Well, I guess I'll just say that, if this is the final word on 2016, then this is the final explanation point that this year, and we, truly deserved.
I-eh, I-,(Sigh) WHAT THE GODDAMN FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
So, "La La Land", won, as expected, Best Picture, after a surprisingly uneven night, and then, suddenly nothing happened as expected. And, yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm blaming Jimmy Kimmel too.
Well, let's see, if I can bring up my tweets of this moment, and I was tweeting during the entire Oscars, and I'll post my tweets on the bottom here, with corrected spelling...-, but let's see, what exactly did I say-
Kudos to #Oscars
for honoring Bonnie & Clyde. Boo for producing the show with Best Picture alone at the end after commercial, w/no suspense.That was before they announced the winner, sorta...- and I was preparing my blog about how "La La Land" won and I had to move onto writing this blog...-
And La La Land wins Best Picture. Who would've seen that coming? Wait, what just happened!?!?!
Holy shit! What the fuck just happened?!?!?! Who fucked up the cards?!
Okay, Moonlight just won, and someone screwed up the cards. Wait what did DiCaprio have though? This is weird. Surreal.
Yeah, I blame Kimmel, Wtf. So, did DiCaprio just guess... What happened with the card? Ugh! Who gave Warren the wrong card? #OscarssoWTF?!?
Seriously, if Warren & Faye had the Best Actress envelope then what the hell did Leonardo read? Did he see Moonlight and give it to Emma????
They had 24 envelopes, how fucking hard is it to keep track of them?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, I re-tweeted a bunch of other peoples' tweets too, in between all this, most of that was interesting as well, but, most of it was about, well, this, and-eh, yeah. Just, the ultimate, in-, Seriously, my mother has done payroll for most of her adult life, she's dealt with delivering thousands of envelopes, full of checks and cash to the right people every week, how the fuck do you fuck up 24 envelopes, that are clearly marked!
(Sigh)
Actually, it's 48. Okay, some people did a little bit of investigating, myself included, and it's still early but, here's what we got: First of all, it's pretty clear that Warren Beatty was right. He was handed, the envelope for ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE, you can do a closeup on the envelope and see that it clearly says that, and that's why Beatty, delayed saying the name, which read "Emma Stone, La La Land". He handed off the envelope to Faye, who said, "La La Land", without realizing there was a problem. Now, on both the left and right sides of the stage, there are accountant from Price Waterhouse Cooper, with each side having copies of the envelopes, depending on, numerous factors behind the scenes, basically, whichever side the presenters come from there's the envelope, and therefore there's always extras. The accountants give the presenters the envelope as they walk onstage. So, basically, and yes, while I did indeed make fun of it, Emma Stone has confirmed that she had her card the whole time, the one that Leonardo DiCaprio handed her, in her hand the whole time, so, the accountant, obviously, handed Warren, the wrong envelope, and then, the entire world ended.
This is-, look, I don't have a dog in the fight, except for which ever ones I predicted, I haven't seen either film-, oh, crap, I forgot about my predictions! How did I-, well, I'm pretty sure I sucked, but- anyway, I don't care who wins, other then getting my predictions correct, at least, at this moment, I don't care. But, whatever the case, the fact that this happened, and I feel sorry, but, this,-, probably was inevitable at some point. Why now, why,- ugh. But, the thing with the preferential voting, is that, you rank the movies, and the higher you rank a movie, the more likely it is to win. So, what this leads to, and I would not be shocked if this happened, to some extent, and maybe to some extent in other years, is that, a popular but divisive movie, like perhaps a "Boyhood" for instance, and maybe a "La La Land" here, (Although I would've suspected "Moonlight" would've been divisive) but that there's probably a bigger and more substantial amount of negative voting. Where those films are placed at the bottom, not necessarily because of those film's quality, but because they want something else to win, so they purposefully rank a favorite lower than maybe they even think it should be. I think that's happened more often than some might realize, and I think it leads to too many director/picture splits and maybe perhaps more mediocre winners. Or more popular winners, I don't know, but the negative voting aspect of it, really just irks me, and I think ultimately isn't good and this is probably the biggest evidence of that yet.
