Soundtracking: Oscar's 2019 Musical Moments

by Chris Feil

Idina Menzel's perplexed reaction shot -- we'll get to it.

This year, Oscar treated us to a more music heavy ceremony than usual. With some moments expected, some surprising, and some impromptu, the telecast had some naysayers asking “What is this?! The Grammys?!” Overall, yes, the musical numbers halted the night’s energy rather than propelled it, and that wasn’t helped by the producer’s decisions for when to have a presenter and not. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t moments of brilliant throughout. Here’s Oscar night’s musical moments from worst to best...

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Oscar Night's Top Five Presenters

by Camila Henriques

One of the challenges of a hostless Oscar ceremony is having a presenter list capable of holding the show together. For film fanatics even that isn't enough. We crave the legendary movie stars as presenters (fewer and fewer each year) and moments like Julie Andrews following Lady Gaga’s tribute to “The Sound of Music” back in 2015 or Olivia de Havilland introducing the Family Album back in 2003. Those two still give us chills. Unfortunately, the Academy Awards this year were lacking in the legendary star department. Nevertheless, the show had truly memorable bits, and a couple of future host possibilities that the Board of Governors should take note of. With that in mind, here’s a top 5 presenters/duos list for the 92nd Oscars:

Honorable mentions: Steve Martin and Chris Rock reminding us that hey, there’s still former hosts the Academy could call, Salma Hayek holding the best Oscar in the house (Oscar Isaac, that is), and Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves giving us Something’s Gotta Give nostalgia...

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Did you see any movies over Oscar weekend?

This past weekend's box office results suggest that a lot of people were trying to catch up on Oscar nominees before the big show. Here are all the titles still in wide release and their counterparts in limited release...

Weekend Box Office February 7th-9th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
Margot Robbie in "Birds of Prey"	Oscar WINNING Short Film "Hair Love"
1 🔺 BIRDS OF PREY  $33 *NEW* REVIEW	1 🔺 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS $870k on 535  screens (cum. $2.7) REVIEW,  THE CHARTS ★
2 BAD BOYS FOR LIFE  $12 (cum. $166.3)	2 THE LAST FULL MEASURE $214k on 617 screens (cum. $2.5)

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The Tom Hanks Challenge

by Jason Adams

Last night in the middle of telling us about the forthcoming Academy Museum the actor Tom Hanks, father to Chet Haze, started joking about Scarlett Johansson operating an orbital sander. Nothing like a good orbital sander gag. And pivoting the gag over to ScarJo's plus one slash the head-writer of Saturday Night Live, Hanks continued:

"Brad Pitt was on the roof working with his shirt off. As was Colin Jost. And dude, that was no contest."

Is it no contest, though? Needless to say, given my brain's far reaching and encyclopedic thirst archives, I had an immediate flash of that time that Colin Jost got photographed at the beach taking off his wetsuit in September of 2018 (more here), and the immediate question presented itself...

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Justice For Horror Movie Costumes!

by Jason Adams

Outside of the sort of sex parties lovingly depicted by Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut the majority of us only get to dress up in costumes once per year, on the high unholy night of Halloween. And like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls I am personally of the mind that bloody brides are the only way to go -- forget Sexy Pirates or Princess Dresses, I wanna be Frankenstein's Monster! I wanna be Freddy Krueger. I wanna be the May Queen from Midsommar or the Untethered from Us.

Which brings me to a realization I had during last night's Oscar ceremony's opening number with Janelle Monae... 

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