#oscarsnosly

Three nights earlier I had been on a podcast saying that the Oscars didn't interest me much anymore because they contained few if any surprises.

So what a surprise the 88th annual Academy Awards ended up having in store for me Monday night (Australia time). A couple, actually.

Unfortunately, they weren't all good.

If you had asked me to pick any one award that I thought was a total lock, I would have told you it was Sylvester Stallone winning best supporting actor for Creed. Yes, perhaps even ahead of Inside Out winning best animated feature and Leonardo DiCaprio winning best actor.

But it did not happen.

Instead the award went to the deserving Mark Rylance, who might have been my second choice, but a distant second to good old Sly.

And yet again one of the acting performances closest to my heart, the one with at least a 50/50 shot at winning, goes against me.

There are likely numerous examples over the years, but the ones that leap immediately to mind are the losses by Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (both to Sean Penn, actually), and Michael Keaton just last year in Birdman. All three of those men were the leads in my favorite movie of the year. As it happens again with the secondary lead in my second favorite of the year, I guess I have to cover my ass with an ironic #oscarssowhite and #oscarssomale and #oscarssoold to account for my choices for the performances I most wanted to see awarded.

I'm sure in that same time there have been wins that delighted me just as heartily, but it's the tough losses I remember most. I didn't realize how much I wanted Stallone, who is otherwise not a favorite of mine and historically never has been, to win, until he didn't.

But not all the surprises were bad.

Spotlight taking home best picture made for probably my biggest surprise in that category since Crash sucker-punched us all back in 2005 -- a moment I mentioned in that ReelGood podcast as the last time I was really surprised in general by the Oscars. I'd venture I've guessed the best picture winner correctly in every Oscars since then, even at the times I was desperately rooting for a different winner (The Social Network). So it was a nice surprise to see Spotlight beat out presumed favorite The Revenant, which had the in-show momentum of having just picked up best actor and best director, yielding the spotlight (if you will) to a movie that hadn't picked up an award since the evening's very first (best original screenplay).

What wasn't a surprise to anyone who has marveled at what he can do on a stage is how Chris Rock struck the perfect tone for his monologue and ensuing comments about race throughout the evening. He hit hard, but he hit in both directions, which was an incredibly smart and in itself a bit unpredictable way of handling his predicament. He let Will Smith and Jada Pankett have it even harder than those allegedly perpetrating the racism, to the extent that one wonders if those two will ever attend another Oscars. (Pinkett may not have the option, since, as he so bitingly pointed out, she wouldn't have been invited in the first place.)

The most killer segment that had me laughing hardest was when Whoopi Goldberg, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Rock himself made their way into parodies of some of the most nominated films, there to exemplify the lengths black actors must go to to get cast in Oscar-worthy films. Morgan brought gales of laughter in drag as The Danish Girl, danish in this case being a reference to the pastry he was cramming in his mouth, but then Rock outdid him as the black astronaut stranded on Mars that two NASA officials (played by Martian cast members Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig) would not pay $2,500 to save. "I can hear you mother[bleepers]!" Rock says as they do the cost-benefit analysis within earshot over a satellite video link. "I don't see a black astronaut stranded in space. Do you?" Wiig says to Daniels through winks.

Other general thoughts:

- The scrolling of the thank yous didn't accomplish anything, as many of them ended up being repeated anyway and they just gave the whole thing a cable news network feel.

- Why were only three of the five songs performed? Were the other two nominees too busy to attend?

- As moved as we were all supposed to be by the Lady Gaga song, her gesticulations, vocal or otherwise, were just so wild that I couldn't help cracking to my wife that she was reminding me of Barbra Streisand.

- I didn't get the sense that the black actors and actresses who presented felt they had done some kind of deal with the devil. It seemed to be more or less just business as usual, and that was good.

- More of the comedic banter worked than usual. I liked Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe going back and forth about the number of Oscars they had between them, and Tina Fey pretending to be drunk was great. Sarah Silverman and Sacha Baron Cohen (as Ali G) proved just random enough to keep us on edge and never know what they might say next.

- I was interested to note a correction of previous awards biases in favor of actresses over actors. Best supporting actor was plunged deep into the program, as many as ten awards after best supporting actress, and best actress came a whole two awards earlier than best actor (broken up by best director). Maybe they thought that in a year they were being criticized anyway, just go for broke and lean male as well as white?

