SWC75
Bored Historian
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As usual I’d seen maybe half the nominees for the biggest awards. Actually, here’s a list:
Best Picture: Saw The Big Short, Brooklyn, The Martian, The Revenant and Spotlight. Didn’t see: Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road and Room, (I wanted to see Bridge of Spies but never got around to it. I didn’t care about Mad Max and don’t remember Room even being around here, although maybe it will come back now that Brie Larson has won her Oscar.)
Best Director: Saw The Revenant, Spotlight, The Big Short. Didn’t see Room or Mad Max
Best Actor: Saw Trunbo, The Martian, The Revenant and Steve Jobs. Didn’t see The Danish Girl, (Just didn’t interest me.)
Best Actress: Saw Brooklyn. Didn’t see: Carol, (again not that interested), Room, Joy, (wanted to: didn’t get around to it.) or 45 Years, (where is it?)
Best Supporting Actor: Saw The Big Short, The Revenant and Spotlight. Didn’t see: Bridge of Spies or Creed, (turned off when I found out it was another Rocky movie- they say it’s better than that)
Best Supporting Actress: Saw Spotlight and Steve Jobs. Didn’t see The Hateful Eight, (not a Tarantino fan), Carol or the Danish Girl.
I’m thus in no positon to say who deserved the Oscar and who didn’t. that’s the wrong way to put it anyway: You deserve an Oscar if you get the most votes. If I would have voted for someone else, that doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve the award: it just means I would have voted for somebody else.
But here, for what it’s worth, (and the money under the cushions of your couch would exceed that), are the “Steves”, the ones I liked the best. I’ll say this ahead of time: I have two basic standards for whether I r4eelaly liked a movie or a performance in it: (1) Did I enjoy watching it? And (2) Did it stay with me- was I still thinking aobut it a week later. It doesn’t have to be something light-weight for me to enjoy watching it. As a matter of fact it’s better if it isn’t. I like emotional involvement and I like to think about what I’ve seen. But if something is a trial to sit through, I’ve got better things to do.
The best film I saw all year was Concussion and I really liked Will Smith’s performance in it. They would be my choises if they were nominated but they weren’t.
I’d vote for Kate Winslett for best Supporting Actress. It’s not only a very strong performance but it’s so good I didn’t even know it was her until the picture was half over. And it took a lot of figuring to come to that conclusion. I thought Tom Hardy dominated Revenant playing the bad guy. He left a stronger impression on me than Leonardo DeCaprio in the lead so I’d make him my Best Supporting Actor. I don’t have a big problem with DeCaprio winning best actor after a career with so many good performances but Bryan Cranston and Michael Fassbender were terrific playing actual people who’s image and manner were familiar to the movie going public, (at least the ones like to go to those films. I would have voted for either of them, probably Fassbender. I respected Spotlight but it didn’t really pack the punch I thought it was going to. The Big Short was more fun to watch but not really emotionally involving. The revenant made you feel like you had been through the ordeal but that’s the problem: it was an ordeal. I’m impressed that Inarritu could direct two such different films as Birdman, (which I loved) and The Revenant back to back, so I’ll give him a Steve as best director. But of the nominated films, I’d vote for Brooklyn. I just enjoyed watching it and it did stay with me, although not as much as Concussion. Oh, and I I'd give Saorise Ronan the Best Actress award. But,a gain I haven't seen Room.
As to the ceremony, It was lot more entertaining than those vintage Oscar ceremonies I’ve been posting about. You wouldn’t have seen anybody like Chris Rock on those show or any production number like Lady Gaga’s. But you didn’t get the endless thank-yous in the old days: the Valkyries didn’t have to threaten to descend and take the winner away for going on too long. I tho9ught it was clever of the show to have a running line of thank-yous for each winner at the bottom but it didn’t stop the deluge. After about the third person we’ve never heard of the audience tends to turn the winner out. It still bugs me that the honorary awards, which used to be a highlight of the shows have been shunted off to an already held banquet which we see a few seconds of highlights of. Would they have done that with Chaplin? I also don’t like that they don’t allow applause during the obituary segment. They didn’t’ want the survivors of the people who got less applause to feel bad. But they surely know that some of those people are a lot less well known than others. It seems to drain the emotion form it. And if they wanted to streamline the show, why not take the awards the general public doesn’t care about and put them in a separate banquet: Film editing, Production design, Make-up and Hair styling, Sound Mixing, Sound editing, etc.
