"Everything is as it should be."

                                                                                  - Benjamin Purcell Morris

 

 

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Academy Awards Round-Up

A few notes about last night’s Oscar ceremony.

THE GOOD

First off, I won my Oscar pool…AGAIN. I got 19 out of 23 right. This continues my winning streak to an astonishing 36 years in a row. My goal from this point forward is to go undefeated in Oscar pools until I die…unfortunately that goal is very attainable considering the clock is ticking louder and louder until check out time for me.

Emma Stone winning Best Actress over the presumed favorite Lily Gladstone was a moment that had me cheering. I have no ill will towards Lily Gladstone, but the more I saw of her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, the less I thought of it.

I did find it grating though that she seemed to be the front runner only because she was Native American and the Academy is addicted to all things Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I assumed she’d win for that exact reason.

I was glad to be wrong because Emma Stone’s performance in Poor Things is utterly astonishing. It is one of the best performances in film in the last 25 years, if not longer. It is all-time great.

Considering that Stone is only 35 and already has two Best Actress Oscars, and frankly, should have a Best Supporting Actress one too for her work in The Favourite, reveals her to be the greatest actress of her generation.

She is also the type of actress who will continue to work and be effective past Hollywood’s usual due date regarding beautiful women…which is refreshing and exciting. I feel blessed to be alive to witness her rise to the throne of American movies.

Another moment that had me cheering was Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech when his film The Zone of Interest won Best International Feature.

Here is Glazer’s speech in full. He spoke nervously, but courageously.

“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, “Look what they did then,” rather, “Look what we do now.” Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the — [Applause.] Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist? [Applause.] Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, the girl who glows in the film, as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and her resistance. Thank you.”

Glazer said what needed to be said…and I would have encouraged him to go even farther. But regardless, it took real balls to speak up in that room among many powerful Hollywood people who would despise what he had to say. Good for him.

Speaking of cheering, Ryan Gosling was runner-up to Robert Downey Jr. in the Best Supporting Actor race, but there is no doubt he won Oscar night last night…all of it.

Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken”, that gloriously insidious ear worm from Barbie, was the highlight of the evening and in recent Oscar history.

Added to that, Gosling and Emily Blunt had a genuinely funny back and forth about Barbie versus Oppenheimer that was the comedic height of the night.

Gosling is going to win an Oscar (and maybe already should have) someday and a big reason why is that he charmed the pants off of the Academy last night. These people remember that sort of thing and try to reward it.

Speaking of rewards, John Mulaney, a comedian I am at best lukewarm on, presented the Oscar for Best Sound and did a stellar bit about Field of Dreams. I can almost guarantee that he is offered the hosting gig next year or the next few years.

I was pleased that Oppenheimer had a good night, and that Poor Things and even The Zone of Interest did too. Those were easily the three best movies of the year, so it is fitting they got the lions share of the awards.

I was equally pleased that The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki won Best Animated Film, and that Godzilla Minus One won Best Effects. Miyazaki and Godzilla are my favorite Japanese imports!!

I admit I was pleasantly surprised that Barbie did not get any awards (besides best song – which wasn’t “I am Ken” oddly enough). Ryan Gosling aside, Barbie was a shitty movie. Poor Things was Barbie but smarter and better made.

I also have to admit that I was pleased that Killers of the Flower Moon did not receive a single award. I love Martin Scorsese. He is a Mount Rushmore filmmaker for me…but Killers of the Flower Moon is a mess of a movie. I’ve seen and heard people call it a “masterpiece” which is ridiculous. Anyone calling Killers of the Flower Moon a masterpiece is revealing themselves to be a fool and philistine.

Overall, the greatest thing about the show was that it started an hour early and dupes and dopes like me who live in fly over country could watch the festivities and not get to bed at some ungodly hour.

THE BAD

I have to say I just don’t get Jimmy Kimmel, and frankly never have. I know he has a late-night show, one which I’ve never seen, and used to host The Man Show, which I’ve never seen either.

Kimmel seemed to verbally stumble over his delivery of jokes all evening, which only added to the issues with the third-rate shlock he was trying to sell. I don’t care if a comedian is “offensive” or “edgy” or anything like that – in fact I prefer it…but I do care when they suck at what they do. And Kimmel sucks at what he does.

Speaking of something that sucks, the memorial segment once again was idiotic and poorly designed. The Academy fucks this thing up every year and every year it annoys me and astounds me.

This isn’t hard. Don’t have dancers and some string quartet playing IN FRONT of the screen showing the people who died because then you can’t see the names of THE PEOPLE WHO DIED. Just show a video montage with music playing over it. Problem solved. Fucking idiots.

Speaking of idiots…who thought it was a good idea to have an 83-year-old Al Pacino, giving out the Best Picture award at the end of the night?

Pacino has famously recounted the first time he went to the Oscars in the 70’s and he was stoned out of his mind and was glad he didn’t win because he didn’t think he could walk to the stage. I think the stoned Pacino from the 70s would’ve done a better job that octogenarian Pacino did last night.

Pacino looked like he was just roused from a deep sleep in a nursing home and pushed onto the stage with an envelope in his hands. I love Al Pacino, but I don’t need him doing vital work at any show, be it awards or otherwise.

Speaking of things that died, Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer presented an award and attempted a comedy routine and it was like watching bowel surgery. Good lord this was excruciatingly not funny. Melissa McCarthy is usually pretty hysterical but holy shit did this bit bomb.

And finally…I am no fashionista, but what the fuck are people thinking when they choose dresses for this show? Da’Vine Joy Randolph is a terrific actress and a very deserving Best Supporting Actress winner last night, but she is a big woman and someone thought they should put her in some stupid puffy mermaid dress that makes her look even bigger. Ariana Grande is a tiny woman but they dressed her in the most buffoonish dress imaginable…she looked like a lap dog that had been thrown in a dyer for three cycles. Anyway, I will never understand why stylists can’t figure this stuff out.

Alright, that’s all I have for my brief thoughts on the 2024 Oscars. The bottom line is this…it could have been worse.

Stay tuned as later this week the greatest awards of all…The Mickeys™ and the Slip-Me-A-Mickey™ will be happening!! See you then!!

©2024

The 96th Academy Awards: 2024 Oscar Predictions

96TH ACADEMY AWARDS: 2024 OSCAR PREDICTIONS

It’s that time of year once again…when all the self-righteous degenerates and pedophiles of Hollywood gather together to celebrate how wonderful they are…that’s right…the Academy Awards are here!!

For the first time in the last five years, I find myself mildly interested in the most nauseatingly narcissistic of awards shows just because I actually liked a few of the movies, and especially because I liked the front runner Oppenheimer.

 I would enjoy Oppenheimer going nuclear on the competition at the Oscars for a variety of reasons.

1.   I liked the movie.

2.   I like Christopher Nolan.

3.   I like that it’s incredibly well-made.

4.   I like that it’s a movie made for adults that is three hours long and it still made nearly a billion dollars.

5.   I want it to win so that they make more movies like it.

It seemed that the Academy Awards, and Hollywood, over the last few years were quickly hurtling toward their well-earned demise as a brief glance at the last four Best Picture winners reveals a poopoo platter of putrid movies….Nomadland (2020), Coda (2021) and Everything Everywhere All At Once (2023)…YIKES!

