OT....and followed the Oscars with interest but over the years it has become less interesting by the truckload. My wife watches it and I had time to do so as well. Here are some notes:
Of the " best movie" nominations I saw only "Mad Max", have "The Martian" on DVD unseen, and would see "Bridge of Spies" and "Revenant" when it comes to cable. Tats a whole lot more than in the last decade. Overall the nominations seemed to be Hollywood's bias towards small movies(Room and Brooklyn) , LGBT themed (Carol and Danish Girl), the little guy against the establishment (Best Picture Winner- Spotlight- both anti-Establishment and small).But the awards offered no real drama as most of the front runners won except Mark Rylance (a great actor) snuck past "Rocky" Stallone. Lady Gaga nailed her song with what I thought was the best of the three nominations. But Sam Smith won for the song from Spectre (which I did see) and it was among the wimpiest of the Bond movie songs. But Sam used his time to proclaim to be the first openly gay man (actually the 4th or 5th) to win an Oscar.
I guess this was the year of the Non-diversity (also can be read as not many Black award contenders).So with Chris Rock as host I thought the sparks might fly. Chris showed scenes from some of the movies as done with Black actors...the use of wide body Tracy Morgan in drag and lipstick being caught by his wife and explaining "I'm a Danish Girl" and mouthing a Danish pastry was fun. A few other hit home. enough said...right? Nope we had 3 1/2 hours of single note chiding. Black actors held the stage for presentations more than any other group ....except the Australians who were there for most of the first hour getting Oscars for Mad Max. Chris made a boner by introducing the Price-Waterhouse-Cooper (?) smart vote counters and on stage walks three suited and bespeckled Asian kids (Smart Asians stereotypes-get it...Boo). He did recoup a bit with a street interview with mostly black people, asking them about whether they heard of any of the best movies. One woman said "Are you making these names up?" All agreed on seeing "Straight out of Compton" and preferring that to these others that didn't interest them. I actually also would prefer that movie to most of those nominated. I guess from that we can surmise that biases to movies exists, and not only in the Academy voters. Gosh!
Of the " best movie" nominations I saw only "Mad Max", have "The Martian" on DVD unseen, and would see "Bridge of Spies" and "Revenant" when it comes to cable. Tats a whole lot more than in the last decade. Overall the nominations seemed to be Hollywood's bias towards small movies(Room and Brooklyn) , LGBT themed (Carol and Danish Girl), the little guy against the establishment (Best Picture Winner- Spotlight- both anti-Establishment and small).But the awards offered no real drama as most of the front runners won except Mark Rylance (a great actor) snuck past "Rocky" Stallone. Lady Gaga nailed her song with what I thought was the best of the three nominations. But Sam Smith won for the song from Spectre (which I did see) and it was among the wimpiest of the Bond movie songs. But Sam used his time to proclaim to be the first openly gay man (actually the 4th or 5th) to win an Oscar.
I guess this was the year of the Non-diversity (also can be read as not many Black award contenders).So with Chris Rock as host I thought the sparks might fly. Chris showed scenes from some of the movies as done with Black actors...the use of wide body Tracy Morgan in drag and lipstick being caught by his wife and explaining "I'm a Danish Girl" and mouthing a Danish pastry was fun. A few other hit home. enough said...right? Nope we had 3 1/2 hours of single note chiding. Black actors held the stage for presentations more than any other group ....except the Australians who were there for most of the first hour getting Oscars for Mad Max. Chris made a boner by introducing the Price-Waterhouse-Cooper (?) smart vote counters and on stage walks three suited and bespeckled Asian kids (Smart Asians stereotypes-get it...Boo). He did recoup a bit with a street interview with mostly black people, asking them about whether they heard of any of the best movies. One woman said "Are you making these names up?" All agreed on seeing "Straight out of Compton" and preferring that to these others that didn't interest them. I actually also would prefer that movie to most of those nominated. I guess from that we can surmise that biases to movies exists, and not only in the Academy voters. Gosh!
