Oscars Post Mortem, or A Night at the Oppie-ra

As you all can see, I liked the title of my Oscar Predictions post so much, that I am using it again.

Big Winners

"Oppenheimer"

Cillian Murphy, Christopher Nolen

Hollywood's biggest night, the Academy Awards came off smoothly on Sunday night.  A smartly produced telecast that went off without any apparent glitches.  Jimmy Kimmel was a smart and funny host, and the big winner of the night was, as expected, "Oppenheimer", winning seven Awards including Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Supporting Actor.   "Poor Things" was next with four Awards, including the big surprise of the night, Emma Stone winning for Best Actress.

Some random thoughts and observations from The Grandstander on the show and the Awards themselves.

• As noted above, Jimmy Kimmel was great as the host.  Funny monologue and he kept the traffic moving.  Couldn't ask for more.
• The show started at 7:00 this year (or actually about six or seven minutes after 7:00) which meant it was all over by 10:30 in the East.  What took them so long to come up with that idea?
• Loved the idea of the four acting awards being presented  by five previous winners of the Award in question, although some of the dialog written for those actors was a bit cheesy. 
• I thought that the best speeches of the night were given by Cord Jefferson (Adapted Screenplay, American Fiction), Jonathon Glazer (Best International Film, Zone of Interest), Mstyslav Chernov (Best Documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol), and Cillian Murphy (Actor, Oppenheimer).
• I can't remember what award they were presenting, but the presentation of the night went to the team of Emily Blount and Ryan Gosling.
• The In Memoriam portion was awful.  Why couldn't they show those being honored on a full screen?  For at least half of the honorees, you couldn't see who they were.
• Did you catch the pissed off look on Annette Bening's face when Stone was called for Best Leading Actress?  It was delicious.  And why wasn't Warren Beatty with her in the audience.
• Fashion Statements:  (1) Best look of the night: Men not wearing ties.  I love that look. (2) Lots of pretty dresses on the ladies, but none stand out as being "the best of the night" for me. (3) A clearcut winner for Worst Dress of the Night - the one worn by Ariana Grande, and there wasn't even a close second to it.

• Again, don't remember what he was presenting, but John Mullaney's summary of Field of Dreams was a classic.
• I thought that the award for Best Costume Design should have gone to Oppenheimer, solely because of the hat that Cillian Murphy wore.  I want one.
• As usual, there is always one big movie that comes away empty handed.  This year it was Killers of the Flower Moon, 10 nominations, 0 wins, followed by Barbie with 1 win for 7 nominations.
• The tweet read by Kimmel from Orange Julius Caesar that Kimmel read near the end of the show.  I know that will drive the MAGA-lydites nuts, but as I heard someone on the air say today: Don't ever get into a pissing contest with a professional comedian; you'll lose every time.

As for my predictions....

Best……	Predicted Winner	Actual winner	For Whom I Would Vote
Picture	Oppenheimer	Oppenheimer	Oppenheimer
Lead Actor	Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer	Cillian Murphy	Cillian Murphy
Lead Actress	Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon	Emma Stone, Poor Things	Emma Stone, Poor Things
Supporting Actor	Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer	Robert Downey Jr	Robert Downey Jr
Supporting  Actress	Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers	Da’Vine Joy Randolph	Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Director	Christopher Nolen, Oppenheimer	Christopher Nolen	Christopher Nolen
Original Screenplay	Maestro	Anatomy of a Fall	The Holdovers
Adapted Screenplay	American Fiction	American Fiction	Oppenheimer

The record will show that I went 6-2, but I like to give myself a 6.5-1.5 record since I had listed that "I would have voted for" Emma Stone.   Let us hope that Pirates pitchers can do so well throughout the upcoming season.

As I do every year, I close with a picture of the four winning actors.

Downy, Randolph, Stone, Murphy

See you all at the movies!!

Catching Up with The Oscar Nominees

We spent much of this past weekend catching up on the movies that have been nominated for Best Picture of the Year by the Motion Picture Academy.  We saw three of them via the wonder of Streaming. Allow me to share my thoughts on them in the order in which we saw them.