But this year we have a bunch of films nominated for Best Picture that are actually decent movies, Oppenheimer chief among them. So maybe this signals that the movie business and the art of cinema are, if not climbing out of their graves, then at least no longer digging.

Of course, I’m not going to get too optimistic as Hollywood is very good at shitting all over themselves in any given situation, so I will just wait and see how this year goes…and if there is a next year, then how next year goes.

But for now…this is a solid Best Picture contingent. The other categories? Well, I admit it seems like slim pickings in many of them, and the closer you look the less pretty the picture of this year at the movies looks, but for now I’m just going to enjoy an actual movie – Oppenheimer, being the belle of the ball at the Academy Awards.

As for the Academy Awards…as longtime readers know I have won a record setting 35 straight Oscar pools. My domination in this field is less a testament to my brilliance than to the fact that I have no friends and therefore am competing only against myself…and I’m an idiot so it’s easy to for me to outwit me.

Anyway…enough of my rambling…let’s get on with it!! Here are my official picks for this year’s Oscar winners.

BEST PICTURE

American Fiction

Anatomy of a Fall

Barbie

The Holdovers

Killers of the Flower Moon

Maestro

Oppenheimer

Past Lives

Poor Things

The Zone of Interest

This is a pretty easy category as Oppenheimer has been the front runner since it hit big screens last summer and hasn’t wavered even a little bit. The movie is everything that Hollywood used to stand for and celebrate…and will reap the rewards.

As for the other films, Barbie and Maestro are dogshit and should not be nominated…and neither should Killers of the Flower Moon. But beyond that the films are all good to very good.

Will Win: Oppenheimer

Should Win: Oppenheimer

BEST DIRECTOR

Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall

Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon

Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer

Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things

Jonathon Glazer – The Zone of Intertest

This is Christopher Nolan’s year. This Best Picture/Best Director Oscar win is less a celebration of Nolan than a coronation. He is the ultimate blockbuster auteur…and frankly…the only blockbuster auteur we have. No one is beating him for Best Director.

Will Win: Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer

Should Win: Christopher Nolan

BEST ACTOR

Bradley Cooper – Maestro

Colman Domingo – Rustin

Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers

Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer

Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

This is a thin category as Domingo Colman and Bradley Cooper have zero business being nominated…but then again, the year is not filled with a plethora of sterling performances. Cillian Murphy does excellent work as the title character in Oppenheimer. He’s not a movie star and he’s not an acting star, he’s just a decent, quiet, likable guy who crushed a difficult role.

Will Win: Cillian Murphy Oppenheimer

Could Win: Paul Giamatti The Holdovers – Giamatti has a shot to pull off the upset, but it’s a long shot. Not impossible, but very difficult.

Should Win: Cillian Murphy

BEST ACTRESS

Annette Bening – Nyad

Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon

Sandra Huller – Anatomy of a Fall

Carey Mulligan – Maestro

Emma Stone – Poor Things

Another strange category as Annette Bening and Carey Mulligan are actively atrocious in their performances. Sandra Huller is terrific in Anatomy of a Fall. Lily Gladstone is just…ok…in what is really a supporting role in Killers of the Flower Moon. Emma Stone gives one of the greatest performances of the last 25 years in Poor Things and should win her second-best Actress statuette. But she won’t because the Oscars are about virtue signaling their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bona fides as much as anything else. Lily Gladstone will be the first Native American woman to win an Oscar, and to Academy members that means a lot, despite the fact that her work is unworthy of the award…and Emma Stone’s work is so transcendently sublime.

Will Win: Lily Gladstone Killers of the Flower Moon

Could Win: Emma Stone Poor Things – Stone has a chance, and I hope she wins, but I just think that the Diversity Cult wins the day over meritocracy.

Should Win: Emma Stone

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction

Robert DeNiro – Killers of the Flower Moon

Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer

Ryan Gosling – Barbie

Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things

Downey is a great reclamation/redemption story. The arc of his career is fascinating, and his being the lynchpin in the MCU and how much money those movies made for Hollywood, and Downey’s charm and resilience, are what make him the unquestioned favorite to win this award. Oh…and he also does exceptional work in Oppenheimer, so that helps too.

Will Win: Robert Downey Jr Oppenheimer

Could Win: Ryan Gosling Barbie – Gosling is beloved but not as beloved as Downey. Gosling’s time will come…just not this year.

Should Win: Robert Downey Jr

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer

Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple

America Ferrera – Barbie

Jodie Foster – Nyad

Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

This is an incredibly weak field, and Randolph is far and away the best performance and will without a doubt win the award…and deservedly so.

Will Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Should Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Anatomy of a Fall

The Holdovers

Maestro

May December

Past Lives

Tricky category. I think Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall), who is also nominated in Best Director, gets the nod, as the Academy likes to reward directors with a screenplay award when they’re not getting a director’s award.

Will Win: Justine Triet Anatomy of a Fall

Could Win: Celine Song Past Lives – There’s a lot of affection for this film but I think Anatomy of a Fall has the momentum.

Should Win: Justine Triet

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

American Fiction

Barbie

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

The Zone of Interest

Easily the most fascinating of all the categories. This category could be an indicator of an absolute blowout for Oppenheimer if Nolan wins the award. Or it could be another chance for the Academy to signal its virtue by rewarding Cord Jefferson and American Fiction, which isn’t worthy but deals with race and the Oscars love that sort of thing. But what I think will happen is that the Academy will reward Greta Gerwig for Barbie as a way to show they’re not sexist, and to acknowledge the “importance” (*barf*) of Barbie and its success. It will also be Gerwig’s first Oscar win after four nominations.

Will Win: Greta Gerwig Barbie

Could Win: Cord Jefferson American Fiction/Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer

Should Win: Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

The Boy and the Heron

Elemental

Nimona

Robot Dreams

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

This is a two-way race between Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron and the Spider-Verse movie. I think it goes to Miyazaki because he is an acknowledged master and this may (or may not) be his final film. And the first Spider-Verse movie won this category, and there is another Spider-Verse movie coming, the final in the trilogy, so that gives Academy voters a chance to not vote for this one and wait for next time. Regardless…I think Miyazaki wins the award…which will make me very, very happy, as I love his films.

Will Win: The Boy and the Heron

Could Win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Should Win: The Boy and the Heron

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Io Capitano

Perfect Days

Society of the Snow

The Teachers’ Lounge

The Zone of Interest

This is no competition at all. The Zone of Interest is nominated for Best Picture and Best Director as well as Best International Feature. It won’t win the first two, but it sure as hell will win this one. It’s a terrific arthouse movie, one of the very best films of the year. It is unbeatable in this category. Now, if Anatomy of a Fall had been France’s official selection and were in the running here…then this would be a barnburner of a category…but it isn’t…so it isn’t.

Will Win: The Zone of Interest

Should Win: The Zone of Interest

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Bobi Wine: The People’s President

The Eternal Memory

Four Daughters

To Kill a Tiger

20 Days in Mariupol

In an act of predictable and pretentious political posturing, 20 Days in Mariupol will win this award and easily. Yawn.

Will Win: 20 Days in Mairupol

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

When picking the short categories you have to focus on two things…1. Is someone famous involved. 2. What is the most compelling “agenda” on display which will satiate the Academy’s self-righteousness. The ABCs of Book Banning seems like a perfect fit for the self-righteous, politically-motivated, virtue signaling crowd in the Academy.