- The only one of Rock's lines of commentary that left me feeling a little funny was the objection to women being asked about more than their dresses, but it did set up his funniest line of the night, which was: "If George Clooney came to the Oscars wearing a lime green tuxedo and a swan coming out of his ass, I guarantee you they'd ask him: George, what are you wearing?"

- Other than DiCaprio, who gave one of the most succinct and poised speeches I've ever seen at the Oscars, the acceptance speeches were pretty dull. And not only because the music started playing most of them to their finish not 15 seconds in.

- That guy who said he may be the first openly gay person to receive an Oscar pretty much has to be incorrect about that. Even keeping in mind the word "openly," I'd say there had to have been at least five others in the last decade alone.

- Dave Grohl's In Memorium performance of "Blackbird" was a highlight.

- Even if their movie didn't win, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Emmanuel Lubezki set astonishing precedents by winning awards both back-to-back and back-to-back-to-back. I'm not looking this up right now, but I'm kind of wondering if anyone has ever won Oscars in three straight ceremonies like Chivo did this year. Probably Edith Head or somebody. I know for certain that only two other directors have ever taken home back-to-back trophies. Good on them.

- With my own predictions, I was on a roll at the start of the night. I got something like the first seven correct before finally failing to pick Mad Max: Fury Road for the first time when I should have. After that my track record returned to being mediocre.

- Our recording ran out in the middle of the producers' acceptance speech for Spotlight. Oh well.

Okay, now I must go to bed as it is 2:21 a.m. here, and what the hell am I still doing awake.

Insanity incarnate, and other Oscar thoughts

I haven't done my usual amount as a lead-up to the Oscars this year on my blog. In fact, I've done almost nothing.

So I thought I'd get in a couple quick thoughts in case you came to The Audient to prime yourself for this year's awards.

First off, the image you see next to you.

This is an event my friend Ross from my Flickchart discussion group on Facebook is attending. It's at the AMC 14 Georgetown in the D.C. area. (He's currently about to start The Revenant as I type this, but I'm posting it much later than I'm typing it, so you can't read this and still go try and catch the 5:10 a.m. showing of The Martian. Sorry.) That's right, all eight best picture nominees during a 24-hour period, with only short breaks in between. They charge $65 per ticket.

While on the one hand I think he's totally crazy -- especially since he's already seen all the movies, some of them more than once -- on the other it's something I totally would love to do some year. I'm curious how seeing all the nominees in such close proximity would change my thoughts on their respective merits.

I'd also love to be the one programming it. Specifically, the one deciding which films belong in which time slots, and whether that would reveal your own personal biases. Whoever did it this year has done a pretty good job. Brooklyn (the only one I have yet to see) seems like a nice soft introduction to the experience, a film that is totally suitable for a morning time slot. This could also reveal the biases of the programmer, as the first one is obviously the one everyone will be freshest for. The Big Short seems to make a pretty logical follow-up, keeping things at least comedic if not light throughout, then Room hits you with a bunch of depressing shit mid-afternoon. The Revenant keeps you down at that level to such an extent that Spotlight, even though it's about child molestation by Catholic priests, seems like a comparative ray of light. Spotlight is also in what's considered the most traditional time slot for a centerpiece, though as the fifth film it's debatable whether that really matters at that point. Mad Max of course makes a terrific midnight movie (it's essentially the most critically acclaimed midnight movie of all time). Bridge of Spies gets kind of the short shrift I suppose, but one hopes that residual energy from Mad Max would give it something of a boost. Then The Martian, well, this is when you really sleep I guess, if you weren't already doing so during Spies. But being the last movie also gives it something of a position of program prominence. You'll feel like Matt Damon just trying to survive at that point.

I don't ever expect to live in the D.C. area, but maybe one of the theaters will do this in a city where I do live someday.

Michael Keaton vs. his former director

If conventional wisdom holds and this is a best picture race that boils down to The Revenant vs. Spotlight -- though I'm told not to count out The Big Short -- then one of two creative people will be a repeat winner from last year.

Actually, there are probably any number of creative people Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu used on both Birdman and The Revenant, most prominently cinematographer (and likely three-time winner) Emmanuel Lubezki. But for the purposes of simplicity, let's boil this down to Michael Keaton vs. Inarritu.

Keaton was of course the star and one-time frontrunner for best actor in Birdman, and when he lost to Eddie Redmayne, I at least hoped that appearing in the best picture winner would serve as a nice consolation prize. Now he's up for just the latter prize this year with Spotlight.

