2025 (but really 2024) Oscars Recap

So the Academy Awards for this year are now two days in our rearview mirror, and much of what I say here will not be "news" per se, but what the hell, time for my bloviation on what happened on Sunday night anyway.

"Anora" was the big winner with five awards overall including Best Picture, Best Actress for Mikey Madison, and Producer/Director/Writer/Editor Sean Baker taking home four Oscars in each if these categories.  I guess that this wasn't a surprise, but - and this is just me - I don't get it.  We saw "Anora" back in December, thought it was somewhat entertaining, especially in its second act, but it just didn't say "this is the Best Movie of the year" to us.  I gave it only Two Stars when I wrote about it in January. Ten years from now, will we all look back and say "just what were they thinking when they awarded Best Picture to this one?".  Hope I'll still be in The Grandstand to actually answer that question.

What follows are my stream of consciousness thoughts from the notes I took as I was watching the show.  Yes, I actually did take notes.

*****

I've never been all that big a fan of Conan O'Brien, but I thought that he did a good job as host.  His monologue ran 20 minutes and was for the most part pretty funny.  However, he should have kept it to 17 minutes and eliminated that "I Won't Waste Time" song-and-dance bit.  That was bad.

Speaking of bits, the interchange between O'Brien and Adam Sandler was funny. I was surprised to see on social media (an always reliable source) that people thought that this was for real, that O'Brien was having Sandler kicked out of the ceremony for being improperly dressed.  It was a "bit", people.  And it was also a bit of satire in light of what happened at the White House two days earlier, but we'll save that discussion for another time and forum.

*****

In my Preview Piece  on the Oscars, I only made four actual predictions:

And Some Out of My Butt Predictions

• Best Director - Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
• Best Adapted Screenplay - Peter Straughan, Conclave
• Best Original Screenplay - Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
• Also, each year, one movie comes to Oscars night with a shitload of nominations, and goes home getting shut out, or with some minor technical award.  This year, I predict that this dubious distinction will go to Wicked.

I can say "I believe I had that" for only one of the four, Peter Straughan for Adapted Screenplay. I also sort of missed on saying the "Wicked" would get shut out.  It did win two technical awards.  The one big movie that did get shut out, I'm sorry to say, was "A Complete Unknown", which was my personal favorite of 2024.

*****

Mick Jagger presenting the Award for Best Original Song!  THAT was fantastic.  Mick will turn 82 this year, and you'd never guess it to look at him.  He was great in the few minutes that he was on stage.

And speaking of the Best Original Song, the Academy did something that I have been advocating for years.  They did not stage a performance of each original song, which reduced the running time of the show by probably twenty minutes, give or take a few.  Bravo.

*****

Why the James Bond Tribute?  Didn't they do one of those a few years back, so why again?  And if you are going to do such a tribute by singing Bond theme songs, how could you NOT include "Goldfinger"?

And speaking of tributes, the one to Quincy Jones was meh, nothing against Queen Latifah.  The tribute to Jones that was staged at the Grammy Awards was so good, that anything else was bound to suffer in comparison.

*****

Now for the Acting Awards.

As predicted, Kieran Culkin was a complete tool in delivering his acceptance speech.  He probably deserved the award, but jeez, what a jackass.

I didn't see "Emelia  Perez" so I can't comment on Zoe Saldana's performance, but I like her, so good for her!

Biggest surprise of the night was Mikey Madison winning for Best Actress, and the best part of THAT was seeing how pissed off Demi Moore, the odds on favorite, was when the award was announced.  Wonder how that meet-up between Madison and her went at the Governor's Ball following the ceremony?

The best part of Moore not winning is that now I do not have to go see "The Substance", which sounds dreadful, but I would have forced myself to see it had she won, so I dodged a bullet there.

Then there was Adrian Brody.  The fact that he won was not a surprise, and I do look forward to seeing "The Brutalist" sooner rather than later, but, Good Lord, that acceptance speech.  It was clocked in at over five minutes, and it was awful.  I guess he figured that if his movie was long enough to need an intermission, then, by God, he would give a speech that needed to have one too.