Will Win: The ABCs of Book Banning

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

This short category fulfills the “famous person” requirement for Academy interest. Wes Anderson has never won an Academy Award. This seems like a good way for the Academy to finally give him a nod. It also helps that his short is very, very good.

Will Win: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

This short satisfies BOTH the famous person and agenda requirements as Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono are featured and it’s anti-war.

Will Win: The War is Over!

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

American Fiction

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

A mildly interesting category. Goransson (Oppenheimer) should win this easily, and deservedly so, but John Williams (Indiana Jones) is a Hollywood institution and he’s 91 years old, so there’s always the chance the Oscars bestow a thank-you-for-your-service Oscar to him in this category. In the same way, Robbie Robertson (Killers of the Flower Moon) died this past year, so the sympathy vote could go his way and he could win in an upset. Anything is possible, but I think Oppenheimer is in for a big night and this category will be a leading indicator.

Will Win: Ludwig Goransson Oppenheimer

Could Win: John Williams Indiana Jones/Robbie Robertson Killers of the Flower Moon

Should Win: Ludwig Goransson Oppenheimer

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

The Academy wants to reward barbie and this category is a good place to do it because it also gives them a chance to attract and satisfy younger viewers. Billie Eilish fills the bill on both counts.

Will Win: Billie Eilish Barbie

Could Win: I’m Just Ken Barbie

Should Win: I’m Just Ken Barbie

BEST SOUND

The Creator

Maestro

MI Dead Reckoning

Oppenheimer

The Zone of Interest

Another bellwether category. If Oppenheimer wins this it will signal a huge night for the Team Nolan…but if The Zone of Interest wins, which is very, very possible, then it signals that Oppenheimer will have a good night, but not a great one. I have flip flopped on this category a dozen times and am still not sure. But I guess I’ll go with the mild upset and pick The Zone of Interest. That said, I won’t be upset if Oppenheimer wins.

Will Win: The Zone of Interest

Could Win: Oppenheimer

Should Win: Oppenheimer or The Zone of Interest – They are both exceedingly well done.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Barbie

Killers of the Flower Moon

Napoleon

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

Let’s be clear…if Oppenheimer wins this award then it is going to dominate the Oscars in the most epic and historical of ways. I don’t think it wins here though as this seems like a two-way race between Barbie and Poor Things. I think Poor Things is much more deserving of the award and will win it, but won’t be surprised if Barbie gets the nod.

Will Win: Poor Things

Could Win: Barbie

Should Win: Poor Things

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Edward Lachman - El Conde

Rodrigo Prieto - Killers of the Flower Moon

Matthew Libatique - Maestro

Hoyte vna Hoytema - Oppenheimer

Robbie Ryan - Poor Things

Hoyte van Hoytema (Oppenheimer) is one of the most respected cinematographers working today who hasn’t won an Oscar. I think that changes this year. There is a very outside chance that Robbie Ryan wins for his spectacular work on Poor Things…but that seems unlikely. Chalk another one up to the Oppenheimer juggernaut.

Will Win: Hoyte van Hoytema Oppenheimer

Should Win: Hoyte van Hoytema Oppenheimer

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIR STYLING

Golda

Maestro

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

Society of the Snow

I think this is a battle between Maestro and Poor Things. If Oppenheimer wins here then holy shit we are in for an epic landslide of Oscars. I don’t think that happens though, as Maestro gets the nod over Poor Things.

Will win: Maestro

Could Win: Poor Things

Should Win: Poor Things/Maestro – As much as I loathed Maestro…the old man makeup in that movie was astounding.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Barbie

Killers of the Flower Moon

Napoleon

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

Barbie and Poor Things square off once again, and Poor Things gets the win. If Barbie wins, which is not impossible, it could be a signal that the film will win a respectable amount of categories like Production Design and Costume Design.

Will Win: Poor Things

Could Win: Barbie

Should Win: Poor Things

BEST FILM EDITING

Anatomy of a Fall

The Holdovers

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

I think this is a slam dunk for Oppenheimer. If anything else wins, like Anatomy of a Fall, that is a strong signal that Oppenheimer will have a tough night outside of Best Picture and Best Director.

Will Win: Oppenheimer

Should Win: Oppenheimer

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

The Creator

Godzilla Minus One

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Mission: Impossible

Napoleon

I think this is a pretty close category but that Godzilla Minus One will win. First off, the effects in the film are outstanding. Secondly, the effects team and the entire production have been out there celebrating their nomination. And third, the film was surprisingly very successful for a foreign film in the American market. For all these reasons, I think Godzilla Minus One wins the award…and frankly, rightfully so.

Will Win: Godzilla Minus One

Should Win: Godzilla Minus One

So that’s it…those are my Oscar predictions. I have Oppenheimer winning seven awards and with a very real chance to win nine. Maybe I’m wrong…but who cares? The real award, the most-presitgious award, the one that Hollywood insiders truly care about, is the Mickey Awards™…and they come next weekend!! So stay tuned!!

Until then, enjoy the Oscars and hopefully winning your Oscar pool!

 Follow me on Twitter: MPMActingCo

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 96 - Triangle of Sadness

On this uncharacteristically joyous episode, Barry and I go on a ritzy cruise to debate one of the best movies of the year, the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay nominated Triangle of Sadness. Topics discussed include the glory of original storytelling, the art of deft directing and the joy of well-crafted cinema. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 96 - Triangle of Sadness

Thanks for listening!

©2023

95th Academy Awards: 2023 Oscar Predictions Post

It’s that time of year again!! The Oscars are here and I think I speak for everyone on the planet when I say…nobody gives a fuck!

It is a testament to how far the film industry and art of cinema has fallen in recent years that I find myself neither excited nor angered over this year’s Oscar nominations. No, my overwhelming sentiment regarding movies in general and the Oscars in particular is numbing indifference. I just don’t care anymore.

You see, my cinephile spirit has simply been broken under the weight of our cultures repeated cinematic failures. I’m one of those foolish people who demands excellence from cinema and refuses to soften my standards in order to indulge a commitment to mediocrity. This has resulted in my being a rather brutal cinematic curmudgeon for the past three years, which have been the worst three years of my movie-watching lifetime.  

Other critics have been all too eager to conform to the current times and adjust (lower) their standards. This is how we get fawning reviews of inconceivably atrocious shit like The Fabelmans and Top Gun: Maverick. Those movies are true embarrassments and it speaks to our decadent age – which is indicative of an empire in steep decay and decline, that they are held up as wondrous cinematic achievements.

To be clear, this past year was better than the previous year, but that’s sort of like being proud that you’re the tallest midget in the freak show.

What is so unnerving about the recent decline in cinema is that it was just four short years ago, in 2019, when cinema seemed to be in tremendous shape. That year we had a truly phenomenal film, Parasite, win Best Picture, beating out an array of interesting and well-made movies for the honor. Among them The Irishman, Joker, Ford v Ferrari, 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Any one of those film would be the run-away Best Picture winner this year.

But since the heights of 2019 we’ve been inundated with garbage. The low point being when Coda, an absolutely ridiculous, Hall Mark Channel level movie, won Best Picture last year.

The problem is not that bad movies win Oscars, that’s been going on time immemorial. No, the problem is that there’s no movies to get angry over for not having been recognized or honored. When Coda won last year, I just shrugged because I had no dog in the fight.

