OSCAR NIGHT: THRILLS! REVELATIONS! LAUGHS! THE HOLLYWOOD COMMUNITY AT ITS VERY BEST
It was one of the most interesting Oscar nights in recent memory. Formulaic expectations at once met and subverted. The kind of Oscar patterns that form the basis of bets at once paying off and being proven wrong. Eg: Best Director and Best Picture winner did NOT come from the same movie. Alejandro González Iñárritu won best director for THE REVENANT, having won the previous year for BIRDMAN. SPOTLIGHT won Best Picture.
Equally, the usual tendency to FINALLY award an actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) for one part that, although perfectly great in itself, somehow makes up for years of missing out, narrowly despite giving a string of equally good and arguably superior performances. See also: Al Pacino (wins for SCENT OF A WOMAN; should have won for GODFATHER 2).
Chris Rock managed to touch on the race issue with a mixture of warmth and biting, satirical insight. It was a very fine line but he managed it, nicely. It was also great to see the return of ALI G (Sacha Baron Cohen’s first comedy alter ego) and Sam Smith winning Best Song for ‘The Writing’s On the Wall‘ (from SPECTRE). Smith’s song was much maligned on its release and the vocal style and arrangement certainly is not for everyone. But the lyrics and the instrumental flourish movingly interact with the motifs of the film.
MAD MAX:FURY ROAD picked up six gongs, mostly on the technical front. THE FORCE AWAKENS went home empty handed, despite a nice turn from C3P0 and R2D2 at the ceremony. Sylvester Stallone was pipped to the post for Best Supporting Actor (for CREED, despite a Golden Globes win) by Mark Rylance (for Spielberg’s BRIDGE OF SPIES).
Oh and all the ladies looked rather lovely. This is not a fashion blog. She looked GREAT. Stop it now. 😉
In the unlikely event that you have missed the news: here is the full list of winners, c/o ABC.
