (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again, but unlike Taron Egerton, Elton John had it in the bag.

At least Into the Unknown went unknown despite having it sung in a multitude of languages. I'm sure that five minutes after performing it, no one could actually remember Into the Unknown in any language, even whichever language former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg claims to speak fluently.

Come to think of it, I doubt anyone will be able to sing (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again without having to look it up. I still can sing Call Me By Your Name's Mystery of Love and Stand Up, as well as listen to them over and over. I can't even remember Remember Me.

We DID get to hear Eminem perform Lose Yourself seventeen years after winning Best Original Song. It should be noted that Billie Eilish, who performed Yesterday as part of the In Memoriam section of the broadcast, was a year old if that when Lose Yourself hit the airwaves, perhaps explaining her puzzled look at his performance. The loudness of Lose Yourself, punctuated by silences due to the necessary censoring of the lyrics, does not explain Marty's forty winks.

As has been pointed out, the many people happily rapping along to Lose Yourself can be simultaneously woke and not troubled by Mr. Mathers' past homophobic lyrics while being all pearl-clutching when it comes to Kevin Hart.

As for the show itself, again the Academy struggles with that kind of editing. It went well over its allotted time, and as expected there was the usual politicking going on. Unlike my fellow reviewers Christian Toto or Jacob Smith (Society Reviews), I'm not outraged or angry or even irritated by such things.

I'm just...puzzled by it all.

Brad Pitt's acceptance speech started out with an appraisal of the recent impeachment. Fine, he can speak on such things if he wishes. I would not think the Academy Awards is the best venue for such things, given he's accepting an award for having exceptional abs at age 56...I mean, for his performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I'm just puzzled as to whom he is actually speaking to.

He must be aware millions of people watch the Academy Awards, so he is not just preaching to the choir. Does he genuinely think his fellow Missourians are going to now vote for Bernie Sanders or any Democrat based on his lofty pronouncements?

Does Pitt genuinely picture some MAGA-hat wearing overweight white male, washing down his Oxycontin with Budweiser and who stumbled onto the Academy Awards confused as to why there was no football game on, calling out to his barefoot and pregnant wife in his best Defender of True & Pure Conservatism Rick Wilson imitating the "credulous rube" voice, "Well, Ma Kettle, that there pretty boy from Fight Club is just so upset about John Bolton not witnessin' in the Senate trial, so we ought to now get Trump out and bring Socialism to this here U.S. of A."?

Is that really in the back of Pitt's mind? I just want to know what the end objective is for Pitt, or Josh Gad throwing in climate change denial and healthcare advocacy while introducing Into the Unknown. What truly is their goal for all this? That they do such things during what is ostensibly an awards presentation for film and not a Democratic Party rally just strikes me as odd.

Granted, not Joaquin Phoenix/Renee Zellwegger-level odd, but odd nonetheless.

Why does he or Mark Ruffalo or anyone else paid far more than those "credulous rubes" feel obligated to lecture them on everything and anything? Best Documentary Feature cowinner Julia Reichert quoted Karl Marx while hobnobbing with people who get $78,000 cruises as part of their Oscar gift bags.

Is it me or is there just a slight disconnect?

However, who would have thought talking about cow insemination and the evils of milk drinking would trump The Communist Manifesto? Joaquin Phoenix is a fine actor and passionate animal rights activist. All well and good, don't begrudge him his views. Yet, in his four minute speech not once did he thank or even mention anyone from Joker.

Instead, his speech for winning an award for playing a murderous psychopath was on how awful humans were for not hearing the cries of cows for taking their calves and their milk.

In his world, we are all evil for drinking milk. Louis Pasteur should be dug up and beheaded.

For some reason, I'm reminded of Timothy Treadwell, the subject of Grizzly Man. Both Treadwell and Phoenix almost romanticized animals to where they applied human emotions to non-humans. Treadwell thought of the bears as almost his friends...until one ate him and his girlfriend. I have no way of looking into a cow's soul, but I don't think cows are all that upset over Man taking their milk from their utters.

Joaquin Phoenix is free to believe as he wishes. He's free to live his life free of all animal products if he wishes. He can even take up his time and the times of his colleagues to tell us how mad the cows are. He, however, is not free to dictate how my life or anyone else's life should be. If I wish to drink milk or eat steak, Joaquin Phoenix, no matter how well-intentioned, has no say in the matter and should have no say in the matter.

Such speeches don't win hearts and minds. They harden them, and end up making the speaker sound a bit bonkers.

Renee Zellweger decided Phoenix was a hard act to follow, so she ended up sounding more bonkers without resorting to cow insemination. To her credit, at least she mentioned Judy Garland, but what exactly was she saying? It was a list of people, but once she thanked her whole family she started sounding a bit loopy, as if she didn't know where to go after listing her "heroes" and just started rambling.

Who else thought name-dropping Dolores Huerta, Bob Dylan, Harriet Tubman and Martin Scorsese with Judy Garland somehow "unite us"?  "We agree on our teachers, and we agree on our courageous men and women in uniform who serve..." she went on and on. What exactly Fred Rogers and Judy Garland share in terms of heroics with my favorite teacher, Mrs. Hearn, I can't begin to guess.