P.T. Anderson had a film, Licorice Pizza, competing against Coda, and he is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers so it would’ve been nice if he won but truthfully, Licorice Pizza wasn’t any good and I wasn’t going to pretend it was…so I didn’t care.

The same is true this year. There’s no movie that I think stands out that it would be a crime if it was overlooked.

Yes, I liked All Quiet on the Western Front and The Banshees of Inisherin, but I just liked them, not loved them. They are flawed but “enjoyable” movies, so I’m not going into Oscar night yearning for their recognition.

The ugly truth is that I am so indifferent to the Oscars this year, and have become so disenchanted with cinema, that I’m not even going to watch the ceremony, which will be a first for me in my adulthood. The reality is that I have much better things to do, sleep definitely among them, than watch a delusional industry give shitty movies awards for excellence.

That said, I will still fill out my Oscar picks and compete in my Oscar pool, which I have won for a record 34 years in a row. Will I continue my astonishing streak? Probably, but not because I have any clue who will win the awards but more because my competitors care even less than me so they have no clue.

Ok…so there’s my sad tale of disillusionment and disenchantment. Now let’s get on to my Oscar picks and put this terrible year in movies behind once and for all.

BEST PICTURE

Tar – A very flawed but fascinating character study that features the best scene of the year but also the worst third act.

The Fabelmans – An utter embarrassment of a movie. Is the cinematic equivalent of Spielberg soiling himself in public.

Everything Everywhere All at Once – A mildly interesting, pretty trite popcorn movie that has no business being nominated, nevermind the odds-on favorite.

All Quiet on the Western Front – A visually stirring anti-war epic when we need an anti-war epic most. Is the best made movie of the bunch.

Women Talking – This is a bad movie.

Triangle of Sadness – An ambitious and audacious social satire that is actually smarter than it appears at first glance.

Avatar the Way of Water – a big, blue billion-dollar behemoth that is almost instantly forgettable.

Top Gun Maverick – People’s love for this pile of poop astonishes me. It’s like people know it’s awful yet love it for its awfulness.

Elvis – An absurd piece of junk.

Banshees of Inisherin – A flawed but fascinating study of Irish masculinity.

This seems pretty set in stone…but I guess there’s a miniscule chance of an upset, which if it occurs would be All Quiet winning or maybe, maybe Tar.

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front/Banshees of Inisherin

Will Win: Everything Everywhere All At Once

BEST ACTOR

Austin Butler – Elvis – The kid is good as Elvis, really good. But it feels more like a lived-in imitation than a piece of acting.

Brendan Fraser – The Whale – The dirty little secret is that Fraser isn’t acting particularly well under that fat suit.

Colin Farrell – Banshees of Inisherin – Farrell has matured into a terrific actor and his work here is intricate and detailed.

Paul Mescal – Aftersun – I don’t get the hype over this kid.

Bill Nighy – Living – Nighy is great in general but I’ve not seen this movie.

This is one of the more up in the air awards of the night. A lot of people have Fraser winning but I just think there’s a ground swell for Austin Butler.

Should Win: Colin Farrell

Will Win: Austin Butler

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett – Tar – Blanchett is the best actress of her generation and absolutely crushes it in this movie.

Michelle Yeoh – EEAAO – She’s…fine.

Ana de Armas – Blonde – Starring in torture porn is tough work, but the reality is that Ana de Armas shouldn’t have been playing Marylin.

Andrea Riseborough – To Leslie – I like Andrea Riseborough but like the rest of the human race I’ve not seen this movie.

Michelle Williams – The Fabelmans – Williams is an at times pleasant actress but she is truly atrocious in The Fabelmans. This is bad. Really bad.

It seems the tide has turned against Blanchett and in favor of Yeoh. What can you do?

Should Win: Cate Blanchett

Will Win: Michelle Yeoh

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Brendan Gleeson – Banshees of Inisherin – Gleeson is an outstanding actor and he is terrific in this.

Barry Keoghan – Banshees – Keoghan is a little uneven in this role but he does bring it all together in the second best scene in the year in cinema.

Brian Tyree Henry – Causeway – This is a joke. This movie stunk and Henry wasn’t very good in it.

Judd Hirsch – The Fabelmans – A bloated cameo of dubious quality.

Ke Huy Quan – EEAAO – I never thought Quan could be as good as he is in this movie. A really remarkable performance.

Should Win: Gleeson, Keoghan, Quan

Will Win: Quan

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Angela Bassett – Wakanda Forever – I don’t get it. This movie stinks and she is not good in it.

Hong Chau – The Whale – Another head-shaker…Chau was much better in The Menu than in this.

Kerry Condon – Banshees of Inisherin – A terrific and layered performance that perfectly captures the hell of Irish womanhood.

Jamie Lee Curtis – EEAAO – I actually really liked Curtis in this role.

Stephanie Hsu – EEAAO – I thought Hsu was ok.

It seemed like Angela Bassett was going to run away with it but the tide has turned in Jamie Lee’s favor.

Should Win: Kerry Condon

Will Win: Jamie Lee Curtis

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Banshees of Insherin – Terrific screenplay.

EEAAO – The film’s underlying philosophy is trite but it’s a sprawling story that eventually works.

The Fabelmans – This is junk. A dreadful script makes a dreadful movie.

Tar – A great forst two acts are scuttled by a rushed and unearned third act.

Triangle of Sadness – This script is fantastic.

This is sort of interesting as The Fabelmans may win because the Academy wants to reward Spielberg for his truly shitty autobiography. That said, I still think that EEAAO wins.

Should Win: Banshees of Inisherin

Will Win: Everything Everywhere All At Once

 ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

All Quiet on the Western Front – Not perfect but overall well executed.

Glass Onion – identical twins? Oh please. This script is dogshit.

Living – Haven’t seen it.

Top Gun Maverick – This is a joke.

Women Talking – Brutal.

The academy want to reward a woman and Sarah Polley fits the bill with her egregiously awful Woman Talking script.

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Will Win: Women Talking

BEST DIRECTOR

Martin McDonagh – Banshees of Inisherin – Nice to see McDonagh bounce back from the shit that was Three Billboards.

The Daniels – EEAAO – Not great but they somewhat pulled off an ambitious idea.

Steven Spielberg – The Fabelmans – This movie stinks so bad it shocked me that Spielberg released it.

Todd Field – Tar – Well directed but loses its grip in the third act.

Ruben Ostland – Triangle of Sadness – Shockingly well directed movie that in lesser hands would’ve been an absolute mess.

Should Win: Martin McDonagh

Will Win: The Daniels

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

All Quiet on the Western Front

Argentina, 1985

Close

EO

The Quiet Girl

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Puss in Boots

The Sea Beast

Seeing Red

Should Win: Pinocchio

Will Win: Pinocchio – This is a terrific movie, one of the best of the year.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

All That Breathes

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Fire of Love

A House Made of Splinters

Navalny

Will Win: Navalny – Just feels like the academy will want to signal its virtue by thumbing their nose at the supposed Hitler du jour Vladimir Putin. How brave.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

The Elephant Whisperers

Haulout

How Do You Measure a Year

The Martha Mitchell Effect

Stranger at the Gate

Will Win: Elephant Whisperers

LIVE ACTION SHORT

An irish Goodbye

Ivalu

Le pupille

Night Ride

The Red Suitcase

WILL WIN: Le pupille

ANIMATED SHORT

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

The Flying Sailor

Ice Merchants

My Year of Dicks

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It

Will Win: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

ORIGINAL SCORE

All Quiet on the Western Front

Babylon

The Banshees of Inisherin

EEAAO

The Fabelmans

Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front – The score of this film is crucial in setting the ominous and unsettling mood.