I want them to go back the other way. Whether you like "Moonlight" more or "La La Land" more, or any other movie more than the others, you only get one pick. One, positive pick of an exclusive five nominee field, what's the best picture? I'm ready to go back to that, more than I ever have; even in years where I was much more annoyed at the results.That's my big conclusions from this fiasco, personally, as somebody who's struggled to predict these awards, I think I'm done with the 6-10 and the preferential ballot. I'm tired of this, and frankly, I'm not sure it's so good to see so many Picture/Director splits, but even without that, I'm kinda just tired of all these movies nominated, that don't have much shot at winning and frankly, I'm just not sold on this process, and I want to go back to five nominations and just a best film voting. I get why they do it, but, frankly I think I preferred the way it was.
I mean, as to the show itself, I thought it was, fine, but I'm not as enthused with Kimmel's work, as per usual. Still, it was fine, he wasn't bad; it just didn't feel like he should've been there, and you could feel that from him. He's somebody who I suspect has never been comfortable in the mainstream like this, and I liked him a lot more when he wasn't, and maybe that's apart of my bias, but...- it doesn't feel right to me. But, he wasn't awful, he went a little close to Chevy Chase levels of ridicule at certain awkward points, but he knows how to ease and make up for that, so, no real complaints from him, and at certain he was hilarious. (And I liked "We Bought a Zoo")
THIS PARAGRAPH: AMENDED TO POST 2/28/17
Actually, upon reflection, I think I now realize why I've never fully been on board with Kimmel. I knew something about him bugged me, and I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, but now I see it; it's that he performs his material, too much like, he's portraying himself. Let me explain, a good comparison example, is Sarah Silverman, who I think is a great stand-up comic and performer. Yet, they both have very similar rhythms and patterns to their material. (Yes, I know they used to date, but that's not why I'm comparing them here) The thing that allows me to let that go with Sarah, who can be just as vicious as Kimmel, if not moreso, is that, she's always in character. Part of that is that she came from an acting and performing background while Kimmel, mostly came onto the scene as himself; if you're my age, you still remember him mostly from when he co-hosted "Win Ben Stein's Money". He was funny there, but he's basically kept that character, and maybe slightly evolved and devolved it over time. I doubt anybody wants to remember the disaster that was him and Adam Corolla's "The Man Show", for instance. Silverman, always has multiple layers to her material, she's often coming to a realization that the events she's describing aren't normal or might be off the beaten path, and that's apart of the joke; she's performing a character in her stand-up. Kimmel, can be funny, in the same way, but could you identify a character as "The Jimmy Kimmel persona" that's separate from Jimmy Kimmel, the person? That helps at times, like when he's pulling a prank, or at a roast where he's able to be particularly vicious to some people, and I'm sure in real life, Kimmel, is not the character he portrays, but, it doesn't come across that way enough, especially since much of his more outlandish humor involves himself placing himself within the actions, and when you're a primetime talk show, host and personality, that, sure, takes inspiration from the edgier side of Letterman's material, it feels less inviting. It's almost like the Andy Kaufman joke where the host is actually portraying a nice guy when the cameras are rolling, but then, when he thinks they're off, he's asshole Andy, bullying the people around him. With Kimmel, the line just gets so blurry that I can't tell the difference. That's something that annoys me, just enough with him, that I always find myself at arms length from his performing. And why he's at his best when you really know he's joking and in character, like the Matt Damon stuff for instance. When you don't, sometimes, it gets, a little too awkward, at least to me.
That said, let's look at the winners, if they are actually the winners, 'cause who the hell fucking knows right now. Anyway, outside of that, Damien Chazelle, became the youngest Best Director winner of all-time, wining for "La La Land". That was, as expected, but not as much was as expected as many thought. "La La Land" did win six Oscars, obviously, not Best Picture, but they won Best Actress, for Emma Stone, which I was so nervous about predicting that I made fun of my nervousness on Twitter all day. It also won Cinematography, Production Design, and both Score and Original Song. They lost, Sound Editing, shocking to "Hacksaw Ridge" where Kevin O'Connell, gave a great speech, as he finally won an Oscar, after twenty nominations without winning. And then, "Arrival", which was expected to go home empty-handed, won Sound Editing, which is what everyone thought "Hacksaw Ridge" was gonna win. So, if you predicted both those sound categories right, go to Vegas; 'cause I think even Gold Derby has said that only one person, got that combination correct.
Anyway, Casey Affleck, in a close race, got the win over Denzel Washington for Best Actor, which surprised me, but it was close, and congrats to him. He won, despite, some people, including Brie Larson, the presenter of the award, not particularly happy with him winning. We'll leave that talk for another time.