Well, that's it for the 92nd Academy Awards. The winners save Original Song were once I thought were if not worthy at least good choices. The political nature of the show really does not bother me. It does puzzle me.

As for myself, I'll be washing down a triple-meat cheeseburger with an extra large mocha frappe, extra whipped cream, in honor of Joaquin Phoenix's courageous and powerful advocacy for bovine beauties.

Elsie, we hardly knew you...

91st Academy Awards: A Review

The 91st Annual Academy Awards were mired in controversy and scandal even before the first envelope was opened. It's as if The Academy had turned things over to Mister Magoo, forever obliviously stumbling from one disaster to another.

There was the creation of a new category (later reversed or at least held back): 'Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film', a nebulous category met with derision and confusion as to what exactly 'popular film' meant.

There was the decision (later reversed) to have popular comedian Kevin Hart host, leaving the show hostless for the first time in 30 years.

There was the decision (later reversed) of having only two of the five Best Original Song nominees performed. The two songs that were going to be performed 'coincidentally' were from the only big-names nominated: Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga. In a more laughable turn, Lamar declined in the end to perform the nominated All the Stars from Black Panther at the ceremony.

There was the decision (later reversed) of cutting four categories from being presented live and instead be presented during commercial breaks: Best Cinematography, Film Editing, Live-Action Short Film and Makeup & Hairstyling.

As if all that weren't enough, you had Film Twitter in a rage over certain Best Picture nominees (Green Book celebrates white privilege! Bohemian Rhapsody was made by a pedophile and didn't have wild gay sex scenes and Rami Malek lip-synced!). Throw in an open field where no front-runner went into the awards and not one, not two but three 'Greatest Films Ever Made' were nominated (Black Panther, A Star Is Born 4.0 and Roma) and we have the makings of one of the wildest Academy Awards in memory.

Now that is all over with, and the 91st Annual Academy Awards are in the history books. I'll look over some genuine surprises, attempt to explain to the best of my abilities a few things, and go over what was a much better show than I was expecting.


First, the winners.

Best Picture: Green Book
Best Actor: Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)
Best Actress: Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali (Green Book)
Best Supporting Actress: Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)
Best Original Screenplay: Green Book
Best Adapted Screenplay: BlacKkKlansman
Best Cinematography: Roma
Best Foreign-Language Film: Roma (Mexico)
Best Documentary Feature: Free Solo
Best Documentary Short Subject: Period. End of Sentence
Best Animated Feature: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Best Animated Short Film: Bao
Best Live-Action Short Film: Skin
Best Production Design: Black Panther
Best Costume Design: Black Panther
Best Original Score: Black Panther
Best Original Song: Shallow (A Star Is Born)
Best Film Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Best Sound Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Best Sound Mixing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Vice
Best Visual Effects: First Man

Each Best Picture nominee won at least one Oscar. Bohemian Rhapsody was the big winner with four Oscars, followed by Green Book, Roma and Black Panther with three each. This seems to go against what #FilmTwitter expected, which was a Roma onslaught. Film Twitter was especially enraged with Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody, but more on that later.

For me, the big surprise was the strength of Black Panther and weakness of The Favourite. The former went into Oscar night with seven nominations, the latter with ten, tying with Roma for the most nods (albeit with two Supporting Actress nominations versus Roma's one). Each of Black Panther's win is perfectly merited, but two of them came at The Favourite's expense.

As the show went on The Favourite kept losing. Some categories it was expected to lose (Cinematography, Director) but others it was seen as the favorite (Original Screenplay, Costume Design, Production Design) and those it had a strong chance at (Film Editing) kept going to other films. By the time it got to Best Actress, The Favourite looked to be on the verge of being totally shut out.

Even the reviled Vice had an Oscar.  Fortunately for The Favourite, it got a last-minute save via Colman's somewhat surprising win.

In the acting categories, we had three of the four expected winners go as thought. Mahershala Ali and Rami Malek both survived loud Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody backlashes respectively. Ali was the stronger of the two: he had been steamrolling through awards seasons, even the fiercest Green Book hater acknowledged he was the best part of the film, and a very last-minute surge for Richard E. Grant came far too late to change the outcome.

Malek was weaker, the initial praise for his Freddy Mercury turning into passionate hatred. The backlash ran from the absurd (He Lip-Synced!) to the serious (he willingly worked with alleged child molester Bryan Singer). I'm surprised Malek wasn't accused of procuring boys for Singer himself. Fortunately, Malek himself is generally liked, his non-lip syncing performance was mostly well-regarded, and he didn't make a major faux pas regarding Singer.

It also helped that he was in a biopic: counting this year, seven of the past ten Best Actor winners have gone to those playing real-life figures, and you have to go back to 2007 to find a slate of nominees where none of them were in a biopic. Finally, Malek had a divided field. Bale was his strongest competitor, but Vice had more haters than Bohemian Rhapsody. Cooper's chances died after like his A Star is Born costar Lady Gaga he lost at the Golden Globes, and he never won Best Actor for the film anywhere else. Dafoe was an also-ran, and it's historically difficult to nearly impossible for an actor to win on a film's sole nomination.