ORIGINAL SONG

Applause – Tell it Like a Woman

Hold My Hand - Top Gun Maverick

Lift Me Up - Wakanda Forever

Naatu Naatu - RRR

This is Life - EEAAO

Will Win: Naatu Naatu

PRODUCTION DESIGN

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar The Way of Water

Babylon

Elvis

The Fabelmans

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Will Win: Elvis – This is the type of movie that the Oscars reward.

BEST SOUND

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar the Way of Water

The Batman

Elvis

Top Gun Maverick

Will Win: Top Gun Maverick – This feels like the Academy throwing this fan favorite a bone.

 CINEMATOGRAPHY

All Quiet on the Western Front

Bardo

Elvis

Empire of Light

Tar

Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front – Easily the best cinematography of the year.

COSTUME DESIGN

Babylon

Wakanda Forever

Elvis

EEAAO

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris

Will Win: Elvis – There’s a chance that Wakanda Forever or Babylon win, but it seems like Elvis will do well in these types of categories.

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLE

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Batman

Wakanda Forever

Elvis

The Whale

Will Win: ElvisWakanda Forever is a real possibility but again, Elvis is adored for stuff like this.

FILM EDITING

Banshees of Inisherin

Elvis

EEAAO

Tar

Top Gun Maverick

Will Win: EEAAO – I actually thought the editing (or lack thereof) was one of the worst parts of EEAAO, but what the hell do I know?

VISUAL EFFECTS

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar The Way of Water

The Batman

Wakanda Forever

Top Gun Maverick

Will Win: Avatar the Way of Water – This is a bone thrown to big Jim Cameron for his money printing machine.

And thus concludes my Oscar picks. God willing every Oscar winner gets slapped on stage this year. If that happens then I promise I’ll actually watch the show next year. A man can dream.

©2023

Life and Beth (Hulu): TV Review

LIFE AND BETH

10 EPISODE SERIES ON HULU STARRING AMY SCHUMER

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT.

I like Amy Schumer…or at least I liked her 2013-2016 Comedy Central sketch comedy show Inside Amy Schumer, which was a clever knock-off version of Dave Chappelle’s Comedy Central show Chappelle’s Show, which ran from 2003-2006.

Unfortunately, since the initial success of Inside Amy Schumer, Schumer’s comedy has gone precipitously downhill and she has devolved into being little more than a parody of herself.

For example, in 2015 she wrote and starred in Trainwreck, which was directed by Judd Apatow, who was the big comedy director/producer of the time, which was meant to catapult her into the upper echelons of Hollywood and the public consciousness.

But a funny thing happened on the way to comedy stardom, or not-so-funny as the case may be…Trainwreck, ironically enough, was a trainwreck. Trainwreck was a distillation of all the worst things about Schumer but its most grievous sin was that it wasn’t even a little bit funny. To give an indication of how ill-suited Amy Schumer was for the big screen, former pro-wrestler John Cena comedically outshone her and was easily the funniest thing in the whole movie.

The climax of that film, where Amy dances seductively with cheerleaders in order to impress her boyfriend, is the cringiest of cringe for all the wrong reasons. What made Schumer interesting as a comedian was her bravado embrace of this heretofore somewhat anathema archetype of the party girl/disinterested slut. But Trainwreck reduced her to groveling to get the good guy, which obliterated the comedy archetype she had so masterfully embodied up to that point.

Since the failure of Trainwreck, Schumer has kicked around and done nothing of note except for some annoying tampon commercials.

But now in 2022…she’s back with her high-profile co-hosting job at the Oscars and Life and Beth, a series on Hulu.

To Schumer’s credit, of the three Oscar’s hosts this year she was the funniest, but that’s like being the tallest midget in the Lollipop Guild. This year’s Oscars will, of course, forever be remembered for Will Smith’s egregious slap, but I must admit that as I watched Life and Beth, I felt more and more empathetic with Will Smith as the urge to slap someone became overwhelming. I guess Amy Schumer just brings that out in people.

Life and Beth is one of those shows that you watch and don’t care about anyone in it, don’t care what happens and don’t want to keep watching but for some reason, usually mental/emotional/entertainment fatigue, you just keep watching it. It is a mind-numbingly narcissistic celebration of victimhood sad-sackery with nary a laugh to be found in the manure pile of endless ennui.

The show is ten episodes long, and each episode runs between 25 and 30 minutes, but they are the longest 25-30 minutes of your life. I pride myself on not checking to see how much time is left in movies or shows when I watch, but in a 25-minute Life and Beth episode I found myself checking three of four times how much was left to bear, and being shocked and dismayed at how much more I had to endure.

The story of the show is that Beth, played with a rote, dead-eyed indecisiveness by Amy Schumer, is a wine saleswoman in NYC in a dull and dour relationship with an absurd co-worker. Her relationships with her family are strained as she’s estranged from her father, her mother is a domineering nag and her sister avoids her.

Beth’s true narrative journey begins when her mother dies in a car accident and Beth is thrown into a storm of existential angst that leads her back to her Long Island childhood home (where she is haunted by poorly executed and casted flashbacks to her teen years) and falls for a local farmer, John (Michael Cena), who is somewhere on the autism spectrum…apparently the annoying part of it.

John is so repellent and Beth so repugnant, and Beth’s attraction to John is so lifeless, that their courtship is akin to watching two convicts assigned to the same prison cell try and figure out who gets the top bunk.

Beth’s character arc makes no sense and carries no dramatic weight because she doesn’t seem like a real person and none of her relationships, be it with her mother, sister, best friends, father or boyfriend, seem remotely authentic or genuine.

Comedians, like all damaged people, have a tendency to conflate and confuse pity with love. Schumer is no different, as she wants us to pity Beth thinking that means we love her. The problem is that Beth is so dull that she generates neither pity nor love. The only pity I felt was for myself for thinking I had to keep watching this banal drivel.  

Life and Beth is one of those shows that seems to be more interested in being diverse and inclusive than it is in being funny or interesting. The show boasts a plethora of minority characters, including Murray Hill as Murray, Beth’s transgender boss, but the diversity feels painfully forced. But to be fair, the manufactured feel of the inclusivity could be a function and extension of the show being comedically anemic and devoid of humor.

The one thing I did find amusing throughout the show was a piece of purely unintentional comedy hiding in plain sight, namely, whoever dressed Amy Schumer had a wonderful sense of humor, but I’m afraid Amy wasn’t in on the joke. Nearly every outfit Beth wears, is a God-awful embarrassment, unflattering to the extreme, that accentuates the very worst of her features.

Schumer’s wardrobe is so atrocious that it reminded of an acting coaching client I once had, a very accomplished actress and truly beautiful woman, who scored a prominent guest spot on a highly popular tv show. On the show, they dressed her in what may be the ugliest sweater in the history of clothing. This puffy, fuzzy sweater with a giant triangle attached on one shoulder, was a crime against humanity, an absolute abomination, so much so that my client’s manager refused to use her terrific performance on her reel because the aggressive ugliness of the sweater overpowered her acting and would repulse casting directors. Nearly everything Amy Schumer wears in Life and Beth is the equivalent of that sweater.