Mahershala Ali, started the night, winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and he became the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar btw. Also, four African-Americans won at the same Oscars, one of the others, being Viola Davis, who won Supporting Actress for "Fences". And, he was apart of the show the whole time, and I like it when the tour bus people came in, and he let them hold the Oscar. That part, was fun.
Viola Davis, by the way, the first African American performer, ever, to win the Triple-Crown of Acting, which is an Emmy, Tony and Oscar award for Acting. So, congrats for her. (In case you're wondering, no, Whoopi Goldberg doesn't have this. She won her Tony as a Producer.)
The Screenplay categories, Kenneth Lonergan winning for "Manchester by the Sea" and Barry Jenkins, getting it for "Moonlight", and I like that, three of the Best Director nominees, won an Oscar btw. These Inarritu and Coen Brothers, Writer/director/producer sweeps can be annoying frankly, and for the most part, the Oscars, subverted expectations by spreading the wealth. "Fantastic Beasts..."'s Colleen Atwood with the surprise win for Costume Design for instance. BTW, the first time a J.K. Rowling-adapted work won an Oscar.
Perhaps the best moment and speech, wasn't given by the recipient as "The Salesman" won Foreign Language film, and one of the movie's star, read a prepared speech that Asghar Farhadi wrote, and yeah, this was a political Oscars, maybe moreso, than it should've been, but I don't mind it honestly, and if it leads to moments like that, then that's fine.
"O.J. Made In America", won Best Documentary, and set the record, for the longest film to win an Oscar, beating the record set by "War and Peace", the seven hour and seven minutes Russian epic from Sergey Bondarchuk, which won Foreign Language film at the '66 Oscars. Deserved win too, by the way; as annoying and frustrating to go through O.J. Simpson anything for me, that is a great documentary.
The win that most upsets people, it seems was "Suicide Squad" upsetting for Best Makeup & Hairstyling. Look, I've seen the movie, I'll be reviewing it later, (SPOILERS: I'm recommending it, but yeah, it is a horrible disaster) but, there's a lot good makeup in it, so, (Shrugs) I was okay with the win. It's Best Makeup, not Best Makeup in a Good movie. (Or for that matter, Best Actor is Best Actor, not Best Actor who hasn't been accused of being sexual predator, and best direction, not best director who isn't an anti-semitic fuckface..., etc. etc. I know it sucks.)
Film Editing, went to the ACE Eddie winner John Gilbert for "Hacksaw Ridge", two awards for "Hacksaw..." a surprise win for "Arrival", two for "Manchester..." three for "Moonlight" and six for "La La Land", that's pretty good. Each film nominated for Best Director, won something, and let's play the de facto, that's the Top Five in Picture (Maybe it isn't, who knows) that's a good spreading the field. "Zootopia" took Animated Feature, and that was an as-expected, although I predicted the upset, but-, yeah, in the middle of all this, "Moonlight" is one of the biggest upset winners of all-time, for Best Picture, maybe the biggest, irrelevant of all the pandemonium and craziness at the end. It's the second primarily African-American cast film to win, after "12 Years a Slave" a couple years ago. And also, I think the first major film with an LGBT film to win Best Picture, ever? I'd have to double-check that, but it's one of the few, and definitely one of the few that's explicitly an LGBT film.
So, what else? Shorts, I went two for three, better for 0 for 3 last year and "Piper" is first Pixar's win for Animated Short in fifteen years, believe it or not, and it deserved to win. I'm happy I correctly predicted "The White Helmets", for Documentary Short, but "Sing (Mindenki)" winning for Live-Action Short. I heard that that might win, but that was a category that seemed to be able to go anywhere.
Overall, I went,-eh, I need to count...- 13, 14, 15, 16. Ugh, 16/24, 2/3s. (Grunting sigh) That sucks. Well, I'll try to do better the next time. Thankfully, I don't think too many people did that good at predicting this, and we're gonna be talking and obsessing over this for awhile.
Alright, that's all the Oscar stuff, I can deal with, I'll keep updated on FB and Twitter if I hear anything new. And hopefully, we'll return to our-, well, whatever-the-hell normal is in this world anymore, shortly.
(Sigh) Yeah, for those who don't like Award shows, I have an award show for you. For those who do, (Sigh), I think I'd rather forget most of this, for awhile anyway. I think I need a vacation for a little bit. Hmm... I might be posting slightly more erratically for a little bit, as I think I might be on the road for a little bit....
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