And one final word on acceptance speeches.  The one that Sean Baker gave for Best Director urging that we all return making movies to be seen in movie theaters and to seeing movies in movie theaters was, I thought, one of the best of the night.   Streaming movies on your sixty-five inch HD flatscreens in the comfort of your home is great, but in my mind the theater going experience is still the best way to see a movie.

*****

Finally, as promised, my awards for best and worst gowns of the night, plus these additional fashion comments: What was up with Emma Stone's hair style...

...and Timothee Chalamet's suit?

The Best Gown for the evening was worn by Selena Gomez.  Simply elegant.

The Worst Gown, or maybe I should just say the Most Ridiculous Gown of the night, and there were a lot from which to choose, was worn by Ariana Grande.  I mean, what did she do when she had to go to the bathroom?

And finally, as I always do, I give you a photo of the four winning Actors of the evening.

Brody, Madison, Saldana, and Culkin

See you all at the movies!

 

Catching Up...Stage and Screen

The Grandstander has fallen behind in his stage and movie comings and goings, so let's try to catch up, shall we?

This past Saturday I attended the Broadway in Pittsburgh Series touring production of "Hamilton."  You all know how much I love this show.  It is the third time that I have seen it on stage, and this particular production was top notch.  The actors, led by Pierre Jean Cortez as Alexander Hamilton, Warren Egypt Franklin as Lafayette/Jefferson, and Stephanie Jae Park as Eliza Schuyler were terrific.  Every time that I have seen the show, I see something different, and in this particular production, I was especially impressed with the choreography and the music of the climactic "Yorktown" number in Act I.  Just fantastic.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

Of course, going to this production was bittersweet because, of course, Marilyn is no longer with us.  I was thrilled, however, to have as my "date" for the show on Saturday our 21 year old great-niece, Anna Sproule, currently a junior at the University of Notre Dame.  Anna had not yet seen the show performed on stage, but she has long been a fan of the amazing music of the show.  It was truly a pleasure to take her with me that night, and I know that Aunt Marilyn is thrilled that her ticket that night was being used by Anna.

Through a series of circumstances that I won't get into here, I am actually going to be seeing "Hamilton" two more times in the next ten days.  That's almost embarrassing to admit, but I will also make no apologies for it!

Earleir in the month, the Broadway Series treated us to a production of "Pretty Woman", a musical adaptation of the hit 1990 movie that starred Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.  While I liked the movie when I saw it all those years ago - Marilyn positively LOVED it - I was not a diehard fan, so I went into this show with modest expectations, which was probably a good thing, because I ended up liking the show quite a bit.  Was completely unfamiliar with all of the music, but that didn't spoil the show at all.  Interesting casting note:  the part of Vivian, the Julia Roberts role, was played by Olivia Valli. She is the granddaughter of Frankie Valli, the original Jersey Boy himself.

I gave "Pretty Woman" Two and One-half Grandstander Stars.

Five shows down in this season's Broadway in Pittsburgh Series, and here is how they stack up for me:

1. Hamilton
2. Summer, The Donna Summer Musical
3. Pretty Woman
4. Oklahoma
5. The Band's Visit

Still to come..."Beautiful" in March, "To Kill A Mockingbird" in April, and "Ain't Too Proud" in May

********

Regular readers are no doubt asking "Hey, the Oscar nominations came out a couple of weeks ago. Where is The Grandstander's usual cutting edge analysis of the nominations?"

You all HAVE been asking that, right? Right?

Well, the analysis has been missing for the simple matter that I have not seen many of the nominated films.   Of the ten Best Picture nominees, I have seen only two: Licorice Pizza (good, but certainly NOT the best picture of this or any other year) and West Side Story, which I loved, and would be happy to see win.

Of the other eight nominees...

Dune.  I'll pass on this one.  I am not a sci-fi fan, so it has no appeal to me. However, I will not criticize it, nor will I begrudge the glowing opinions of many of my pals who have seen it.