Amy Schumer’s wardrobe aside, Life and Beth is not funny…at all. If you wanted to check it out just to see if there’s a laugh or two, don’t waste your time because, trust me, there isn’t.

If you’re looking for laughs go into the vault and watch Inside Amy Schumer, and remember a time when she was bawdy, ballsy and brash and best of all…funny. It seems like such a long, long time ago.

©2022

The Cuckold vs the Comedian - The 2022 Oscars Round Up

THE OSCARS NEEDED A KICK IN THE ASS…BUT GOT A SLAP IN THE FACE

Well, the Academy Awards happened last night and I need to apologize to readers for being so wrong on my Oscar prediction post. I ended that post by writing, “In ten years, no one will remember CODA. In five years, no one will remember CODA. In a year, no one will remember CODA. And by Monday morning, no one will remember these Academy Awards.”

Boy was I wrong. CODA didn’t need a year to be totally forgotten as it’s already out of mind just 24 hours after winning Best Picture because these Oscars were rendered unforgettable due to “The Slap”.

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, Will Smith got up and bitch-slapped Chris Rock on-stage at the Oscars after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife Jada and her bald head. After the slap, Smith sat in his seat and yelled to Rock that he needed to “keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth”.

Watching it live it first felt like a comedy bit, but then it became clear it wasn’t, which made it easily the most compelling moment at the Oscars in my lifetime.

HOW DO THE OSCARS SUCK? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

The fact that this was one of the all-time awful Oscar telecasts leading up to, and then after, that bitch-slap, should come as no surprise. As a rule, the Academy Awards generally suck, but this year the Oscars turned up the suck to 11.

Speaking of sucking, the opening for the show was a pre-taped performance from Beyonce at a tennis court in Compton. Beyonce’s status as some sort of entertainment Queen amuses me no end as she is a middling talent at best, and her Oscar opening performance was excessively anemic and the song relentlessly bad.

After Beyonce’s video, the three hosts, Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes came out and stumbled through some half-hearted, hackneyed attempts at humor. The comedy throughout all fell flat, which was a recurring theme of the evening.

Equally awful were the live musical numbers, which, good lord, can we stop with the fucking musical numbers. No one wants to see or hear that garbage. It is always awful. Always.

The most alarming thing about the Oscars, besides the bitch-slapping, was the egregious directing of the show. The camera would often cut to audience members responding to things on-stage that viewers at home had not been shown. And there were technical gaffes, like cutting to the Williams sisters during Will Smith’s speech, which resulted in extended periods of time with nothing but an Oscar logo on-screen, which were catastrophic.

Speaking of catastrophes, poor Liza Minnelli was wheeled out near the end of the show with Lady Gaga to give an award. Liza is wheelchair bound and cognitively not all there. I don’t say this to demean her, but she never should’ve been on that stage, it wasn’t fair to her. It was incredibly uncomfortable watching her ramble and babble on in utter confusion in front of millions of viewers. Lady Gaga was very gentle with her and handled the situation gracefully, but neither woman should’ve been put in such an awkward position.

OSCAR THE TERRIBLE

The overall theme of the show seemed to be how can the Academy Awards be as unlikable as possible? With raging mediocrities like CODA winning Best Picture, Will Smith winning Best Actor, and Jane Campion winning Best Director, the core cinephile audience was bound to feel letdown and betrayed. With the hosts and award-recipients reflexively and relentlessly signaling their virtue by pushing some insipid political-cultural agenda that was so vapid as to be embarrassing, wider audiences must have felt like the Academy Awards were actively trying to alienate anyone not all in on woke cultural issues. Not exactly a great strategy to build or maintain an audience.

THE CUCKOLD VS THE COMEDIAN

As for the Will Smith – Chris Rock brouhaha, I have some thoughts.

First off, I completely understand the impulse to crack somebody in the head for no other reason than they deserve it. In Will Smith’s eyes, Chris Rock deserved it. That said, in the real world you can’t just smack somebody because they said something you don’t like. You know why? Because that is a crime called assault. Violence is bad. Condoning it is bad too.

And here is another point to consider, and that is that Smith was wise to slap Rock and not punch him, because punching someone can have catastrophic medical and legal results even if not intended. You can kill somebody with a single punch, it happens far more frequently than you’d think.  

I have to say I do find it curious that Smith was so emotionally overwhelmed and out of control that he hit someone on national television, but was conscious enough to hit with an open hand and not a fist.

Another curious thing is that video evidence shows Will Smith laughing uproariously at the same joke that ultimately inspired him to commit assault on national television.

KING CUCK

Adding to the oddity is that Will Smith is a public cuckold, as his wife Jada has stated that she, in fact, repeatedly had sex with her son Jaden’s friend August Alsina, during their marriage. Classy. Apparently and conveniently, Jada then convinced Will to make their marriage “open”. Host Regina Hall actually made a joke about Will and Jada’s “open relationship” early in the show but for some reason that didn’t send Will into an uncontrollable rage at all.

The truth is that Will Smith has always been, and will always be, an incorrigible douche-bag and mealy-mouth twat. He’s no man defending his wife from slander, he’s a hyper-sensitive cuck lashing out at his own emasculation.

Smith is as full of shit as anyone in Hollywood, which is really saying something, and his antics at the Oscars would’ve gotten any other actors expelled from the ceremony. Imagine if Mel Gibson had done that. He would’ve been expelled and arrested.

My hope is that now that Smith has revealed himself to be an asshole, and he has finally gotten his Oscar, that he can please go away forever, but of course he won’t.

Will Smith is a shitty actor, shitty rapper, shitty father, shitty husband, shitty person. His wife Jada is a deplorable human being, his kids are blights on the earth. The Smiths are a collection of the most malignant, noxious narcissists imaginable.  

HYPOCRITES AND THE FORKED TONGUE OF A MAN-CHILD

Smith’s speech after the assault sickened me too. The hypocrites in the audience clapped for this clown after he assaulted somebody in public and said that God called him to be a vessel for peace and love. Will Smith should’ve been grabbed by security and escorted off of the premises, not cheered as he wept during his insipid Oscar speech.

Look, as I said, I understand the impulse to beat the hell out of somebody, hell, I’d like to beat the hell out of Will Smith for making such awful movies and such putrid music, but I wouldn’t do that because I’m a grown man who understands the dangers of violence and its consequences. Will Smith is a 53-year-old, grown man too, he should know better. He’s not a child, he’s not some teenager or twenty-something under the sway of an over-abundance of testosterone and weak impulse control. He’s a grown man. If a grown man is going to hit somebody, it better be a life and death situation, not a hurt feelings situation.

The reality is that Will Smith isn’t a man at all. He’s never been a man and he’ll never be a man. A real man wouldn’t get his panties in a bunch over a joke and sucker-punch somebody he knew wouldn’t hit him back. It was a despicable and disgusting thing to do.

BETWEEN CHRIS ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

As bad as all this is for Will Smith, it’s much worse for Chris Rock.

Rock made a living walking around with big balls on the comedy stage, and now he’s been castrated on live television. After the slapping, when Will is yelling to “keep my wife’s name out your mouth”, Rock responded, “I will”. So weak, so terribly, terribly weak.