More on that later too.

Regina King managed to hang on long enough to win Supporting Actress. She had been the weakest front-runner, having failed to get a Screen Actors Guild or BAFTA nomination, almost always a death-knell for an Oscar. She faced a growing swell of support for The Favourite's Rachel Weisz too, who had received nominations from both, winning the latter. However, fortune and fate were on King's side. Almost always when you have two performers nominated in the same film, they tend to cancel each other out. King's performance, like King herself, were also well-liked.

Then came Best Actress. Lady Gaga had been the prohibitive front-runner. I don't know why: she was essentially playing a version of herself, but that's neither here nor there. Once she lost in an upset to Glenn Close at the Golden Globes however, Gaga's chances collapsed. Apart from tying with Close at another award, Gaga's chances shifted more to her forte in songwriting, where Shallow became her only chance. I think it's a lousy song and not even the best from A Star is Born, preferring Always Remember Us This Way, but again neither here nor there.

Close's surprise win for The Wife at the Golden Globes catapulted her to front-runner, and soon she was seen as the prohibited winner. Close was also riding a wave of support with the 'overdue' narrative. This was her seventh nomination without a win, making her the most nominated non-winning female performer, one above another of this year's nominees, Amy Adams.

Soon, the 'overdue' and 'inevitable' narratives combined for Close. My guess is that even she came to believe it was 'her turn', her lavish golden gown almost emblematic of the Oscar she would be holding, sweeping in to accept dramatically and royally.

However, the experts either willingly ignored or overlooked certain key elements that should have signaled a Colman win. As I have pointed out, it is historically difficult for a film or an actor to win on a film's sole nomination. The last time an actor did that was in 2007 when Forrest Whitaker managed it for The Last King of Scotland, ironically beating out eight-time nominee Peter O'Toole for Venus, which was that film's only nomination. Then again, Whitaker was playing a real-life figure (Idi Amin), a factor playing in his favor.

It has happened with others: Jeremy Irons, Michael Douglas, Cliff Robertson, Jose Ferrer, Julianne Moore, Charlize Theron, Jessica Lange, and Kathy Bates all won without their films receiving any other nominations that I know of. However, almost all of them had the benefit of being in either hit films (Wall Street, Misery) or in at least films more people had at least heard of (Reversal of Fortune, Monster). Outside Los Angeles or New York, did The Wife actually play anywhere else?

Traditionally, acting winners come from films with multiple nominations. Colman came from The Favourite, which had the most nominations at 10. That should have been a warning to those trumpeting the 'inevitable/overdue' narrative.

Second, Colman's BAFTA win over Close should have set off alarm bells in Close's camp and the Gold Derby crowd. Counting this year, BAFTA and Oscar Best Actress has matched eight times in ten years. If Close had won there, it would have been a done deal. However, she lost to Colman, and not just because of the performance itself.

Colman may be generally unknown among American audiences, but she is well-known to British audiences. She is personally well-liked and respected, even loved by her peers. I think many voting for Best Actress among the joint BAFTA/AMPAS members voted for someone they had worked with, admired and liked personally. That was not Glenn Close. She might be respected among the BAFTA/AMPAS joint membership, but Colman is the one most of them know, have worked with, and like personally.

In a sense, Best Actress was a bit of a Lifetime Achievement Award, but it was not for Glenn Close.

It was for Olivia Colman.

As for Best Picture, longtime readers should know I had no dog in the hunt. Apart from a seething hatred for A Star is Born 4.0 and a growing disdain for Roma, I would have been either happy or at least unperturbed with any of the others. I admit for pulling for The Favourite, but the Film Twitter reaction to Green Book is wildly out of proportion to downright bonkers. 

They genuinely hate it, hate it with a burning passion that I cannot comprehend. I think it has something to do with their wokeness. They see in Green Book some regressive political message involving 'white saviors' and how the film to their mind suggests that "racism is over". Film Twitter would have preferred something more 'woke' or 'artsy', and what could be more woke/artsy than a foreign-language black-and-white film about oppressed minorities?

To my mind, I'm genuinely surprised that these same good woke people don't see that their beloved Roma is more regressive than their despised Green Book. Roma is essentially an idealized and romanticized 'mammy' story: this poor, loyal native domestic forever depending on the noblesse oblige of her 'owners'.

A truly progressive film to my mind would have had Miss Cleo take steps to rise above being the family servant. She could have decided to raise her child on her own. She could have worked to get more education, even availing herself of the vast family library. She could have been more assertive, saving up her money to set herself up either at her own home or perhaps for business. She could have become her own woman, transforming herself to someone more than just 'the help'.