Drive My Car.  It's in Japanese with English subtitles.  In and of itself, that's not a deal breaker (see "Parasite" of a couple of years ago).  It is also three hours long, and the descriptions of the storyline that I have heard makes me want to scream.  So put this in the "Didn't see, don't wanna see it" category.

Belfast, CODA, Don't Look Up, King Richard, and Nightmare Alley are all movies that I want to see and will see before the Oscar ceremonies at the end of the month.  All are available to see via the various streaming services so it should take no great effort to see them over the next few weeks.

That brings us to The Power of the Dog which leads all movies with a total of twelve Oscar nominations including Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Cinematography, and Adapted Screenplay.  I tried to watch this.  I really did.  I fought against falling asleep while doing so and then gave up after 45 minutes.   I suppose that I could have just been having a bad day when I tried to watch it, and I should probably give it another shot, but I am finding it difficult to work up the motivation at this point.  We'll see.

One other movie that intrigues me is the Best International Film nominee The Worst Person in the World.  It is from Norway and is in Norwegian with English subtitles. Some critics that I respect on one of the podcasts that I listen to have spoken highly of it, so I may just have to seek that one out.

I shall be reporting in with my thoughts and comments as I see some of these other nominated movies.  

Oh, and one other cool Oscar factoid that maybe interests only me......Ariana DeBose is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for playing Anita in "West Side Story".  Rita Moreno won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing the same role in the 1961 movie version of "West Side Story."

The Oscars 2021

It has been several weeks since the nominations for this year's Academy Awards were announced, and it is only now that I am getting around to writing some thoughts and comments on them.  Usually, I am all over that within 24 hours, but this year, well, call it a result of a weird year that changed everything  about how we consume movies.  What movies are eligible for 2020 Oscars?  Were they ever shown in a theater, and if so, who went to see them?  We all watched movies differently this year, mostly through streaming services like Prime or Netflix, so who knew it they were actually a "movie" as defined by the Motion Picture Academy?

Regardless, movies, actors, writers, directors, and others have been nominated, and I ended up seeing a surprising number of the nominees.  So for what it is worth, here are my thoughts.  

Let's start with the Best Picture.  Eight movies have been nominated.  I have NOT seem three of them - The Father, Minari, and the Sound of Metal.  I have heard nothing  but good things about the Sound of Metal, so I am hoping to watch that before the Oscar ceremony on April 25.  I doubt that I will see the other two.  That leaves the five that I have seen:

Judas and the Black Messiah 

Mank

Nomadland

Promising Young Woman

Trial of the Chicago 7

(My original write-ups on these various movies are linked in the body of this post.)

I really enjoyed Judas and The Black Messiah, Promising Young Woman, and Trial of The Chicago 7.  In fact, I  rated Trial of the Chicago 7 my favorite movie that I actually saw in calendar year 2020.   Mank was an interesting period piece with a great performance by Gary Oldman, but I was frankly surprised to see it garner the acclaim that it has.  Of course, it is a story that Hollywood is telling about itself, so maybe that explains it.  Nomadland was a piece of filmmaking art, to be sure, and another slam bang performance from Frances McDormand, but as entertainment? Not to my taste.  It is the favorite among critics and will probably win the big prize come Oscar Night.

Interestingly enough, Trial of the Chicago 7 won the Best Ensemble SAG Award, and that is often a harbinger for the Oscars, and if it wins I will have no problem with that.  Not will I have problem with Judas and The Black Messiah winning, as that was one terrifically told movie.  The movie that has stayed with me the most since I saw it, however, is Promising Young Woman.  That is the one movie of all of these that I can see myself watching again and again and again as the years go on.

A word about a movie that didn't get nominated.  Until Promising Young Woman came along, my favorite movie that I have seen in calendar year 2021 had been Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, and the only sniff that that one received from the Academy was for Best Original Score.  I mean, C'MON MAN!!  If Spike Lee isn't still PO'd at the Academy, he should be.  As a side comment, I hope it does win this one, if only for including the terrific a cappella version of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On" on the soundtrack.

As for the other categories (and I will only make comments on the films that I have actually seen)....

