Ghosts of Ceremonies of Years Past

Manuel here. Love them (guilty!) or hate them (okay, sometimes I do), you have to admit that the Academy Awards are an institution, one with a long storied history. And while we've come down from last weekend's highs and lows and will soon wearily brace ourselves for what next year’s season might look like (first predictions April 1st as TFE does), whenever you need to scratch that Oscar itch take some time to look back on Oscar history before you start looking forward again.

Thankfully, the Academy is here to help. Finally embracing the 21st century they have slowly been building quite the digital archive over at oscars.org.

They now have video and photo highlights for ALL of their ceremonies. I’m sure Nathaniel and many others will cringe at the fact that they refer to this most recent ceremony as the “2016 Oscars” which as you know can sometimes get tricky. (This despite the Academy previously citing the film years (you can still see this at the tourist friendly Dolby Theater where each year the new Best Picture plaque goes up with the correct year noted (Spotlight is probably already up where the placeholder "2015" once was.)

Shouldn’t clicking 1950 give me access to the ceremony that awarded George Sanders his Best Supporting Actor win? It’s become common -- it's possibly IMDB's fault (and Jeopardy! now does it too possibly sabotaging Oscar purist trivia experts) to list by the ceremony year rather than the film year. We understand it (the 88th Academy Awards took place in 2016) but that doesn’t mean we have to like it; tying Spotlight to 2016 seems odd. 

It’s a small quibble but trust that there’s a smorgasbord of images and videos to keep you entertained should you want to leave dissecting the 2015 2016 Oscars for another day. So take a look and help us find the best/most amazing/randomest photo from ceremonies past you can find.

That's a Wrap on the 88th. Post Index

We did it y'all. We made it through another film year. And with this we close the book on 2015 and join the now of 2016 already in progress. Here's the complete Oscar coverage in case you missed anything...

• Arrivals Live Blog The Red Carpet (Nathaniel)
• Oscar Night Live Blog the 88th Academy Awards (Nathaniel)
• Shockeroos. The Big Surprises at the 88th (Chris)
• Chris Rock's Hosting. The White Elephant in the Room (Kieran)
• The Mad Six. Five Big Non-Best Picture Winning Films Including Fury Road (Glenn)
• Biggest Losers. And Classics That Shared Their Fate (David)
• Kohl's Commercials. What Oscar Speech Would You Lipsynch To? (Chris)
• Great Photos From the Big Night: Todd & Muses, Brie & Man, Etcetera (Nathaniel)
• Those Sound Montages. Well done, Producers (Daniel)
• Musical Performances Review: The Weeknd, Gaga, Smith (Denny)
• Neglected Song Nominees. We Make Times for Them (Chris)
• How Jenny Beavan Won the Oscars. Rock on Costume Queen (Tim)
• In Praise of Ex-Machina's Win. Visual Effects Goes Supporting! (Manuel)
• Doll Sets. Every Lead & Supporting Actress Gown This Decade (Nathaniel)
• The New Actor Hierarchy. Leo Joins the Top Twenty-Five (Nathaniel)
• Oscar Ratings. Eight Year Low (Laurence)
• Sexual Assault Survivors. Oscar's Unexpected Theme (Deborah)
• Fashion Review. Top Ten Best Dressed (Jose)
• Nerdy Oscar Trivia Pt 1 Acting/Directing (Nathaniel)
• Nerdy Oscar Trivia Pt 2 Below the Line Wonders (Nathaniel)
• What's Next For Our Oscar Winners? Brie, Alicia, Mark, and Leo Act On! (Josh)

We neglected to write about the Girl Scout Cookies, so here is a bundle for you to enjoy. To redeem your bundle visit The Film Experience daily in 2016, share it frequently on all social media platforms, become a monthly subscriber, comment on every post. Etcetera Do these bundles come in all Thin Mints sets because that's the best cookie. No arguments to the contrary will be heard.

Finally...
Now that Oscar is behind us, a gentle reminder that we passed out our own annual medals, too. Check out Nathaniel's gold silver and bronze medals in 40+ categories  if you missed it during the mad gold rush.