Roma never let Miss Cleo do that. Instead, she was the willing domestic forever dependent on her employers for financial and even emotional support. They sheltered her, they fed her, they were going to provide for her baby, they took her on their vacations (though, I might add, she went with them to work, not to enjoy her own day at the beach). She was not their literal slave, but she was never pushed or prodded by the family to see herself as an individual, and she never pushed or prodded herself either. They were perfectly happy to have her stay on as their domestic, the Mammy to the children.

At least the Wheatley family allowed Phillis an education which allowed her to become America's first black poetess. The Roma family never offered her anything close to that.

Green Book, for all its alleged regressiveness, was nowhere on the level as Roma, the Mexican version of The Help. Doña Sofia and her family were on a certain level Miss Cleo's own 'white saviors', especially given that Miss Cleo remained the same from beginning to end. Her character did not evolve, starting out as a meek woman and ending as a meek woman.

The family, for all its kindness, never saw Miss Cleo as an equal let alone their equal. They certainly were never going to for example teach her to drive for her own benefit despite being in a position to do so. When was Miss Cleo ever shown to be taking any steps towards independence? From my perspective, Roma idealizes the bond between servant and master, making any criticism of Gone With the Wind sound bizarre if it comes from those who look to Roma as woke cinema.

Granted, none of the Mexican women I know would have tolerated all that Miss Cleo quietly, almost cheerfully took. If a Fermin had knocked up any of my Mexican relatives, they would have knocked him in the balls karate or no karate, not meekly and quietly accepted his rejection. That may color my view of things, but there it is.

In Green Book, we saw an evolution of the two main characters. Film Twitter and their woke allies want to make the film emblematic of race relations as a whole. I never saw it that way, though I'd be happy to revisit the film and see if I missed something the first time.

I saw it as a story of individuals: one a racist, one bound by class. Nick, the racist individual, saw how wrong he was in his racist views and grew as a person. Dr. Shirley, the class-bound individual, saw how his manner and intellectual superiority put him apart from others and grew as a person.

It may not be literal truth, but I don't expect truth from a feature film. To my mind, the Dr. Shirleys took the blows they did to allow the Ron Stallworths to be who they became. Spike Lee, angry about Green Book's win, may not see it that way and perhaps he is correct. I would love to hear his perspective and perhaps I might change my mind.

Roma for its part faced several obstacles to winning Best Picture; it was Netflix, which many Academy members still resist to downright hate. It was foreign-language, which again made it unlikely to win essentially two Best Pictures. A film simultaneously nominated for Foreign-Language and Best Picture wins the former not the latter. It also was painfully slow, with reports that some Academy members soon grew bored waiting for something to happen.

Green Book, for its faults, at least moved.

The show survived not having a host. I think it's actually a plus. The Queen opening, while not out of left field, wasn't super-fantastic. OK, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper were fine.

For myself though, I don't see Green Book winning as a scandal or a tragedy. For all its artistry, I'd sooner watch Green Book than Roma. I'd also sooner watch Green Book than Birdman or The Shape of Water. I would not put Green Book on the same level as Casablanca, The Godfather or Lawrence of Arabia but I would put it far above things like Gentleman's Agreement or Cavalcade.

Those two also won Best Picture, and when was the last time you saw them?

90th Academy Awards: A Review Part II

Some people, it appears, never learn.

The 90th Academy Awards were the lowest-rated presentations in its history.  I proposed that there were three reasons for it: general obscurity of nominated films, the longstanding political nature of previous award shows, and the predictability of the winners.

On 'the Twitter', it didn't take long for someone to find my reasoning flawed. I was told that:

1.) The Shape of Water was the highest-grossing Best Picture winner of past five years.
2.) Dunkirk and Get Out were hardly 'obscure'.
3.) Three Billboards and Shape of Water were a toss-up.
4.) Donald Trump wasn't mentioned once.

The speaker was a member of 'The Resistance'.  I am neither a Resister or a Trumper, but I disagree with all these assertions.  I now make my case as to how this trifecta: obscurity of films, the political nature of the Oscars and other award show, and the predictability of the winners all played a role in declining public interest.

The Shape of Water is still well below Get Out, Dunkirk and The Post in terms of box office, and its total box office take is one below A Dog's Purpose.  More people saw Power Rangers, Daddy's Home 2 and A Bad Mom's Christmas than they did The Shape of Water.  The fact that The Shape of Water made more money than Birdman, Spotlight or Moonlight is not something that confers great public interest in Fifty Fins of Grey.

This person is in a fantasy world if he thinks audiences were wondering if the more obscure Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was going to win out over The Shape of Water.  More people paid to see Baywatch than Three Billboards, so where the idea that this 'duel' was some sort of toss-up that people had vested interest in comes from is a complete mystery. 

I could also add that Three Billboards did not get a Best Director nomination, so the real toss-up was between The Shape of Water and Dunkirk, not between Grinding Nemo vs. Three Billboards.

True, Dunkirk and Get Out were hit films, but both came out early in the year: July and February respectively.  To me, that shows that the other films, all relatively new and nowhere near as massive as Dunkirk or Get Out, were not going to draw people to see which one won.

As Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel put it so succinctly in his opening monologue, only two Best Picture nominees made more than $100 million. In referencing one of the other Best Picture nominees, the same-sex romance between a 17-year-old boy and a 24-year-old man, "We don't make films like Call Me By Your Name for money.  We make them to upset Mike Pence".

I leave it to readers to decide if this was meant as a joke or a confession.

In what can be seen as unintentional mixed messaging, Kumail Nanjiani in a montage celebrating 'diversity and inclusion' in film said the exact opposite of what Kimmel asserts.  "There are so many movies from different point of views that are making a ton of money.  Don't do it because it's better for society and representation, even though it is (emphasis mine).  Do it because you'll be rich".

Which is it: should Hollywood make movies to 'make tons of money' or to 'upset Mike Pence'?

If I'm allowed a little cynicism, I imagine that Nanjiani supports films 'from different point of views' so long as those different point of views agree with his own. In 2015, the Christian-themed film War Room was a hit, making more than among others Magic Mike XXX, Fantastic Four, The Hateful Eight, and Sicario: all of which had far higher budgets, greater publicity, and more screens.  War Room ended up taking in more money than that year's Best Picture winner Spotlight and many evangelical films end up being profitable or at least breaking even. 

Nanjiani may say profit should motive people to make films from 'different point of views', but his industry does not bear that out. There have been a slew of Iraq War-themed films: Green Zone, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, Redacted, Lions for Lambs. 

Each one flopped.

The biggest hit of 2014 was an Iraq War-related film, but its point of view was the complete opposite from all those other films and from I imagine is Nanjiani's own point of view on the subject. American Sniper was pilloried by the same people who call for diversity in films as some right-wing fantasia, even though it was more about Chris Kyle's journey through PTSD than a glorification of the Iraq War.

That same year 2014, the Christian-themed Heaven is For Real outperformed all the Best Picture nominees save American Sniper, with its total take slightly ahead of The Imitation Game.  Three Christian-themed films: the aforementioned HIFR, God's Not Dead and Son of God, all outperformed the other Best Picture nominees: Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma, The Theory of Everything, and Whiplash, and those same faith-centered films came in far ahead of that year's Best Picture winner: Birdman. 

Will Nanjiani encourage more Christian-themed films?  They have shown they are profitable, there's a ready market for them, and they certainly are from a different point of view.  Will Nanjiani encourage others to write or produce faith-centered films even if they do not reflect his own faith or worldview?  Will Nanjiani ever make a movie about persecuted Christians in his native Pakistan?

I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say, 'No, No, and No'.

People like Nanjiani do not support diversity in film if they involve actual different points of view.  They support diversity in film only insofar as it relates to cast and crew.  His idea of diversity is not in diversity of thought, only diversity in image. 

Never mind that War Room had a primarily African-American cast where the characters were wealthy and not stereotypes, with Anglo characters barely visible. Never mind that God's Not Dead had an Asian character who had a subplot. These films came from an actual different point of view, but I don't expect people like Nanjiani to support and encourage these types of films as they at the very least do not share that point of view, at worst are hostile to it.

When it comes to diversity in Hollywood, diversity is very conformist.

As for any lack of politics at this year's ceremony, the assertion that President Trump was not mentioned is wrong.  I quote, again from Kimmel's opening monologue, "None other than President Trump called Get Out the best first three-quarters of a movie this year".

Kimmel, who has decided to use his late-night talk show to weigh in on issues of the day, added more commentary masquerading as 'jokes', right from the beginning.  In an otherwise clever faux-newsreel opening, he makes the following 'jokes':

"And Chadwick Boseman, the King of Wakanda.  Imagine: a country with a black leader! Wouldn't that be swell!"
"Now it's time to go inside, where tonight's godless Hollywood elitists are on the edge of their seats".
"And Wow: the stunning Lupita Nyong'o! She was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya.  Let the tweet-storm from the President's toilet begin!"

In his monologue, after the Pence swipe, he was simultaneously encouraging short speeches and taking up time in those speeches to make political statements. This was part of his advise to winners, while still encouraging short speeches: "You have an opportunity and a platform to remind millions of people about important things like equal rights and equal treatment.  If you want to encourage others to join the amazing students of Parkland at their march on the 24th, do that".

The imagination boggles how to someone watching in Iowa would think a set designer's views on gun control would change hearts and minds, or how sound editors are so well-versed on the issue of immigration.

Eugenio Derbez, introducing Coco's Remember Me, added this bit of wisdom. "In the movie, this song pulls a 12-year-old Mexican boy from the land of the living across the border to the land of the dead, all for the love of his family.  Because you know in the afterworld, there are no walls". His awkward pause right after show he expected applause and not the silence he ended up with.

Nanjiani and Nyong'o, presenting Best Production Design, opened by mentioning they were immigrants: she from Kenya, he from Pakistan and Iowa "two places that nobody in Hollywood can find on a map".  Nyong'o stated, "And like everyone in this room, and everyone watching at home, we are Dreamers.  We grew up dreaming of one day, working in the movies.  Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood, and dreams are the foundation of America".  Nanjiani closes with, "And so, to all the Dreamers out there, we stand with you".