Chadwick Boseman has collected both a posthumous Golden Globe and SAG Award for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and I suspect that that will also happen at the Oscars. He was terrific in that movie (as he was in Da 5 Bloods), and him receiving this award will be another poignant reminder of what was lost with his way-too-soon death.  The only other nominee that I saw was Oldman in Mank, and he was very good in that one, too.

I've seen three of the Supporting Actor nominees: Leslie Odom Jr (One Night in Miami) and Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield, both for Judas and The Black Messiah.  Kaluuya has won this award both at the Globes and SAG, but my questions are: Why in a Supporting Role? And why are both he and Stanfield cast as Supporting Actors in the same movie? Both had equally prominent parts in the same film.  I don't get it.

I've seen three of the Lead Actress nominees.  Frances McDormand was great in Nomadland.  She's always  great.  Viola Davis was great in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.  She's always great.  To me, though, Carey Mulligan blew them both away in Promising Young Woman.  Some buzz that I have heard on various movie podcasts is that they expect Mulligan to win, and I hope she does.  They don't expect that the Academy will bestow a third Oscar on McDormand this time, which makes this Mulligan's year.  The wild card, though, was Davis' win in this category for the SAG Award.  This will be an interesting one to watch.

The only Supporting Actress nominee that I've seen has been Amanda Seyfried from Mank, so I'm not sure how qualified I am to make any comments on this one, but here is an interesting theory I heard kicked around in podcast-land.  Will the Academy give Glenn Close, a six time nominee-but-never-a-winner a "lifetime achievement" make-up Oscar for her role in Hillbilly Elegy, a movie that was for the most part, completely panned by critics. That would be a shame and almost an insult to Ms. Close should it happen.

The other categories that interest me are Director, Adapted, and Original Screenplay Awards.  I strongly suspect that Chloe Zhao will be the Best Director for Nomadland, and as I said, as a piece of filmmaking art, it would be deserving.  

In the Adapted Screenplay category, the only movie I've seen besides Nomadland is One Night In Miami, which was another really good movie, and I'd be happy if it won.

In the Original Screenplay category, I have seen Judas and The Black Messiah, Promising Young Woman, and The Trial of The Chicago 7.   Many are conceding this one to Aaron Sorkin for Chicago 7, and it would not be undeserving, but he has won Oscars before so I am hoping that the Oscar this year goes to Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman.  Ms Fennell is also a nominee for Best Director. She won't win both, and this would be a way to reward her for her work on the terrific movie that she made.

So we will finally find out in eleven days, April 25, who this year's Oscar winners are.  That is way, way too long after the close fo the year to be awarding these things.  Let us hope for a return to a February Oscar ceremony come 2022.

It's Oscar Time!!

I needn't tell you that this coming Sunday night is that annual night when Hollywood congratulates and pats itself on the back - Academy Awards Night.  For all the self-congratulatory b.s. that takes place on that night, it is still the "Granddaddy of All Awards Shows", and it is the one such show that I will watch from beginning to end.

As I have done in past years, I will offer you my predictions for the winners in eight categories. The number in the parenthesis is the number of the nominees in the category that I have actually seen.  Actually, all of the various awards shows leading up to the Oscars (Golden Globes, SAG, PGA, DGA) serve as indicators of how the Academy will vote.  It makes predicting these rather simple (sometimes), and it often leads to a dull and predictable Oscar show, but what the hell. You never know when a Jack Palance will do one armed push-ups on stage, or whether or not Warren Beatty will open the wrong envelope, so you gotta watch anyway.

Here goes....

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (2) - I'm calling this for Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, as this will be a way to honor him if they don't award him the Director Oscar (as has happened to him twice in the past).  Dark horses in this one: Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns for 1917 and Rain Johnson for Knives Out.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY (4) - Greta Gerwig for Little Women.  A way to make up for snubbing her for a Best Director nomination.

DIRECTOR (4) - I think this comes down to either Tarantino or Sam Mendes for 1917.  Mendes has won all the significant awards leading up to this point, but I think that Hollywood will honor a movie that is, essentially, about Hollywood itself and give one of their favorites his first Oscar in this category, so I'm calling this one for Quentin Tarantino.