Inarritu, on the other hand, won best director for Birdman. If The Revenant wins best picture, it will be the first time in history that the same person has directed consecutive best picture winners. Another best director win would just be icing on the cake, and both of these things might happen, even though The Revenant has earned its share of backlash.

I guess I'm rooting for Keaton to come out on top in this battle.

Although I didn't see Spotlight in time to rank it with my 2015 rankings, it would have been a contender for my top ten for sure. What's more evident as time goes by is that I would not rank The Revenant in my top ten if compiling my rankings today, even as amazing as the movie looks. It got my #9 spot, already falling from the #4 spot where I had initially inserted it after seeing it. Given another week it might have been down around #15 or even #20. I still think it's a very good film, but I also think that at its core, it's pretty empty. As is, though, it's my highest ranked best picture nominee, so I can't say I'd be entirely disappointed if it won.

How we almost didn't see the Oscars

The Oscars will of course play live while we are at work on Monday, so we'll need to stop checking the internet as soon as Sunday at 5:30 PST/8:30 EST rolls around. (Which will be right when my lunch starts, so at least I'll get in some morning internetting).

It airs on Australian TV both live, and delayed to start at some weird time at night, like 9:45. We obviously want to record the live one so we can start watching it with our dinner, though even then my wife might not make it through the whole thing. (She didn't last year.)

But any and all plans came within about 24 hours of being scuttled.

Until around Sunday morning at 9:30, we didn't have any idea why we weren't getting any TV channels on our TV.

Since neither we nor our kids tend to watch much on live TV these days, we hadn't troubleshot it very aggressively. But as the Oscars snuck up on us this year, we realized only recently that we needed to get it sorted out prior to Monday, or else it wouldn't be possible to either record the show or watch its delayed broadcast.

We'd tried restarting our Fetch box, our intermediary device that offers us on-demand and queues of free programming, mostly television shows. The on-demand was working fine, but not the TV channels. I'd also felt to the back of the TV to see if the antenna was plugged in, and it surely was.

By Sunday morning I was really worrying. It was too late to get a vendor involved or to try to replace a malfunctioning Fetch box. I started wondering if the Oscars were the kind of thing you could catch on YouTube, or even buy somewhere on the internet.

Fortunately, my wife -- the real brains of our operation -- had the good sense to check the other side of the antenna, the wall side. It was here that it was unplugged, likely by one of our kids.

Now we have the Oscars set to record and can be fairly certain that they actually will do so.

Whew.

Enjoy the ceremony, and check this space for my obligatory post-Oscars recap. Even though I was slack on pre-Oscars posts, I do (sort of) commit to providing you one of these.

A late western surge

Either because of a conspiracy of release dates or the prioritizing of my own viewings, I'm finishing my 2015 viewing season with no fewer than four westerns in the final eight days.

All I'd have to do is schedule a viewing of The Ridiculous 6 on Netflix and I'd have a full house.

And without revealing exactly how much I've liked the two movies I've seen so far, let's just say we're off to a good start.

It was a double feature yesterday, as my wife being able to pick up the kids from daycare allowed me to watch Slow West on my laptop at a Starbucks, in anticipation of meeting up with a friend for an 8:40 showing of The Revenant. (The Revenant was playing only two blocks away from where I work, so it seemed silly to go home and get the kids only to return to that exact location two hours later, and fortunately, it worked out for my wife to help me avoid that.)

The second two will be a Kurt Russell double feature. I already know I'm committed to a Bone Tomahawk screening, since I've rented it from iTunes, and that viewing figures to transpire on Saturday night. Then the big news of the last few days: I've found a way to see The Hateful Eight in time for my ranking deadline. Only just. It doesn't open wide here until January 21st, but the road show version (the one I want to see anyway) opens a week earlier than that at exactly one cinema, and if I hadn't been driving exactly where I was driving with my kids on Tuesday, I wouldn't have seen the poster that informed me of that fact. I've already got tickets for a 10 a.m. screening next Thursday, which was scheduled as a day off for me anyway. That will be just 14 hours before the Oscar noms are announced, officially ending my ranking year.

Westerns are not my favorite genre, to say the least. That could explain me dragging my feet on getting to Slow West in particular. However, I'm starting to wonder if 2015 will make up some ground in changing my mind on that topic, and not even necessarily because of a film that came out in 2015. Early on in the year I saw (and was blown away by) Sergio Leone's 1968 film Once Upon a Time in the West, which immediately installed itself among my favorite westerns of all time. I've also got one western (Unforgiven) in my top 20 of all time. So maybe I just need the right kind of westerns, and maybe 2015 is finally introducing me to those.