Again, my cynicism tells me they were not referring to a general sense of 'dreamers' but to those affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, people who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents.  They've been given the lovely term of 'Dreamers', a sobriquet I hate because it makes it sound so endearing.  Who can be against 'Dreamers'?  It's a deliberately crafted term which I find highly manipulative, and I say this as someone who supports allowing those affected by DACA to become citizens and a son of an immigrant himself.

Perhaps my idea that they were virtue-signaling here comes from how they mentioned they were both immigrants right before mentioning they were also 'Dreamers'.  As far as it is known, neither Nyong'o or Nanjiani's parents brought them as children to the U.S. illegally.  However, legal immigration, illegal immigration...potato, potato.

This, along with the 'diversity montage', was virtue-signaling par excellence, where the viewing audience is asked to believe all those who appeared in the short film were shocked, SHOCKED, that all this sexual harassment, pay disparity and unequal employment opportunities was going on.  Not since Judgment at Nuremberg have I seen so many insist 'we didn't know'.

Common's entire performance of the nominated Stand Up For Something was a left-wing political speech in all but name.  From his opening rap where we "Tell the NRA they in God's way and to the people of Parkland we say 'Ase'" to having ten 'activists' behind him as he goes on about 'A knee we take for our souls' sake' and 'A President that children hate', which as far as I know were not the original lyrics to Stand Up For Something.  All those 'activists' behind him were of course for liberal causes.  No pro-lifers need apply or appear.

Common was quite open about the appropriateness of bringing his own politics to the Academy Awards, even if visually I would argue the song performance wasn't well-done, with those figures being both unknown to the viewing public and at times extremely hard to see.

Here is my take on political speeches/statements at award presentations.  Unlike others who object about 'politicizing the Oscars', I believe actors, writer, directors, even set designers have every right to speak out at these events if they wish to do so.  Freedom of speech is a hallmark of American representative democracy.  If Common or Kimmel or Nanjiani or Emma Stone want to take up time at the Academy Awards to pontificate on anything their pretty heads desire, they have every right to do so.

They should also know that audiences have every right to tune them out and to simply not care what they think.  My issue is not with either what they say or the venue they say it in.  It's in this rather odd notion that people like Common or Kimmel or Nanjiani or Stone are imbued with some divine wisdom that they must impart on the rest of us, that they have metaphorically come down Moses-like from Mt. Sinai to deliver the Word of God that cannot be questioned or debated.

They appear to genuinely believe we all should somehow be in awe of them, and it is their place to 'enlighten' us through not just their art, but through their very being.  They also appear genuinely shocked to find they get pushback from others.  If you take a public position and use these venues to espouse them, you cannot be so dim as to not expect others who disagree with you to not respond.

Jimmy Kimmel is a particularly interesting case.  For the longest time, he kept his views mostly off Jimmy Kimmel Live.  He decided to use his program recently to tell others what he thought on guns and health care.  That is his right and even privilege, and I for one am not going to stop him. However, when others, like a Ben Shapiro or Dave Rubin, who disagree with him on these and other issues offer to debate Kimmel, he refuses to engage them. 

Aye, there's the rub: Common, Kimmel, Nanjiani, Stone, et al. want us to hear their statements, but they won't hear anyone else's, let alone defend their own in an open forum where they can be questioned. Essentially, we the audience are not only suppose to agree with them, but thank them for their insights even if we didn't ask for or agree with them.

Kimmel may be right, he may be wrong on various political issues.  However, if he decides to use his program to promote his own ideology, which he has every right to, he cannot complain when others call him on it. I believe he should be prepared to defend them to his opponents' faces, not just within the safe confines of his studio where he controls who comes in, who speaks to him, and who has a cheering section to applaud him.

I'll close out this long section with this.  I do not believe the 90th Academy Awards were the lowest rated in history because these particular Oscars were political.  I think the 90th Academy Awards were the lowest in history because of a cumulative effect of past Academy Awards, and Emmys and Grammys and Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guilds and BAFTAs and People's Choice and MTV Video Music and MTV Movie and Teen Choice and Kids Choice Awards, among many others. 

The pontificating, the lecturing, the posturing has grown so stale, clichéd and predictable that even some liberals are tiring of it.  If Academy members insist on pushing viewers away by making their award presentations a de facto political rally, one where they all agree with each other, they hardly are in a position to complain when audiences, even sympathetic audiences, decide to go elsewhere.

The predictability of a political awards show leads me to the mercifully last reason why I believe the 90th Academy Awards were the lowest in history.  In the past, the Oscars could have a surprise winner, an unexpected choice that even the most ardent Oscar-watcher did not expect.

There was when Art Carney shocked audiences when he was announced as Best Actor for Harry & Tonto over Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II, Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express or Dustin Hoffman in Lenny.  A mild surprise occurred when Jim Broadbent beat out Ian McKellen for Best Supporting Actor in 2002. Then there is the most infamous upset in recent memory: Marisa Tomei's stunning win for Best Supporting Actress for My Cousin Vinnie, with unfounded and unfair rumors circulating that she had been erroneously named and the Academy was too embarrassed to correct that.