"American Fiction" 

This movie found itself at the top of many critics' Ten Best lists for 2023, and it is a well deserved.  It tells the story of an African American writer, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, played by Jeffrey Wright, who writes serious fiction and real novels.  However, he is having a hard time getting his newest novel published.  What is even more frustrating, the best seller lists are filled with novels by Black authors that are describing the "Black experience" in ways that White editors, publishers, and readers are just lapping up.  One night, Monk begins writing, as a lark, one such novel.  It is filled with gangstas, mutha-fuckers, thugs, and white cops beating up on Blacks.   And he writes it under a pen name, Stagg R. Lee, who is using the pseudonym because he is "an escaped fugitive", which only adds to the cachet of the novel.  Well, guess what happens?

His agent takes the manuscript, the publishers are fighting each other over it, and a Spielberg-type movie guy is willing to pay millions for the movie rights.  Funny complications ensue.

All of this takes place while Monk faces several family crises at the same time - the death of a family member, an aging parent slipping into the clutches of Alzheimer's Disease, and dealing with an estranged brother.

I would describe this as a "serious comedy."  The satirical nature of the movie is both smart and funny, and the family issues are relatable to all of us.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

"Anatomy of a Fall"

German novelist Sandra, her French husband Samuel, and their eleven year old sone, Daniel, live in the French mountains near Grenoble, France.  She has been published, but he has a years long case of writer's block, and is now having to teach part time, all while working on renovating the attic of their home in order to turn it into a Bed & Breakfast to help with the finances.  Aside from Samuel's annoying habit of playing raucous techno music EXTREMELY LOUD and on a continuous loop while he works in the attic, all seems fairly normal with the family.

One day, though, Samuel winds up dead, the victim an accidental fall from that third floor attic window where he was working.  Before long, though, questions arise as to whether or not this fall was really an accident, and soon Sandra is arrested and put on trial for the murder of her husband.  What then ensues is a courtroom drama, and seeing the French court system in action was fascinating.  Flashbacks, investigations, a recorded conversation on a flash drive, and the testimony of eleven year old Daniel makes for a terrific movie. 

I was unfamiliar with any of the actors in this film, but I will give full props to Sandra Huller, who played Sandra.  She is nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and if she wins it, it will not be an injustice.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

"Maestro"

Or, as I prefer to call it, the "Bradley Cooper Vanity Project."

Cooper is certainly one of the better actors working in the movie biz these days, and he has proven himself to be a very good director, but this biopic of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein has Oscar Bait written all over it and just screams of Cooper saying "Look at me acting and give me an Oscar!"  I guess he is getting his wish because he has been nominated for an Oscar in three different categories: Actor, Director, and Original Screenplay.

Which is not to say that he doesn't do a great job of portraying Bernstein.  He talks like him, looks like him, and man, oh man does he smoke like him.  That Bernstein lived to the age of 72 and didn't die of lung cancer is miraculous.   And a truly deserved Oscar nomination for Carey Mulligan, who I have never seen be anything less that great in anything, as Felicia Montealegre, Leonard Bernstein's wife.  Her scenes depicting her battles with cancer later in life were all too realistic, and were, speaking from my own personal experience, very difficult to watch.  Mulligan is also nominated for Best Actress, and, like the above mentioned Sandra Huller, she would be most deserving of the honor.

It's worth seeing, but be prepared for a LOT of Bradley Cooper acting.

Two and one-half Stars from The Grandstander.

********

So, we have now seen seven of the ten Best Picture nominees, fifteen of the twenty acting nominees, three of the five directing nominees, and six of the ten screenwriting nominees.  Pretty good representation.  We are determined to see Past Lives, available on streaming, and Poor Things and The Zone of Interest, which are available only in theaters, but not showing anywhere currently in Pittsburgh, to my knowledge.  We want to see them before the Oscars are presented on March 10.

Of the seven Best Picture nominees that I have seen, here is how I currently rank them, if I were a voting member of the Academy:

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Holdovers
3. Anatomy of a Fall
4. Killers of the Flower Moon
5. American Fiction
6. Barbie
7. Maestro

This list will be updated as I see the other movies, and there will be my usual Oscars Prediction Post, too.  All my opinion, of course, and you know what is said about opinions and everybody having one.