SUPPORTING ACTOR (5) - In a category that is loaded with Oscar winners (Hanks, Hopkins, Pacino, and Pesci), Brad Pitt, who has won as a Producer, gets his first Acting Oscar for Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS (1) - Thus is the category that I am least qualified to judge, so I am only going by what the previous awards' tea leaves spell out: Laura Dern wins for Marriage Story.

ACTOR (3) - This one seems to be a slam dunk for Joaquin Phoenix for Joker.  He played a loathsome character in a loathsome movie (at least to me), but he played it extremely well, so his victory seems inexorable.

ACTRESS (2) - I have to say that I would love to see my favorite young actress Saoirse Ronan win for Little Women, but I cannot deny that Renee Zellweger's portrayal of Judy Garland in Judy is fully deserving of the Oscar that she will win on Sunday night.

PICTURE (6 of the nine nominees) - The movie Joker received the most overall nominations this year with eleven, and I have to say that I just can't see it.  I found it to be an ugly and grim movie, but, as my pal Bill Montrose used to say, what the hell do I know?  My Number One and Two favorite movies of the year were Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood and Little Women, and I would be delighted if either of those movies took home the Best Picture Award.  However, every indicator seems to say that 1917 will take home the grand prize this year, so that is my prediction as well.  It's not my choice, but it will not be an undeserving winner, either.

So there you go.  As always, watch, but don't bet.

Oh, and I have also done in event years, let me stir up some memories by looking back at past Oscar winners in ten year intervals (Best Picture, Actor, Actress)

2009

The Hurt Locker

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

1999

American Beauty

Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

Hillary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

1989

Driving Miss Daisy

Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot

Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy

1979

Kramer vs. Kramer

Dustin Hoffman, Kramer v. Kramer

Sally Field, Norma Rae

1969

Midnight Cowboy

John Wayne, True Grit

Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brody

1959

Ben-Hur

Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur

Simone Signoret, Room At The Top

1949

All the King's Men

Broderick Crawford, All The King's Men

Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress

1939

Gone With the Wind

Robert Donat, Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Vivian Leigh, Gone With the Wind

1929

The Broadway Melody

Warner Baxter, The Cisco Kid

Mary Pickford, Coquette

Ruminations on Oscar; No Predictions

The Grandstander is going to forgo his usual tradition and NOT offer any predictions for the Motion Picture Academy Awards, which will be given out this coming Sunday evening.  The reason is simple - I just haven't seen enough of the nominated films and performances to offer an informed opinion.  I have seen three of the eight Best Picture nominees, two of the performances for Best Actor, Actress, and Supporting Actor, and none of the Best Supporting Actress nominees, so what in the hell do I know?

That doesn't mean that I don't have an opinion or three, so here goes.

Here are the eight Best Picture nominees:

• Black Panther
• BlackKKlansman
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• The Favorite
• Green Book
• Roma
• A Star Is Born
• Vice

I have seen Black Panther, Green Book, and A Star Is Born.  I caught the last twenty minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody when I snuck into a theater after I saw another movie at the multi-plex.  I want to see BlackKKlansman, and The Favourite (although I have heard that that one is really strange), have no desire to see Roma, and I am squeamish about seeing anything related to Dick Cheney, no matter how good the acting might be.

The darling of the critics and the film cognoscenti is Roma.  It is a black and white movie filmed in Mexico with English subtitles and is a semi-autobiography of the filmmaker, Alfonso Cuaron (a previous Oscar winning director).  It topped many critics' Ten Best lists for 2018, and has been snagging a lot of Best Picture awards for various other organizations.  It may very well win the Best Picture Oscar.  It will probably be seen by a couple of hundred movie goers, and will be quickly forgotten.  