Last year's debacle, I think, has silenced that idea. 

This year, and again in years past, the thrill of a potential upset is gone.  Gary Oldman, Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney had basically been announced as the four acting winners for months.  This year, they had won all the major awards that were Oscar precursors to where among more devoted followers of these things their wins were a mere formality.  When the casual viewer hears the same names announced over and over and once more winning the same type of award for the same film, it has a numbing effect, so much white noise that if everyone expects particular people to win, there is little to no interest to see.

If we start on January 7, when the Golden Globes were announced, it has been almost two to three months of a relentless loop; audiences see and hear the same people win the same categories again and again, usually against the same group of losers.  When there is a surprise nomination, even that isn't a sign of an impending upset, just a better campaign. 

One would have to be bonkers to think Leslie Manville's surprise Best Supporting Actress nomination was going to signal defeat for Allison Janney.  Nothing against Phantom Thread or I, Tonya: two excellent films that I think highly of. However, when more people paid to see such things as Geostorm, Kidnap, or Fist Fight than either I, Tonya or Phantom Thread, the idea of people actually caring whether Leslie Manville poses a serious threat to Allison Janney seems asinine.

I hope I have made my case that three factors contributed to the falling ratings/interest of this year's Academy Awards: obscurity of nominees, the political nature of this and past award presentations, and the predictability of the winners.

Finally, some quick odds and ends.  If Kimmel and the producers were really interested in a shorter show, they would have cut the entire 'Crashing the A Wrinkle in Time preview screening' bit.  The only bit of humor in this bit is when Kimmel pulled an audience member, Mike Young, to introduce the next presenters and Young clearly had no idea who 'Tiffany Haddish' was, stumbling over her last name.

Offering the winner with the shortest acceptance speech a Jet Ski worth $17,999 was also dumb, especially given the swag bag the acting and directing nominees got this year.

Whoever told Gael Garcia Bernal that he could sing should be publicly horsewhipped. I'd revoke his U.S. residency after his atrocious, painful off-key rendition of Remember Me (which I still think is a lousy song that I cannot actually remember, preferring Un Poco Loco).  The song I favored, Mystery of Love, was also disastrous, but disastrous in that Sufjan Stevens was given little time to perform and his fellow performers like St. Vincent and Chris Thile were obscured.

Eiza Gonzalez paid a compliment to fellow Sound Editing and Sound Mixing presenter Ansel Elgort, saying to him, "You're just as brilliant as being a singer as an actor".  I guess that means Elgort is even worse than Bernal, because Elgort is a pretty lousy actor.

As I close out my thoughts on the 90th Academy Awards, I have this last piece of advise:

If you're going to virtue-signal, at least get the punctuation right...

90th Academy Awards: A Review

Well, for this year's Academy Awards, I didn't do too badly.

Out of 24 categories, I got 18 right.  

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT*

Heroin(e) (Winner: Heaven is A Traffic Jam on the 405)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Icarus

LIVE-ACTION SHORT SUBJECT*

DeKalb Elementary (Winner: The Silent Child)

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Dear Basketball

ANIMATED FEATURE

Coco

VISUAL EFFECTS* 

War for Planet of the Apes (Winner: Blade Runner 2049)

SOUND MIXING

Dunkirk

SOUND EDITING

Dunkirk

PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Shape of Water

ORIGINAL SCORE

The Shape of Water

ORIGINAL SONG

Remember Me (Coco)

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

Darkest Hour

FILM EDITING*

Baby Driver (Winner: Dunkirk)

COSTUME DESIGN

Phantom Thread

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Blade Runner 2049

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Jordan Peele (Get Out)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM*

The Insult (Lebanon) (Winner: A Fantastic Woman, Chile)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

LEAD ACTRESS

Francis McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

LEAD ACTOR

Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)

DIRECTOR

Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water)

PICTURE*

Dunkirk (Winner: The Shape of Water)

Was I too optimistic that Dunkirk would beat out the film now derisively known as Grinding Nemo?

No.  My theory on the Film Editing/Director/Picture Connection still holds.  However, it was misapplied.

Here is my theory:  no film nominated for Best Picture that does not have either a Best Editing and/or Best Director nomination can win.  A Best Picture nominee does not need to have both Editing and Director nominations to win, but it has to have at least a nomination in one of them to end up winning.

The theory goes on to add that if a Best Picture nominee wins Best Editing, then that picture will lose Best Picture to another Best Editing/Picture nominee.  If Best Editing goes to a non-Best Picture nominee, and one of the Best Picture nominees wins Best Director, then the film that lost both Best Editing and Best Director wins Best Picture.

Yes, I know it sounds a bit convoluted, but let's look at the last ten years: 2007-2016.