I get that Rock was shocked and that’s why he didn’t defend himself or retaliate, but with the verbal lashing he was receiving, it’s unconscionable that Rock didn’t just double-down and start trash talking Jada and talking about how Will is a cuck. He should’ve said that Will hit his cheek almost as hard as August Alsina hit Jada’s ass…or something along those lines. You have to respond, and if Will gets up again, good…then you know he’s coming and you defend yourself. Chris Rock grew up in Brooklyn, I’m sure he has a lot of experience in defending himself.

Rock was once the best comedian on the planet, but for two decades now he’s been a shadow of his former self. And it is difficult to imagine him bouncing back from this incident without a massive verbal counter attack in public.

Rock’s already shaken confidence must be shattered, but if he wants to make lemonade out of these lemons, he needs to put a scathing set together where he skewers himself for his cowardice, but then lambastes Will, Jada and the rest of the Smith’s for their heinousness. Call Will a cuck, Jada a whore, Jaden a dandy and Willow a tramp…do whatever you can to stick the knife in and twist it. It’s the only way he can ever hope to get his mojo…and his balls…back.

And if it works, then you get a $20 million deal with Netflix for the comedy special and you get your balls and street credibility back.

‘A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE’

As for Will Smith’s impact on the Oscars, it's uncomfortable to mention this but after years of complaints about #OscarsSoWhite, this year it was a very diverse show with a black producer, two of three hosts being black women, three of four acting winners being minorities, a female Best Director winner for the third time ever, and yet Will Smith committed black-on-black crime on national television and reduced the once prestigious Oscars to little more than the Source awards with higher production value. Not good a look for anyone involved.

On the bright side, I did win my Oscar pool getting a respectable 19 out of 23 categories correct. On the down side, I had to watch the Oscars, which was a truly dreadful experience.

The big takeaway from this year’s Academy Awards is that the Oscars are over, not just for this year, but really forever. They are now utterly meaningless. And as much as it breaks my heart to say it, I fear cinema is fast becoming irrelevant as well.

JUMPING SHARKS

In conclusion, I saw today that someone on Twitter wrote, “Will Smith committed a violent crime, took no responsibility, and then blamed it on his feelings. Perfect encapsulation of our times.”

Someone else said to me this morning, “it doesn’t just feel like the Oscars jumped the shark last night, it feels like civilization and the species itself jumped the shark last night too.”

I wholly concur with both assessments.

 

©2022

94th Academy Awards: 2022 Oscar Prediction Post

So, the Academy Awards are once again upon us and once again no one gives a rat’s ass.

With my ear to the Hollywood ground the one thing that comes across very loudly is overwhelming silence and the over-abundance of indifference. It wasn’t always like this. Just a few years ago I remember Tinsel Town and its inhabitants being abuzz with Oscar talk, but no more.

The Academy has made major changes to its membership in the last few years, dumping older, whiter, male voters, in favor of a certainly more diverse, but also considerably less accomplished group of people. The results have been mixed at best.

The ratings for the show have consistently declined, but blaming that on the new Academy members is a stretch since the ratings have been declining for a decade.

Unfortunately, the Academy, and the changes it made, are just a reflection of the overall decline of film’s relevance in our culture. The movie industry is currently neck-deep in a self-defeating transformation that rewards identity tokenism and marginalizes craft, skill and talent. The current steep decline in cinema is a direct result of the of studios being more concerned with diversity and inclusion than with quality…and that is only going to get worse going forward. The Oscars reflect the current state of the movie industry by reducing their awards to merely being some sort of victimhood/identity Olympics, and not a celebration of the greatest in cinematic artistry.

This year’s Academy Awards are a perfect example. The ten films nominated for Best Picture are, frankly, all pretty forgettable if not fucking awful. The best among them are, at best, raging mediocrities.

Speaking of raging mediocrities, the hosts for the show, the first hosts in three years, Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall, are another sign of the terrible times, as they’re a trio of half-wit has-beens and anonymous nobodies who would need to make quite a leap to hit the promised land of mediocrity.

Not a soul on the planet will tune in to specifically watch Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and that other lady I’ve never heard of, just like no one will tune in to see if the egregiously over-rated The Power of the Dog wins Best Picture.

No matter which film wins Best Picture, and the two favorites are The Power of the Dog and CODA, this ceremony and the ultimate winner of it will be almost instantaneously forgotten. If The Power of the Dog wins it will not be remembered kindly by history because history will, like the rest of humanity, ignore it.

If CODA wins it will easily be the worst film to ever win Best Picture, and history will mark this year as the unofficial end of the Oscars as any sort of cultural landmark. I guess that would be apropos since it would coincide with the end of the American Empire.

As for my power of prognostication regarding the Oscars, I used to be much better than I am now. For years I won every Oscar pool I entered and that was because the Academy members were so reliably predictable in their picks. Now, with the new Academy, I am less Nostradamus and more Nostradoofus.

Despite knowing some Academy members, and talking to lots of film industry people across the board and up and down the income scale, I still have no insight as to how the new Academy will vote. I know how they think, which is frightening, but am not even remotely sure how they’ll vote.

In other words, at this point I’m just guessing. But I’m confident I’ll still win my Oscar pools just because irrational confidence is a learned trait I’ve yet to discard.

With all of that said, here are my picks for the 94th Academy Awards.

Best Cinematography

  •  The Power of the Dog – A female cinematographer is too much for the identity obsessed Academy to pass up, so The Power of the Dog eeks out a win over the visually impressive Dune.

Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Visual Effects

  •  Dune - Wins all of these and has a big night in the technical and below-the-line categories.

Best Hair and Makeup

  •  The Eyes of Tammy Faye – Again…I’m guessing but feels about right.

Best Costume

  •  Cruella – There’s a chance Dune wins this one too but I think Cruella takes the prize as it is the most dramatically fashionable costuming of all the nominees.

Best Documentary Short

  •  The Queen of Basketball – I only chose this because Steph Curry and Shaq are producers on the film and Hollywood loves them some NBA star power.

Best Live Action Short

  • The Long Goodbye – Riz Ahmed is involved in this film and again, Hollywood likes star power.

Best Animated Short

  • Robin Robin- It has famous people in it, so I figure it will win.

Best Documentary

  • Summer of Soul – Seems about right.

Best Supporting Actress

This seems set in stone. Ariana DeBose is going to win and maybe rightfully so. I thought she was the lone dynamic presence is Spielberg’s moribund musical retread.

Jessie Buckley – The Lost Daughter

*Ariana DeBoseWest Side Story

Judi DenchBelfast

Kirsten DunstThe Power of the Dog

Aunjanue EllisKing Richard

Best Supporting Actor

Quite a mixed bag in this category, but the tea leaves say Troy Kotsur will beat out Kodi Smit-McPhee. I think CODA is garbage, and all due respect to Kotsur, I don’t think he’s very good in that bad film. But what the hell do I know?

Ciaran Hinds – Belfast

*Troy Kotsur – CODA

Jesse Plemons – The Power of the Dog

J.K. Simmons – Being the Ricardos

Kodi Smit-McPhee - The Power of the Dog

Best Original Screenplay

I think this is going to be a weird category. PT Anderson is a genius but Licorice Pizza is not even remotely his best work. The old Academy would’ve awarded Kenneth Branagh for Belfast…and I think the new Academy does the same exact thing because they don’t know who else to reward so they choose the actor Branagh. Don’t count out PT Anderson though…he’s got a legit shot. If Don’t Look Up wins, and it’s got a legit chance, then hopefully a meteor will immediately hit earth and put us all out of our misery.

