This was great. Spotlight took home Best Picture and Original Screenplay. It must have been a tough movie to make, and there aren't many like it anymore. Journalists are hard to portray and the movie built and sustained suspense while uncovering layers of the job and scandals along the way. The Revenant was a filmmaking masterpiece and took home Oscars for Director Alejandro G. Inarritu, Actor Leonardo DiCaprio with his first, and Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, When Mad Max: Fury Road won six Oscars early on, it looked like it was going to dominate, but like The Aviator eleven years ago, the biggest statues went to stalwart Oscar fare instead of an action movie. Max Director George Miller and co. were well recognized, though, for the best action movie of the year which, we must allow, lies in a genre like comedy. Both go unrecognized and underappreciated and remain so hard to make well.
The Actress Oscars went to newcomers Brie Larson in Room and Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl. I have not seen either, and both have resonated with audiences and critics steadily in the films' releases. Mark Rylance won Best Supporting Actor for Bridge of Spies in an amazing in a performance that conveyed so much while he shared the screen with one of our most venerable stars Tom Hanks.
As for the show itself, Chris Rock was solid and started it all with a lecture the Hollywood establishment needed to hear. It became a theme throughout the evening and the cameras often showed African American audience members and had several black presenters. This needed to happen, now how about more roles on the screen.
A final note: the show is still too long. As pertinent as the moments are, we can move it along better. At two hours and forty minutes there were still several awards left to give. That's when you know things are slow.
The Actress Oscars went to newcomers Brie Larson in Room and Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl. I have not seen either, and both have resonated with audiences and critics steadily in the films' releases. Mark Rylance won Best Supporting Actor for Bridge of Spies in an amazing in a performance that conveyed so much while he shared the screen with one of our most venerable stars Tom Hanks.
As for the show itself, Chris Rock was solid and started it all with a lecture the Hollywood establishment needed to hear. It became a theme throughout the evening and the cameras often showed African American audience members and had several black presenters. This needed to happen, now how about more roles on the screen.
A final note: the show is still too long. As pertinent as the moments are, we can move it along better. At two hours and forty minutes there were still several awards left to give. That's when you know things are slow.
