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| Courtesy of ABC |
The Academy Awards took place last Sunday, but it already seems
like an eternity ago in today’s world of social media and instant reactions.
Still, especially with this year’s ceremony, it’s important to take a couple of
days to process everything that took place.
Simply put, there was no way to avoid the controversy
surrounding the acting nominations debacle. It’s a credit to the organization
that it allowed host Chris Rock to confront this issue head-on. Any other choice
would have resulted in an oblivious, awkward telecast that might’ve further
damaged the Academy’s credibility.
The result was the best Oscars in years, with a slate of
comedian presenters who primarily cared about being funny as opposed to
coddling movie stars’ gigantic egos. That might not be what the room was
looking for, but Rock understood there were exponentially more viewers at home
who didn’t want to be bored out of their minds.
Rock didn’t even wait to address the elephant in the room,
diving into a confrontational, politically-charged monologue that resulted in
plenty of think pieces on Monday morning. His remarks probably alienated some
viewers, but who cares? He was hilarious. (Plus, the Oscars have always been
political. Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t been paying attention.)
As always, there was plenty about the show I loved and
plenty of stuff that I griped about, including the customary way-too-long
running time. Here are a handful of the ceremony’s elements that stood out most,
for good or ill.
The Good
Chris Rock as host: I’ve
already talked about him a lot already, but I was immensely impressed with
Rock’s ability to walk the tightrope between entertaining and keeping the show
on track. In addition to his monologue, I loved him guilt-tripping the insanely
wealthy audience into buying Girl Scout cookies from his daughters. Also,
introducing Creed star Michael B. Jordan as a “should’ve-been nominee” is one
of the truest things anyone said all night.
Mad Max: Fury Road cleans up in the technical categories: I know it didn’t win any of the
“sexy” categories, but George Miller’s insane action saga (one of my favorite
movies of 2015) gets to boast that it took home six Oscars, the most any film
won that night. I know it really never had a shot at Best Picture – not with
that stuffy bunch – but I wish Miller could’ve somehow pulled out Best
Director.
Spotlight beats The Revenant for Best Picture: For a while there, I was nervous that The
Revenant was going to win the night’s top prize. It’s the kind of all-style,
no-substance movie Oscar voters generally love to shower with praise.
Fortunately (most likely because of preferential ballot dynamics), a genuinely
great movie emerged victorious. Honestly, I would’ve been happy with any nominee
except The Revenant winning. That it happened to be Spotlight, my pick for
best film of 2015, was just icing on the cake.
Louis C.K. presenting
Best Documentary Short Subject: This should be Exhibit A when the
ceremony’s producers discuss who should host next year. The revered comedian
somehow managed to simultaneously exalt a category most people ignore and roast
the spoiled millionaires in the audience. And they applauded him for it.
Leonardo DiCaprio
finally wins an Oscar (Part 1): Oscars should never be mistaken for a
barometer of quality, but even the most jaded film buff will probably admit
DiCaprio should’ve had one by now. He’s easily one of the greatest actors of
his generation, and the Academy’s continual slights were starting to seem personal.
This year’s ceremony took care of that. Half of me is happy about it...
The Ill
Leonardo DiCaprio
finally wins an Oscar (Part 2): ...the other half wishes he’d won for a
better movie. His performances in The Wolf of Wall Street, Django Unchained and Catch Me If You Can were far more Oscar-caliber than what he does in The
Revenant. The difference is it’s a showier role in something that pretends to
be artsy, plus the “he’s due” narrative took hold. It’s like Al Pacino finally
winning for Scent of a Woman. Sure, he’s got an Oscar now, but it feels like
there’s an asterisk next to it.
The godawful SPECTRE theme wins Best Song: Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall,” easily
one of the worst Bond songs ever written, shouldn’t have even been nominated. Most
people assumed Lady Gaga was on track for one of the night’s most obvious wins.
Her song wasn’t much better, but at least she brought much-needed attention to
the nation’s epidemic of campus sexual assaults with a powerful performance
incorporating real-life survivors. Some pundits have been arguing for years
that the Academy should eliminate this category. This year’s selection provided
them with some fairly indisputable evidence.
Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu wins Best Director for the second year in a row: I get why Oscar
voters love Inarritu. It’s the exact same reason I loathe him. He thinks art
has to be pretentious, but he doesn’t have that level of talent. So he makes
movies (I’m sure he refers to them exclusively as “films”) that he thinks are
pretentious, but really just communicate shallow platitudes in self-important
ways. You know, like The Revenant, which he said “deserves to be watched in a
temple.” Ugh. Can you punch words in the face? At least the orchestra tried to
play him off the stage during his bloviating.
Jared Leto using
Magic Mike XXL as a punchline: Joke’s on you, pretty boy. It’s a legitimately
great movie.
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