So how about this?  How about the Motion Picture Academy give its top prize to a movie that people actually went to the theaters and paid their money to see, a movie that the audiences actually, you know, liked and enjoyed.  Using that criterion, that should make Black Panther and A Star Is Born the front runners to take home the Oscar.  I have no doubt that Roma is a wonderful movie from a technical standpoint.  You know, beautifully filmed and exquisitely shot, but how many people have actually seen it?  If it wins, it will not be a popular selection among the movie going public.  What would be wrong with rewarding a popular movie with the Oscar?

For the record, of the three nominated movies  that I have seen, here is how I would vote: 

1. Green Book    

2. A Star Is Born

3. Black Panther

I'd be happy if any of those three won. I'm also pulling for Glenn Close to win Best Actress for her role in The Wife.

As we await the 2018 winner, let's look back at the winners in the past years that ended in the numeral 8:

2008 - Slumdog Millionaire

1998 - Shakespeare In Love

1988 - Rain Man

1978 - Deer Hunter

1968 - Oliver!

1958 - Gigi

1948 - Hamlet

1938 - You Can't Take It With You

1928 - The Broadway Melody

My $.02 worth....One of the movies that Shakespeare In Love beat out in '98 was Saving Private Ryan, a much better movie....The Best Supporting Actor award in '88 went to Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, an hilariously funny movie and Kline was soooo good in it ("say it, Ken, Cathcart Towers Hotel...")....one of the movies that Deer Hunter beat out in '78 was Coming Home; that was the year for grim Viet Nam aftermath flicks; Jon Voight and Jane Fonda won Oscars for Coming Home....one of the movies that Gigi beat out in '58 was Separate Tables, a good movie for which David Niven and Wendy Hiller won acting Oscars...Dan Bonk take note: the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1958 went to your main man Burl Ives for The Big Country.

Enjoy the show on Sunday!

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!

Oscar Nominations Thoughts

Of course I have thoughts and comments on the Academy Awards nominations.....

• Nine Best Picture nominations.  I have seen five of them ("Darkest Hour", "Dunkirk", "Lady Bird", "The Post", "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri").  Of the four I have not seen, I will make it a point to see "Get Out" and "Phantom Thread".  "Call me By Your Name" and "The Shape of Water" hold no interest for me.
• I have seen only one of the Best Actor nominees, Gary Oldman, but that seems to be the only nominee that is going to matter this year.
• I have seen four of the Best Actress nominees.  Based on early returns, this one would appear to be in the bag for Frances McDormand, and while I didn't care for the movie, there is no denying the performance that McDormand gave.  Her little speech to the Catholic priest was chilling.
• If I had a vote, though, my vote for Best Actress would go to Saoirse Ronan for "Lady Bird". That the same actress who played an Irish immigrant in "Brooklyn" a few years ago can now convincingly play a 17 year old American high school student is nothing sort of remarkable.
• Meryl Streep scores her 21st Oscar nomination.  Heard a line on a podcast the other day saying that the only person in America who has anything that comes even close to that is Tom Brady.  Good line.
• Denzel Washington, a terrific actor, scores a Best Actor nomination for a move, "Roman J. Israel, Esq." that was in an out of theaters in about a week.  Did anyone actually SEE that movie?
• Best Supporting Actor award, again, based on early returns, would appear to go to Sam Rockwell for "Three Billboards".  However, in my own opinion, he wasn't even the best supporting actor in his own movie.  That would go to Woody Harrelson.  Rockwell's character, an incompetent, drunken, racist cop was played so broadly as to almost be a cartoon character.
• Do you think that Christopher Plummer's nomination was an indirect shot at the now disgraced Kevin Spacey, whom Plummer replaced in "All The Money In The World"?
• Allison Janney will probably win the Best Supporting Actress Award although Laurie Metcalf's performance was better.  However, the fact that Holly Hunter of "The Big Sick" did not get a nomination kind of diminishes this category for me. Her performance was better than both Janney's (which, like Rockwell's part, was also almost cartoonish) or Metcalf's.
• Interesting omissions for Best Director were Steven Speilberg ("The Post") and Martin McDonagh ("Three Billboards").
• An interesting person to watch for on Oscar night will be Greta Gerwig.  She is nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for "Lady Bird".   She could be the beneficiary, if that is the right word, of the Times Up movement that is sweeping Hollywood currently.
• That Original Screenplay category is an interesting to watch.  Emily V. Gordan and Kumail Nanjiani are nominated for "The Big Sick" which just might have been the best movie that I saw all last year, certainly in the top three, but it got no other love from the Academy.  Jordan Peele for "Get Out" and Gerwig were also nominated for Best Director, and this could be the way to reward either an African American (remember the #oscarssowhite controversy of a few years ago?) or a woman.  Also nominated is Martin McDonagh, who didn't get a Director nomination.  The other nominees are Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor for "The Shape of Water", a movie about a fish-man.  Like I said, an interesting category.
• I am not making any official predictions yet, but if I had to pick one right now in a category that doesn't appear to have a shoe-in candidate, I am going to say that the Academy will recognize "Dunkirk" by awarding the Best Director award to Christopher Nolan.

