The Academy Awards for film year 2015- because I don't think I had an entry about them this year
Did I even talk about the Academy Awards telecast? No, I don't think I did. I self-imposed a moratorium on my livejournal from February until May.
I think I had an entry about the nominees right around Superbowl. My annual Oscars Superbowl entry. Then I had an entry about Sara and me about to be married. Then three months passed.
Here is my 2016 Oscar entry for film year 2015. Since it has been over six months since the telecast, it will be telling of the watershed moments that I have to remember it now.
1. I remember it seemed like Mad Max was winning practically everything. And it totally ruined my ballot. Mad Max won six Academy Awards. The tale of Max Rockatansky, a former police detective who lost his family to the Apocalypse, who with the best of intentions joins Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to mess with Immortan Joe while hopefully securing the freedom of a good number of his sex slaves. I have since seen Mad Max Fury Road. I watched it with Ian Mason, Phil Kopp and SAM Velayutham over the summer on Blu-Ray. It was visually dazzling. And it made you really care about the well-being of the women, several of them pregnant, one of them played by Rosie Huntington-Whitely, another one played by Zoe Kravitz, as they are carted off across Australia's wasteland, hoping to get to the green village. While I was rooting for Star Wars The Force Awakens in the Sound, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Film Editing, and Original Score categories, it was a well-made choice to have it lose three of those to Mad Max, if it had to lose to something.
2. Star Wars The Force Awakens was nominated for five awards. As mentioned, Visual Effects, Sound, Sound Editing, Film Editing, and Original Score. But its only strong presence of the evening was having Daisy Ridley on as a presenter, and C-3P0 and R2D2 out to congratulate John Williams for his record 50th nomination.
3. Spotlight won the first and last awards of the evening! It won the Original Screenplay Award for Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer. Then at the end of the night it took Best Picture. Everyone gorged on the Girl Scout Cookies that Chris Rock asked the audience members to buy from his daughter, who was trying to win the contest for most sold from her Girl Scout Troop. She probably did.
4. Jennifer Lawrence getting nominated for Joy. The clip they chose was perfect. Her screaming "I can't do this, I can't do this" at Robert DeNiro and Edgar Ramirez as Joy Mangano is trying to take off for work at her airline check-in desk job was vintage David O. Russell. She could make any person look interesting. If David O. Russell ever chose to have her play a small town Spanish teacher in a quirky dramedy, I have fantasies of her showing up at my work to do research.
5. Inside Out won Animated Feature! I so identified with Riley in her scene where she left Minneapolis. And all of the sudden, she was replaced by an ice hockey player who was just as good as she was, and her friends didn't need her anymore. As if they never needed her to begin with. This was the fruition, the result, what we saw on the surface of joy, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger caught in a flustered compromise to try to regain her lost emotions from long-term memory before she entirely forgets how to be happy and sad.
6. Steve Jobs getting nominations for Best Actor for Michael Fassbender and Best Supporting Actress for Kate Winslet. If there were anyone who deserved to hold the claim of having fought back against anger, fear, and disgust for the right to joy and sadness, it's Steve Jobs' first daughter. The one he tried so hard to disown, but kept coming back to him, wanting to be loved, settling for money as an equity payout as admission to being her dad. This was a very good Aaron Sorkin screenplay, and I was sorry he didn't get nominated fro Adapted Screenplay.
7. Brooklyn getting a bunch of nominations, including Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress for Saoirse Ronan and Best Picture. Saoirse Ronan's dress, seen in all angles during the Oscar Red Carpet hour, was as captivating as any moment on the Oscar telecast itself. With that in mind...
8. Hershey's broadcast a commercial with a remake of Higher Love! Singing lead vocals, Lily Winwood! Daughter of Steve Winwood! And he sings back up! It was awesome!
9. Tracey Morgan trying to take the Alicia Vikander part in The Danish Girl, claiming he lost the part because he's black (not because he's a man).
10. Chris Rock going to a local movie theatre, reprising his routine from when he hosted in film year 2004, where he goes to an LA movie hteatre to interview inner city filmgoers and gauge their level of interest in white people films like Brooklyn, Bridge of Spies, and Room. They hadn't even heard of these movies, some of them. It was the perfect, badly needed punchline at the end of a long and arduous Oscar race that had to overcompensate in its campaigning to minorities, particularly blacks, after not nominating the likes of Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael B. Jordan, Idris Elba, or O'Shea Jackson Jr or anyone from Straight Outta' Compton.
So the Oscars were racially skewing the Caucasian performances. But I was glad Chris Rock ruffled the feathers.
Like 2004, when Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, Sideways, and The Aviator failed to gain the interest of black filmgoers he spoke to, there were lots of movies Chris Rock had to tell people about their very existence, films that were up for Oscars for film year 2015.