How will Bone Tomahawk and The Hateful Eight stack up? And for that matter, how much do I like Slow West and The Revenant?

You have only a week more to wait to find out.

Not an anomaly, unfortunately

It's that time of year again -- the time when the buzz is coming on strong for certain awards contenders and potential year-end critic faves.

It's also the time of year when I realize which ones I won't be able to see before my ranking deadline, because I live in Australia.

Tops on that list this year: Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa.

It seems like barely a month ago, I was not even aware this movie existed. As you can see, it doesn't even have a proper poster yet. When I did learn about it, I heard that it would be popping up in a few film festivals here and there, but still seemed destined for a 2016 wide release. Now it's getting that New York and Los Angeles release before the end of the year, expanding wider not long after the start of the new year. A definite 2015 film.

And a real contender for the top spot in my 2015 rankings, if Kaufman's history is any indication. Two movies he's written (Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) have topped the years they were released in my personal rankings, and the one movie he's directed -- Synecdoche, New York -- would have been a contender for my favorite film of 2008 if I hadn't allowed some of the more befuddled reviews to scare me off. Now that I have seen it, something I finally accomplished back in 2011, it's in my top 100 movies of all time.

So it will be a gaping wound in my 2015 rankings indeed when I don't get to consider Anomalisa alongside all the others.

Up until a couple hours ago, I was hopeful that it not yet having an Australian release date meant that it could still end up coming out before January 14th, when I need to sign, seal and deliver my rankings. (That's the morning the Oscar nominations are announced.) Unfortunately, at that point I found a February 4th, 2016 Australian release date listed for the movie.

For my personal tastes, that's going to be my most regrettable miss this year, but there's one that would be more shocking to most people: The Hateful Eight.

That's right, Quentin Tarantino's ninth feature releases a week after my rankings close, marking the first time I won't have seen a Tarantino movie in its ranking year since Jackie Brown.

His recent history is a little more uncertain in terms of being a contender for my top slot. While Inglourious Basterds was in my top ten of 2009, Django Unchained came in at only 30th for me in 2012. Either way, it will be a bummer not to have it up for consideration.

Also not getting Thomas McCarthy's Spotlight or Lenny Abrahamson's Room, though maybe Room will be getting released early enough in the U.S. for me to rent it on iTunes before my deadline.

All this said, there's cause for some end-of-year optimism, as there are a couple of movies I was sure I'd miss that will indeed be accessible to me before the 14th of January.

One of these is The Revenant, directed by the director of my #1 film of 2014, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Inarritu will indeed get a chance to repeat the #1 showing he earned with Birdman, as The Revenant makes its Australian bow on January 7th. I'm excited enough about this one that I have been steadfastly refusing to watch the trailer.

Then there's David O. Russell's latest, Joy, which hits theaters on Boxing Day. Boxing Day is also when we get The Danish Girl (awards bait, but I'll still watch it) and The Good Dinosaur (delayed from the American Thanksgiving release date, as always happens with the big animated Thanksgiving release -- Big Hero 6 and Frozen in each of the past two years).

What may have surprised me the most was that it seems like I'll be able to squeeze in Todd Haynes' Carol, which releases here on the day my rankings are due -- in other words, some 12 hours before the actual Oscar nominations are announced, meaning I can squeak it in. I figured this one would be a definite February release, just because I don't know.

Goosebumps also, inexplicably, does not come out until that day, but I probably won't try to cram in a double feature. (Next issue to tackle is to get Australia to care about Halloween, so Halloween movies actually come out in October.) If Carol is to have a double feature partner, it probably has to be Steve Jobs, which I've learned only during the editing phase of this piece is also coming out on January 14th. Danny Boyle just so happens to be another guy who's directed a year-end chart topper (2010's 127 Hours).

As for The Hateful Eight and Anomalisa, I'll have to do a better job prioritizing an eventual viewing than I've done for some of the other late-release casualties since I've been in Australia. One year later and two years later, respectively, I still haven't seen either The Wolf of Wall Street or Inherent Vice. That's Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson we're talking about there, people.

There is one ray of hope: the critics screening. In neither of my previous years in Australia was I regularly attending critics screenings, and it's very possible one or both of these movies will screen for critics well ahead of their theatrical releases.

Then I just have to convince the editor at my website to let me go to those screenings instead of him.

He just so happens to consider Adaptation his favorite movie of all time, so that's going to be a tall order indeed.