I'm sure that I shall be writing more on this topic as the day of the awards draw closer, and. of course, there will be my always highly anticipated "Watch, but don't bet" predictions post.  How many times will I be able to say, "I believe I had that"?

"Spotlight" - I Believe I Had That....and Other Oscars Thoughts

Your Best Picture of the Year, and as predicted by The Grandstander, "Spotlight".  Terrific movie and a deserving winner, and I am glad that it won.

Indulge me while I boast a bit about my Oscars Predictions.  As seen in this space yesterday, I made predictions in nine categories, and was correct in six of them, including the biggie, Best Picture of the Year.  Doesn't always work out that way, but I had it going for me this year, it seems.  For the record, I missed on Adapted Screenplay, Director, and Supporting Actor.

Some other Oscars observations....

• The elephant in the room, the #OscarsSoWhite issue, was capably addressed by Chris Rock in his opening monologue.  Then, as often happens in such events, it was beat to death throughout the show.  As NPR's Scott Simon observed on Facebook, as soon as the issue became a comic prop, the message became hopelessly diluted.
• Chris Rock did what a host has to do....a good opening, then he kept the traffic moving.  His comic bits were okay. I thought that his interviewing movie goers in Compton was pretty funny.  As for the Girl Scout cookie bit, cute, and if they REALLY sold $65,000 with of cookies in that auditorium, then too many people were walking around with too much cash in their pockets.
• I thought the speeches of the four acting winners were well done.  Classy.
• For the second year in a row, the single best performance  on stage was turned in by Lady Gaga.
• Fashion trend - women wearing over sized eyeglasses with very dark frames.  It's not a bad look.
• Another fashion note - Best dress of the night was that backless number worn by Rachel McAdams.  Gorgeous.

• Final fashion note.  What was up with Kate Winslett's hair?
• "Max Max: Fury Road".  Six Oscars.  Really?  As my friend Dan Bonk observed, they could give it a thousand Oscars, and I'm still not going to go see it.
• I've said it before and I'll say it again, they need to ditch the Oscar for Best Original Song.  All it does is eat up a lot of time during the telecast.  In fact, the nominated songs were so mediocre (to be kind), that only three of them were actually performed during the show, thank God.

I will close by saying that two of the best movies that I saw all year, "The Martian" and "Brooklyn" received no love at all from the Academy.  Multiple nominations, zero Oscars. It's to bad, but it happens.  I sometimes like to go back and look at past Oscars Awards for any given year.  It is interesting to see that sometimes movies that win big, become quickly forgotten, while the movies that they beat are still being watched and loved by audiences.  For example, in 1995 and 1997 "Forrest Gump" and "The English Patient" beat out, respectively, "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Fargo".  Of those four movies, which two would you rather watch today?  Twenty years from now, when people look back on the 2015 movie year, I am guessing that they will still want to watch "Spotlight", "The Martian", "Brooklyn", and "Bridge of Spies".  Those same historians may be scratching their heads over "Mad Max" and "The Revenant".  Time will be the ultimate judge of what the Best Movies of 2015 were, and I think that this year, the Academy got it right for the most part.