Best Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum (No Country for Old Men nominated)

Best Director: No Country for Old Men (The Bourne Ultimatum not nominated)

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men (The Bourne Ultimatum not nominated)

Best Editing: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Editing: The Hurt Locker

Best Director: The Hurt Locker

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker

Best Editing: The Social Network (The King's Speech nominated)

Best Director: The King's Speech (The Social Network nominated)

Best Picture: The King's Speech (The Social Network nominated)

Best Editing: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Best Director: The Artist (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo not nominated)

Best Picture:  The Artist (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo not nominated)

Best Editing: Argo (Life of Pi nominated)

Best Director: The Life of Pi (Argo not nominated)

Best Picture: Argo (Life of Pi nominated)

Best Editing: Gravity (12 Years A Slave nominated)

Best Director: Gravity (12 Years A Slave nominated)

Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave (Gravity nominated)

Best Editing: Whiplash (Birdman not nominated)

Best Director: Birdman (Whiplash not nominated)

Best Picture: Birdman (Whiplash nominated)

Best Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road (The Revenant and Spotlight nominated)

Best Director: The Revenant (Mad Max: Fury Road and Spotlight nominated)

Best Picture: Spotlight (Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant nominated)

Best Editing: Hacksaw Ridge (La La Land and Moonlight nominated)

Best Director: La La Land (Hacksaw Ridge and Moonlight nominated)

Best Picture: Moonlight (Hacksaw Ridge and La La Land nominated)

You'll see that only twice in ten years have we had a trifecta of Editing/Director/Picture.  When a Best Editing winner is not nominated for Best Picture, the Director and Picture match.  When a Best Editing winner is nominated for Best Picture, it loses Best Picture to a film that was also nominated in those three categories.

This year, only two films received nominations in all three: The Shape of Water and Dunkirk.  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was nominated for Editing but not Director.  Get Out, Phantom Thread and Lady Bird were nominated for Best Director but not Best Editing.

My prediction for Dunkirk was based on Baby Driver pulling an upset in Best Editing.  If it had done that, then, by keeping to the theory, Dunkirk or The Shape of Water would win because a non-Best Picture nominee won Editing. 

Best Director and Best Picture have failed to match four out of five times in the past five years.  As such, a Guillermo del Toro's win for The Shape of Water would have signaled an upset for Dunkirk.

However, Baby Driver did not upset.  Instead, Dunkirk won Best Editing. As such, according to my theory, it would lose to another Best Picture nominee, which it did.  I might have counted more on how Director and Picture haven't matched up also in making my prediction.

Best Editing: Dunkirk (The Shape of Water nominated)

Best Director: The Shape of Water (Dunkirk nominated)

Best Picture: The Shape of Water (Dunkirk nominated)

I think that my theory still holds.  I just think I relied too much on a non-Best Picture nominee winning and the loosening of a Director/Picture match for my prediction.

There is one other Oscar theory that held up last night: the Best Actor winner will win for a biopic.  Now, it was almost certain that Gary Oldman would win for Darkest Hour.  However, he won for playing a real-life figure: Winston Churchill.  

Again, from 2006 to 2017, the Best Actor winner playing a real-life figure is 6/10.  In that time period, only once have all five Best Actor nominees not come from playing a real-life figure.  Every year from 2008 to now, there has been at least one Best Actor nominee who played a nonfictional figure.

Finally, as to the awards themselves.  The best words to describe it are "safe, predictable, boring".  There were no upset, no surprises in any category. Probably the biggest surprise was Blade Runner 2049 winning Best Visual Effects, and when Best Visual Effects is the surprise choice, you have problems.

This year could be the lowest-rated ceremony in history.  Now, some of my other compatriots would put it to the excessive politicking going on at these events, and there is some truth to that.  Others would put it to the lack of recognition of the nominees, and there is some truth to that too.

However, from my vantage point, I put it to the sheer predictability of the winners.  Unlike the past, where genuine shockers could pop up like The Greatest Show on Earth winning Best Picture over High Noon and The Quiet Man, or when Peter Finch won a posthumous Oscar, everyone figured Oldman, Francis McDormand, Allison Janney and Sam Rockwell were going to win.

The cacophony of award shows from the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs to various critics and the harping of the press signaled what was coming.  

There simply is no suspense factor anymore for those who do follow these things.  As such, we have little vested interest in seeing McDormand win another trophy, begging the question, where does she actually keep all these prizes?  

You have no sense of 'there could be an upset'.  You have movies most people haven't seen or would bother to see.  You have endless posturing to where even liberals are tiring of it.  Why watch when a.) you know who is going to win, b.) you don't know or care who is nominated and c.) you get told off by people much wealthier than you?

There are no fixes to this problem.  The Academy can't tell others not to present awards.  They can't tell people to see films they don't want to: I figure more people would rather watch A Wrinkle in Time, a sneak preview interrupted so host Jimmy Kimmell could show off the latest act of Hollywood noblesse oblige to 'the little people', than they would Call Me By Your Name.  They can't tell winners to not enlighten television viewers on their positions on immigration and how they know more/better than those watching at home.

If trends continue as such, however, the Academy Awards will end up going back to what it was 90 years ago: a small industry affair only they care about that can be wrapped up in 15 minutes.