Wrapping Up the Oscars

I will begin my post mortem of Sunday evening's Oscar Awards telecast by stating that I had my best year ever in predicting the Oscars.  I made eight predictions, was wrong on the Best Supporting Actress pick only because I figure that you have to pick at least one upset, right?  On the other seven picks....I believe I had that.

This points out what was perhaps the major disappointment of the evening.  There were no surprises.  Everything went according to chalk.  Maybe it is the glut of all the other awards shows leading up the the Oscars that serve as indicators, maybe it is the fact that there is just so much information out there on the interwebs that makes you so much better informed about these things. Whatever the reason, the fact that all the awards winners are so predictable does take some of the fun out of the show itself.

In any event, some final thoughts on the Oscars and the telecast.....

• Having seen seven of the nine movies nominated for Best Picture, I had stated that I would be happy if any of four movies took down the big prize - "The Post", "Get Out", "Lady Bird", and, of course, the one that did indeed take home the Best Picture Award:

• So I'm not going to complain.
• I also want to note the winners of the four acting awards:

Sam Rockwell, Frances McDormand, Allison Janney, Gary Oldman

• I was happy to see Jordan Peele take home an Oscar for his "Get Out" screenplay.  That really was an Oscar worthy movie.  I'm also glad that we did see it last Monday, if for no other reason than to get the joke about what would happen if any winners' acceptance speeches went on too long.
• We spent Sunday afternoon at the Cinemark watching screenings of all nominees for Best Live Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film.  This is a great service that Cinemark does, and it enabled us to see some pretty neat films.  Not sure if I would have selected "The Silent Child" and "Dear Basketball", but I'm not going to say that they weren't deserving, either.  This is the second time that we have done this, and we look forward to making it an annual event.
• For the second year in a row, I really enjoyed Jimmy Kimmel as host.  His opening monologue was funny, and after that, he kept the traffic moving.
• The bit about awarding a jet-ski to the winner, with Helen Mirren serving as the game show model, was a good one, and they actually showed the guy who won it in the jet-ski at the end of the show while holding up his Oscar.  Good stuff.
• I also liked the piece where Kimmel and many others went to a movie theater across the street to surprise movie goers by having Oscar nominees handing out snacks to them.  You need a bit of coming relief like that on the show and that one was pretty good.  Some people complained that it took too much time, but here's my suggestion to cut down on the length of the show.....
• Get rid of the Best Original Song category.  In true "Get Off My Lawn" fashion, I maintain that with very rare exceptions, this ceased to be a relevant category since Henry Mancini was winning this award n a regular basis.  Then each nominated song gets performed (and in some cases, over-performed) during the telecast.  Eliminate the category, or at least eliminate the performances, and your show is then 20-25 minutes shorter.
• Bringing out Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty to once again present the Best Picture winner after the fiasco of last year was a master stroke.  Both Dunaway and Beatty handled it with great grace and humor and were good sports about it.  I also loved how Beatty made sure to have winner Guillermo del Toro double check the card and how del Toro held it up to the audience and gave a thumbs up signal.
• Every year it seems, there is at least one movie that I really liked that gets a passel of nominations and proceeds to get shut out when they hand out the awards.  I recent years, such movies have been "American Hustle", "The Martian", "Brooklyn", and "Hidden Figures".  This year two such movies fell into that category, "Lady Bird" and "The Post".

Then, of course, there is what I call the "test of time" winner.  That is, of all the movies that won and/or were nominated, which am I likely to watch again and again well into the future.  Of the four movies that I mentioned in the first bullet point of this essay, I can see me watching all of them either by owning the DVD, or catching them on one TV platform or another in the years ahead.  Of course, this is not a foolproof method of determine the Best Picture.  If it were, then "Caddyshack" would be considered the greatest movie ever made.

In conclusion, I am planning on celebrating Frances McDormand's Oscar victory of Sunday night this afternoon by watching "Fargo", her first Oscar winning performance.  You betcha!