As for me, I am looking forward to watching my newly purchased Blue-Ray of "Spotlight", perhaps as early as this afternoon.

Academy Awards Predictions, 2016

Tonight is the big night for movie fans, the annual Academy Awards show.  The Awards this year are, of course, shrouded in controversy over the lack of diversity among all of the major nominees in the major categories.  What a year for the Academy to have selected Chris Rock to host the show.  Talk about serendipity!  I, for one, am looking forward to Rock's opening of the show.  It will surely be funny, and it will surely make a lot of people squirm.

But, on with the show, which means The Grandstander's predictions.

Of the eight movies nominated, I will have seen (after catching a matinee showing today of "The Big Short") five of them.  My opinions are just that - opinions - and are not fully informed.  My predictions are based upon those movies that I have seen, what I have read in various media, and how other awards have been handed out during this award season.

Three of the four acting awards are deemed to be pretty much a cinch, so I am not going out on any limb her by predicting that the Oscars for Best Actor, Actress, and Supporting Actress will be handed to Leonardo DiCaprio, Brie Larson, and Alicia Vikander.  It should also be noted that I have seen none of these three performances.

A word here about DiCaprio.  I think that he is terrific.  I have never seen him be anything less that excellent in any role that I have seen him play.  And while I didn't not see "The Revenant", everything that I have read or heard about his performance makes this one seem like a movie where the film makers and DiCaprio himself seem to be fairly screaming "Look and how I am acting  in this  movie."  I did see Matt Damon in "The Martian" and he was terrific.  In an understated way, he carried the movie and made it believable.  In his own way, I am sure that Leo did the same thing in "The Revenant", so I won't begrudge him his preordained Oscar tonight, but I am sorry that there will be no love for Matt Damon for what I thought was the best performance that I had seen all year.

The Supporting Actor Oscar race is an interesting one. Mark Ruffalo has been nominated for "Spotlight" and he was great in it (I saw that one!), as was Mark Rylance in "Bridge of Spies."  A lot of critical support seems to be favoring Rylance, and he would be a deserving winner, but the Academy often uses the Supporting Actor/Actress category as a sort of a make-up or lifetime achievement award.  I think that they will do it again this year and award the Oscar to Sylvester Stallone.

For Adapted Screenplay, I will predict that Nick Hornby will win for "Brooklyn".  This will be the Academy's way to honor this terrific movie.  For Original Screenplay, I'll go with Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy for "Spotlight".  However, don't be surprised if the Oscar goes to the writers of "Straight Outta Compton".  This could be a way for the Academy to answer all those embarrassing lack of diversity protests.

In an effort to pad my stats, I will predict that "inside Out" will win for Best Animated feature film.

Many are predicting that Alejandro Inarritu will win four "The Revenant", but I am going against the grain on this one since I don't believe that the Academy will go with back-to-back Oscars for Inarritu (he won for "Birdman" last year).  My pick on this one goes for Tom McCarthy for "Spotlight".

That leaves the Big One...Best Picture of the Year.  As I mentioned above, I have seen four of the nominees, "Bridge of Spies", "Brooklyn", "The Martian", and "Spotlight".  I will see "The Big Short" this afternoon.  The other three "Mad Max: Fury Road", "The Revenant", and "Room" fall into the category for me of "Didn't See It; Don't Wanna See It".  With all due respect to the filmmakers and the audience that loved them, they are just not my kind of movies.  Doesn't mean they're bad; just means that they are not for me.

So what movie would I choose if they gave me a vote?  Based on the four that I have seen so far, I would go in this order...#4 "Bridge of Spies", #3 "Brooklyn", #2 "The Martian", and the the winner would be...."Spotlight", but that's just me, and who am I predicting will win?

All forecasts and odds makers seem to say that it will be "The Revenant", but I am going to play a hunch and follow the lead shown by the Screen Actors Guild Awards and call for a Best Picture win for "Spotlight".

Terrific ensemble performance by everyone in this cast, a great story, and a true one.  

There you go...nine categories, nine predictions.  As always, watch, but don't bet.