On to 2016! 

How Jenny Beavan won the Oscars

Tim here. I watched the Oscars this year completely without the aid of social media of any sort – absolutely worth doing, if you haven't recently. It lets you enjoy the ceremony for the ceremony.

What that means is that I didn't realize for two whole days that there was quite a furor over my very favorite visual from the whole night, Jenny Beavan's outstanding outfit that she wore on the way to collect her Best Costume Design award for Mad Max: Fury Road. It turns out that there were quite a few people who did not share my view that it was the night's clear highlight. Several of them were sitting right inside the Kodak Theater with her, in fact, rather visibly failing to be delighted by her attire. That's especially true of an epically grumpy Alejandro González Iñárritu. He and several other conspicuous non-clappers were the subject of a Vine that went viral on the spot.

The internet has obligingly and appropriately pushed back, including a magnificent Paddy Considine tweet that I dare not show here on account of the very curt language Considine fired off in Beavan's defense, but it's very much worth checking out.

I did not come to rehash all of that, but to take us back to the outfit itself.

What was buried in the clapping controversy was that Beavan was wearing just about the coolest outfit to have graced the Oscars this decade. It's an instantly classic entry in the annals of "Costume designers just do not give a crap" alongside Milena Canonero's form fitting Victorian men's suit in 2007, and Lizzy Gardiner's 1995 American Express dress (another controversial outfit that many people hate but remains one of the greatest things anyone has ever worn). Just look at it! 

All other considerations aside, that is badass. And it's also really on-point. The inherent ruggedness of (fake) leather, the heightened cartoon gaudiness of having a sequined image on the back, the fact that the image is a sort of cult identity marker, the way that her accessories suggest scavenging. She is, in effect, wearing the movie on her body, and taking it up to win the Oscar with her. More importantly, it's a way to put her own personality on display during a moment that should be entirely about here. And there is far more of Beavan the human being in that moment than any stock Hollywood figure wearing stock evening wear – this is a woman whose primary medium of expression is clothing, after all. As she put it backstage:

I don't do frocks and absolutely don't do heels, I have a bad back. I look ridiculous in a beautiful gown… I just like feeling comfortable and as far as I'm concerned I'm really dressed up."

And as far as we're concerned, she won the whole Oscar ceremony.

Oscar's Sound Montages Show The Instruments and Play The Orchestra

Daniel Crooke here to talk about the pitch-perfect Sound Editing and Mixing montages from this year’s Oscar ceremony that ended in shiny, chrome, and hugely deserved wins for Mad Max: Fury Road. Known to some fair-weather film fans as the mystery stuffing that clogs the airtime between Best Supporting Actress and Actor, the sound categories are often the most overlooked because they’re the least understood. This gives the producers of the Oscars a daunting task – explain the intricacies and differences of two finely tuned crafts and hope that the audience both understands those definitions and why sound is crucial to creating cinematic universes. 

This year, the Sound montages demonstrated the transporting power of signals and noises and thrillingly distilled how exactly they’re shaped.  More onomatopoeias after the jump...

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...About Those Oscar Musical Numbers.

Dancin' Dan here to talk about what used to be my favorite part of the Oscar ceremony.

Remember those gigantic, often-confounding production numbers set to the nominees for Best Original Song? They were crazy, ambitious, and compulsively watchable, bring levity to the alternately serious and teary acceptance speeches that usually dominate Oscar ceremonies. Even the times they just had a person stand there and sing, those moments seemed chosen because the songs were sung by a superstar who could easily fill the whole room with just their presence and incredible voice*. Unfortunately, those kinds of performances seem to have fallen out of vogue. Barring the odd actressexual dance party and Lego-fest, the days of crazy musical extravaganzas on the Oscars are long-gone. And I would argue the show as a whole is a less joyous, celebratory affair without them. For proof, look at this year's performances.

Set aside for now the fact that two of the best nominees didn't even get a performance slot, and let's take this year's performances on their merits. They were, for the most part, DULL.  Herewith, a few thoughts on each...

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