Best Picture: Saw The Big Short, Brooklyn, The Martian, The Revenant and Spotlight. Didn’t see: Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road and Room, (I wanted to see Bridge of Spies but never got around to it. I didn’t care about Mad Max and don’t remember Room even being around here, although maybe it will come back now that Brie Larson has won her Oscar.)
Best Director: Saw The Revenant, Spotlight, The Big Short. Didn’t see Room or Mad Max
Best Actor: Saw Trunbo, The Martian, The Revenant and Steve Jobs. Didn’t see The Danish Girl, (Just didn’t interest me.)
Best Actress: Saw Brooklyn. Didn’t see: Carol, (again not that interested), Room, Joy, (wanted to: didn’t get around to it.) or 45 Years, (where is it?)
Best Supporting Actor: Saw The Big Short, The Revenant and Spotlight. Didn’t see: Bridge of Spies or Creed, (turned off when I found out it was another Rocky movie- they say it’s better than that)
Best Supporting Actress: Saw Spotlight and Steve Jobs. Didn’t see The Hateful Eight, (not a Tarantino fan), Carol or the Danish Girl.
I’m thus in no positon to say who deserved the Oscar and who didn’t. that’s the wrong way to put it anyway: You deserve an Oscar if you get the most votes. If I would have voted for someone else, that doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve the award: it just means I would have voted for somebody else.
But here, for what it’s worth, (and the money under the cushions of your couch would exceed that), are the “Steves”, the ones I liked the best. I’ll say this ahead of time: I have two basic standards for whether I r4eelaly liked a movie or a performance in it: (1) Did I enjoy watching it? And (2) Did it stay with me- was I still thinking aobut it a week later. It doesn’t have to be something light-weight for me to enjoy watching it. As a matter of fact it’s better if it isn’t. I like emotional involvement and I like to think about what I’ve seen. But if something is a trial to sit through, I’ve got better things to do.
The best film I saw all year was Concussion and I really liked Will Smith’s performance in it. They would be my choises if they were nominated but they weren’t.
I’d vote for Kate Winslett for best Supporting Actress. It’s not only a very strong performance but it’s so good I didn’t even know it was her until the picture was half over. And it took a lot of figuring to come to that conclusion. I thought Tom Hardy dominated Revenant playing the bad guy. He left a stronger impression on me than Leonardo DeCaprio in the lead so I’d make him my Best Supporting Actor. I don’t have a big problem with DeCaprio winning best actor after a career with so many good performances but Bryan Cranston and Michael Fassbender were terrific playing actual people who’s image and manner were familiar to the movie going public, (at least the ones like to go to those films. I would have voted for either of them, probably Fassbender. I respected Spotlight but it didn’t really pack the punch I thought it was going to. The Big Short was more fun to watch but not really emotionally involving. The revenant made you feel like you had been through the ordeal but that’s the problem: it was an ordeal. I’m impressed that Inarritu could direct two such different films as Birdman, (which I loved) and The Revenant back to back, so I’ll give him a Steve as best director. But of the nominated films, I’d vote for Brooklyn. I just enjoyed watching it and it did stay with me, although not as much as Concussion. Oh, and I I'd give Saorise Ronan the Best Actress award. But,a gain I haven't seen Room.
As to the ceremony, It was lot more entertaining than those vintage Oscar ceremonies I’ve been posting about. You wouldn’t have seen anybody like Chris Rock on those show or any production number like Lady Gaga’s. But you didn’t get the endless thank-yous in the old days: the Valkyries didn’t have to threaten to descend and take the winner away for going on too long. I tho9ught it was clever of the show to have a running line of thank-yous for each winner at the bottom but it didn’t stop the deluge. After about the third person we’ve never heard of the audience tends to turn the winner out. It still bugs me that the honorary awards, which used to be a highlight of the shows have been shunted off to an already held banquet which we see a few seconds of highlights of. Would they have done that with Chaplin? I also don’t like that they don’t allow applause during the obituary segment. They didn’t’ want the survivors of the people who got less applause to feel bad. But they surely know that some of those people are a lot less well known than others. It seems to drain the emotion form it. And if they wanted to streamline the show, why not take the awards the general public doesn’t care about and put them in a separate banquet: Film editing, Production design, Make-up and Hair styling, Sound Mixing, Sound editing, etc.
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