Bill Paxton (1955-2017)

By Nathaniel R

In all the hoopla and festivities surrounding Oscar night, we neglected to note the passing of an actor who has a real pop culture fixture since the 1980s. Bill Paxton died of complications in surgery the day before the Oscars. He was currently leading the TV adaptation of Training Day in the former Denzel Washington role (they had reversed the race dynamics of the leads for the series). CBS says the role will not be recast though they have not yet announced if there will be a second season.

Paxton's first credited feature role was as "Soldier" in the comedy Stripes (1981) but most people first noticed him in the mid 80s in the films of James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow...

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Only one "woke" at a time

by Deborah Lipp

One of Oscar's best moments. Iranian-American engineer Anousheh Ansari accepting on behalf of protesting Asghar Farhadi

If I may use this year’s vernacular, Oscars are woke. Except, well, they can only be woke about one thing at a time. Last year after the Oscars, I wrote about the powerful “spotlight” (see what I did there?) the Oscars brought to the issue of rape and sexual violence. And I’m going to acknowledge, that yes, that was amazing. 

But rape is so last year.

This year was all about diversity and inclusion. Those are wonderful topics, those are topics that matter to me. The diversity was beautiful to see. The powerful immigrant voices—from Iran, Mexico, and Italy, among other nations—moved me. It was important that people of color were not merely supporting characters—even though the winners were in the Supporting categories, they supported other people of color...

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Beauty Break: The Men of Moonlight

Moonlight's surprise win was quite a way to wrap Black History Month!  Even more surprising (we all knew people loved Moonlight... we just didn't know the industry loved it this much) was that the day after the Oscars, the cast of Moonlight were revealed as Calvin Klein underwear models. Obviously this was planned in advance but what fortune for Calvin Klein that they have the Oscar winning team in their skivvies this week instead of merely the Oscar runner up team. 

Here's Oscar winner Mahershala Ali...

What follows after the jump, though, is more than just underwear advertisements. But consider this fair warning -- Trevante Rhodes underwear pics are brain-meltingly hot. We also have to talk red carpet and the unsung ANTM posing of Ashton Sanders. More after the jump...

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The Many Faces of the Shocked Oscar Crowd

Chris here, to help you finally digest the shock ending of the Oscarcast, even if Meryl is still frozen in place. And maybe we can get the jokes out of your system as well.

By now we've all dissected crowd photos and video footage of the stunned response of famous people in the crowd like it was our own little Oscar Zapruder film. But if there's a silver lining moment for Moonlight's moment being a bumpy one (the history books will always honor it, remember) it's all of the delicious face we were served, from a heart-palpitated Trevante Rhodes, to a Snapchatting Taraji P. Henson, to well, Meryl.

Luckily for you readers, The Film Experience has obtained exclusive audio files to tell you exactly how every star responded...

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Oscar's Musical Numbers Fly Among the Stars

Dancin' Dan here, and I am thrilled to say that after years of mostly rather dully staged performances, the great Oscar musical numbers of the past are back.

We had planned a ranking of this year's performances, but they were all of such high quality that, feeling magnaminous, I'm unwilling to declare one better than the other.  Instead, a review of the musical numbers as they happened during the ceremony, in all their glory.

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