Chris Rock and the White Elephant in the Room

Kieran, here with an extremely stream-of-conscious analysis of the racial politics of last night's ceremony. Bear with me, gentle reader...

Chris Rock was in an unenviable position.  It’s important to begin with that point because, as Nathaniel has pointed out many times, it’s nearly impossible to get positive reviews as an Oscar host in real time. Even briefly setting aside the identity politics firestorm of stepping into a predominantly white space as a black person, it usually takes at least a year (if not longer) for positive consensus to settle around how an Oscar host performed his or her duties. But let’s get to the white elephant in the room—Chris Rock’s handling of #Oscarssowhite (a hashtag created by activist April Reign). There were many who seemed to be expecting Chris Rock to be some kind of attack-dog, which I will never understand. That’s never been his style and even if it were his style, what does that accomplish?

Click to read more ...

Finding Time for Two Disrespected Song Nominees

There's already been quite a stir over the two nominated Best Original Song nominees that producers decided not to include in the telecast: Racing Extinction's "Manta Ray" by J. Ralph and Anohni (our only transgender nominee) and Youth's "Simple Song #3" by David Lang (also Nathaniel's 2015 favorite). The reason for not including these songs with their more famous competitors in the telecast was "time constraints."

The timing of the Oscar ceremony is undoubtably tricky, so let's do a little math.

• The three performed songs each were shortened from their full length, a great way to still get them on an already long broadcast. "The Writing's On the Wall" lost the most time at almost two minutes, but "Earned It" was the shortest performance at roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Let's assume the two unfamous songs should be given that amount of time as a minimum.
• "Til It Happens to You" had the longest intro at 2 minutes and the longest applause with 30 seconds. Since a popular political figure wouldn't likely introduce the songs, factor in about a generous minute and a half for intro and applause.
• At four minutes per song, we now must find 8 minutes to trim from the broadcast to fit in these performances.

Now I'm no expert on the minutiae of planning a massive production like the Oscar telecast, b most of these suggestions require minimal logistical shifts. Some, like less animation production, could even save a headache or two. Having funny bits throughout the show is crucial to a memorable telecast, which is why bits like the spoofs of The Danish Girl and The Martian will always be essential. But when focusing on honoring the nominees, you'd have to pick and choose your battles on what extra pieces stay and go.

So we'll do just that after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Pt 1: Winners. Trivia. Stats. (How'd you do on your predictions?)

It's time to sift through the debris! Let's clear away the rubble of Oscar night and seek out interesting trivia of note, check back in with our prediction triumphs and foibles, and more. We'll frame this with a complete list of winners if, by some extraordinary circumstance, you've missed knowing about them. If so can you account for your actions last night? What on earth is more important than the Oscars? (Except that event to help out citizens of Flint, MI poisoned by their own GOP led government so, well done, Ava DuVernay and others)

But first the sordid topic of punditry! In many ways this was a difficult year to predict the prizes with three(!) genuine upsets on the big nights (Mark Rylance, Sam Smith, Ex Machina) a Best Picture race that was truly difficult to read given precursor disagreements and the Best Film of the Year sidelined altogether (When it comes to the Academy's treatment of Carol... quoth Abby "I can't help you with that."). If you check in with the Oscar Chart Index, you'll see an overview of how well I did but it breaks down like so... I completed aced the Best Short categories (go me) but otherwise flailed about hopelessly because I had predicted 6 Oscars for The Revenant and 3 for Mad Max which is the opposite of what occurred. Not even my wishful thinking helped me get over my fear that Oscar just wouldn't know what to do with a genre achievement that gonzo. [more after the jump...]

Click to read more ...

In Praise of Ex Machina's Win

Manuel here. One of our favorite wins from last night’s Academy Awards was Ex Machina’s triumph in the Best Visual Effects category.

We marveled at its nod when the nominations came out mostly because it seemed like the low-key supportive use of visual effects that rarely get cited in the category (why else would you pass over the effects of say, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?). Add to that a stellar category across the board—Judy! BB-8! Furiosa! Mars!—and the A24 film win feels all the more laudable. Sometimes, it seems, “best” need not mean “most” to Oscar members. 

But two things are particularly striking to the inner number cruncher:

1. Ex Machina became the second non-Best Picture nominee to win in this category since the Academy expanded the Best Pic roster. Interstellar, as Amir reminded me in the comments, was the first. As you’ll remember, the expanded field was designed (in part) to accommodate critically acclaimed blockbusters (like The Dark Knight) and true to form, whether in direct response to this or not, Avatar, Inception, Hugo, Life of Pi, and Gravity were surely helped by their Best Pic cred. We all assumed this again would be the case this year and would help either The Revenant, The Martian or Mad Max: Fury Road (the latter an increasingly possible outcome given the film’s tech dominance). The same, of course, would have been the case had Star Wars The Force Awakens won but that win would have been more easily parsed. It is the most successful film of the past year having been printing money ever since it premiered which brings me to talk of box office.

2. Ex Machina became the lowest grossing winner in 18 years. When nominations were announced, it was worth being reminded that this sci-fi film was one of the lowest grossing nominees in quite some time. You had to go back to Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter’s $32 million haul to find a comparable box office example. With its win, the Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander film became the lowest grossing winner since What Dreams May Come ($55m). It’s quite a feat when, even as the category has been known to award the statuette to the lowest grossing nominee of the bunch (7 of the past 15 times), the winners have averaged a gross of $269 million. This is, after all, a category that welcomes crowd-pleasing blockbusters and effects-driven spectacles. A24 and Garland’s crew should be very proud of their win which really overcame many obstacles on its way to this surprise win.

And what a welcome surprise it was!

[Note: The film also recently won the Film Bitch Award Gold Medal in its category though we thought a correlative Oscar impossible - Editor]

The Mad Six

Glenn here helping out with the post-ceremony rush. The highlight of last night’s Oscars was surely the six wins for Mad Max: Fury Road. That haul solidified its place as not just one of the most successful Oscar titles of all time, but no doubt the strangest, too.

We may all say that most people were predicting at least four of five of those, but the path to those six wins has been rather extraordinary in the truest definition of that word. Who among us a year ago truly could have predicted that we would be here a year later celebrating six Oscars to a movie about a renegade road warrior, an amputee heroine, and a group of sex slaves rising up against an evil warlord in a post-apocalyptic future with the aide of a gang of elderly motorcycle ladies? While we can be disappointed – very disappointed – that they didn’t add a seventh for George Miller’s direction, any movie winning six golden statues is not only a rarity, but a moment to be extremely proud of so hats off to the team behind Max. It won as many awards as the last two best picture winners combined and it doubled the amount of awards of the next highest winner (The Revenant) on its big night. You done good, Max! May more films like you spring forth from your imposing shadow.

Mad Max: Fury Road joins some fine company, with only 26 films having ever won more awards. 26 over 88 years ! More impressive still, is that Miller’s post-apocalyptic action spectacle is a member of an even smaller collective of only five films to have won half a dozen golden statues without a Best Picture prize to go with them. It’s an interesting quintet to say the least.

The five classics after the jump...

Click to read more ...