Other moments:
Leonardo DiCaprio- great speech winning Best Actor
Brie Larsen- Good speech winning Best Actress
Alicia Vikander- good speech for The Danish Girl
Mark Rylance- very good speech for Bridge of Spies
I think I had an entry about the nominees right around Superbowl. My annual Oscars Superbowl entry. Then I had an entry about Sara and me about to be married. Then three months passed.
Here is my 2016 Oscar entry for film year 2015. Since it has been over six months since the telecast, it will be telling of the watershed moments that I have to remember it now.
1. I remember it seemed like Mad Max was winning practically everything. And it totally ruined my ballot. Mad Max won six Academy Awards. The tale of Max Rockatansky, a former police detective who lost his family to the Apocalypse, who with the best of intentions joins Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to mess with Immortan Joe while hopefully securing the freedom of a good number of his sex slaves. I have since seen Mad Max Fury Road. I watched it with Ian Mason, Phil Kopp and SAM Velayutham over the summer on Blu-Ray. It was visually dazzling. And it made you really care about the well-being of the women, several of them pregnant, one of them played by Rosie Huntington-Whitely, another one played by Zoe Kravitz, as they are carted off across Australia's wasteland, hoping to get to the green village. While I was rooting for Star Wars The Force Awakens in the Sound, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Film Editing, and Original Score categories, it was a well-made choice to have it lose three of those to Mad Max, if it had to lose to something.
2. Star Wars The Force Awakens was nominated for five awards. As mentioned, Visual Effects, Sound, Sound Editing, Film Editing, and Original Score. But its only strong presence of the evening was having Daisy Ridley on as a presenter, and C-3P0 and R2D2 out to congratulate John Williams for his record 50th nomination.
3. Spotlight won the first and last awards of the evening! It won the Original Screenplay Award for Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer. Then at the end of the night it took Best Picture. Everyone gorged on the Girl Scout Cookies that Chris Rock asked the audience members to buy from his daughter, who was trying to win the contest for most sold from her Girl Scout Troop. She probably did.
4. Jennifer Lawrence getting nominated for Joy. The clip they chose was perfect. Her screaming "I can't do this, I can't do this" at Robert DeNiro and Edgar Ramirez as Joy Mangano is trying to take off for work at her airline check-in desk job was vintage David O. Russell. She could make any person look interesting. If David O. Russell ever chose to have her play a small town Spanish teacher in a quirky dramedy, I have fantasies of her showing up at my work to do research.
5. Inside Out won Animated Feature! I so identified with Riley in her scene where she left Minneapolis. And all of the sudden, she was replaced by an ice hockey player who was just as good as she was, and her friends didn't need her anymore. As if they never needed her to begin with. This was the fruition, the result, what we saw on the surface of joy, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger caught in a flustered compromise to try to regain her lost emotions from long-term memory before she entirely forgets how to be happy and sad.
6. Steve Jobs getting nominations for Best Actor for Michael Fassbender and Best Supporting Actress for Kate Winslet. If there were anyone who deserved to hold the claim of having fought back against anger, fear, and disgust for the right to joy and sadness, it's Steve Jobs' first daughter. The one he tried so hard to disown, but kept coming back to him, wanting to be loved, settling for money as an equity payout as admission to being her dad. This was a very good Aaron Sorkin screenplay, and I was sorry he didn't get nominated fro Adapted Screenplay.
7. Brooklyn getting a bunch of nominations, including Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress for Saoirse Ronan and Best Picture. Saoirse Ronan's dress, seen in all angles during the Oscar Red Carpet hour, was as captivating as any moment on the Oscar telecast itself. With that in mind...
8. Hershey's broadcast a commercial with a remake of Higher Love! Singing lead vocals, Lily Winwood! Daughter of Steve Winwood! And he sings back up! It was awesome!
9. Tracey Morgan trying to take the Alicia Vikander part in The Danish Girl, claiming he lost the part because he's black (not because he's a man).
10. Chris Rock going to a local movie theatre, reprising his routine from when he hosted in film year 2004, where he goes to an LA movie hteatre to interview inner city filmgoers and gauge their level of interest in white people films like Brooklyn, Bridge of Spies, and Room. They hadn't even heard of these movies, some of them. It was the perfect, badly needed punchline at the end of a long and arduous Oscar race that had to overcompensate in its campaigning to minorities, particularly blacks, after not nominating the likes of Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael B. Jordan, Idris Elba, or O'Shea Jackson Jr or anyone from Straight Outta' Compton.
So the Oscars were racially skewing the Caucasian performances. But I was glad Chris Rock ruffled the feathers.
Like 2004, when Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, Sideways, and The Aviator failed to gain the interest of black filmgoers he spoke to, there were lots of movies Chris Rock had to tell people about their very existence, films that were up for Oscars for film year 2015.
Other moments:
Leonardo DiCaprio- great speech winning Best Actor
Brie Larsen- Good speech winning Best Actress
Alicia Vikander- good speech for The Danish Girl
Mark Rylance- very good speech for Bridge of Spies