*Belfast

Don’t Look Up

King Richard

Licorice Pizza

The Worst Person in the World

Best Adapted Screenplay

Tight category with potential winners being CODA, Drive My Car, The Power of the Dog and The Lost Daughter. I think The Lost Daughter wins because it’s written by Maggie Gyllenhaal and she’s very popular and has campaigned hard for it. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s a woman and the Academy is shooting for a #GirlPower Oscars this year. If this goes to either CODA or The Power of the Dog that will pretty much indicate that movie will win Best Picture too.

CODA

Drive My Car

Dune

*The Lost Daughter

The Power of the Dog

Animated Feature

I’ve not seen any of these movies and really don’t care but everyone I know who has seen any of them raves about Encanto, so I think it wins here…but Flee is intriguing because it’s nominated in three categories, and maybe it’ll sneak out a win here or in documentary.

*Encanto

Flee

Luca

The Mitchells vs the Machines

Raya and the Last Dragon

Best International Feature Film

Drive My Car is the foreign film that has generated the most buzz for the longest period of time. I think it wins as its only real competition is The Worst Person in the World, but that movie seems to have gotten slow out of the gate and might not have enough time to catch up to Drive My Car, which I pick to win.

*Drive My Car

Flee

The Hand of God

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

The Worst Person in the World

Best Actor

The middling Will Smith is the odds-on favorite for his middling performance in the middling King Richard. I think he wins going away, but keep an eye out for a huge upset like we had last year with Anthony Hopkins beating out presumed winner Chadwick Boseman, as the middling Benedict Cumberbatch could sneak in there and shock the world with his equally middling performance as a middling gay cowboy in the middling The Power of the Dog.

Javier Bardem – Being the Ricardos

Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog

Andrew Garfield – Tick, Tick…Boom!

*Will Smith – King Richard

Denzel Washington – The Tragedy of MacBeth

Best Actress

Easily the toughest category of the night. I think Jessica Chastain, who has campaigned hard for the award, finally wins an Oscar. Olivia Colman has a legit chance to win, but since she already has an Oscar, I think it goes to Chastain. Outside chance that Penelope Cruz takes the prize.

*Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter

Penelope Cruz – Parallel Mothers

Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos

Kristen Stewart – Spencer

Best Director

This is no contest as Jane Campion is going to win due to the identity politics of it all. I think The Power of the Dog is not a good movie, but to be fair, I don’t think any of these movies are great.

Kenneth Branagh – Belfast

Ryusuke Hamaguchi – Drive My Car

Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza

*Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog

Steven Spielberg – West Side Story

Best Picture

Speaking of movies that aren’t great…ladies and gentleman, your 2021 Best Picture nominees!

Belfast

*CODA

Don’t Look Up

Drive My Car

Dune

King Richard

Licorice Pizza

Nightmare Alley

 The Power of the Dog

West Side Story

Yikes. Of these ten films, none of them are great, not even close. A few are ok, and a bunch are just plain shitty.

Both presumed front-runners, CODA and The Power of the Dog are bad movies. CODA is a joke as it’s basically a Hallmark Channel movie and it has no place being nominated. The Power of the Dog is over-rated, arthouse fool’s gold.

Belfast is a tame bit of maudlin movie-making, Don’t Look Up is a scattered diatribe, King Richard is the epitome of middle-brow mundanity, West Side Story is needless and lifeless.

Drive My Car and Dune are well made but deeply-flawed dramas. Licorice Pizza is a light romp from a brooding genius, and Nightmare Alley is a dazzlingly dark journey no one wants to take.

If this is the best the film industry has to offer, then something is catastrophically wrong with the film industry.

Regardless of all that, it seems to me that, as insane as it sounds, CODA, the worst, most amateurishly produced Oscar nominated film in living memory, is going to beat out The Power of the Dog, and win Best Picture.

 In ten years, no one will remember CODA. In five years, no one will remember CODA. In a year, no one will remember CODA. And by Monday morning, no one will remember these Academy Awards.

 Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

 

©2022

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 63 - The Power of the Dog

On this episode, Barry and I put on our ten gallon hats, chaps and cowboy boots to discuss director Jane Campion's Oscar front-running anti-Western, The Power of the Dog. Topics discussed include toxic masculinity, Benedict Cumberbatch's lack of masculinity, and the state of the CODA v The Power of the Dog Oscar race.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 63 - The Power of the Dog

Thanks for listening!

©2022

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 60: Oscar Nominations 2022

On this episode, Barry and I pontificate on the upcoming Oscars and this week's premier of The Batman. Topics discussed include the sorry state of cinema, the thankless job of hosting the Oscars, and cautious optimism over The Batman.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 60: Oscar Nominations 2022

Thanks for listening!

©2022

The Academy Awards New Diversity and Inclusion Rules do not do Enough to Purge Hollywood of the Evil of Straight White Men

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 13 seconds

If Hollywood wants to become a true woke utopia, it should follow my guidelines to rid itself of the plague of white men.

The Academy Awards have set stringent new diversity guidelines to which all films must adhere by 2024 if they want to be considered for the prestigious Best Picture award.

The new guidelines require films to meet on screen representation standards where at least one of the lead actors or a significant supporting actor must be either Asian, Hispanic, black, Indigenous, Native American, Middle Eastern, North African, native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

Cinephiles can sleep well knowing that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s movies will still be eligible for Best Picture.

If a film doesn’t meet the actor requirement then it can still pass the test by having representation from those same minority groups along with women, LGBTQ and people with cognitive or physical disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing represented in acceptable numbers behind the scenes on the crew, in apprenticeships or internships or in executive positions.

The bottom line is basically if you are a straight white guy in Hollywood you’ve just been served notice that your skill and talents are only needed for as long as it takes to train your female or minority replacement.

As someone who has long felt that hiring people based on their talent and skill was a devout evil, I for one welcome our new diversity and inclusion overlords and want to let them know that as a straight white male I could be useful in sniffing out other straight white men in Hollywood trying to scheme their way into being considered a worthy minority.

La La Land being La La Land I’m sure there are a plethora of desperados already strategizing on how to circumvent these new rules that will make Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug look like pikers.

As of right now the Academy is saying that the new standards will be enforced by “spot checks” on set….but I am deeply concerned that those “spot checks” won’t be strenuous enough to rid the movie industry of the damned straight white male menace that plagues it.

I have a few proposals to help strengthen inclusion enforcement and assure diversity compliance.

1. I think Academy Gestapo, oops, I mean enforcement officers, should be armed with a standard color chart where they can hold up the color card next to a person and see if their skin color matches the “right” (aka non-white) tone to be allowed to work on a movie. If someone is too light skinned they can immediately be escorted off of the set and counselors can be brought in to soothe the traumatized left in the white male devil’s wake.

2. In order to ensure that no white men ever slip through the cracks, I also propose a partnership between the DNA testing company 23 and Me and the Academy Awards. Everyone working on every movie must be forced to give a DNA test in order to prove their ethnic or racial heritage.

And let’s be clear, we want pure minorities…none of this “my mother is black and Latina and my father is Asian and white” business because that still means the curse of whiteness is coursing through their veins. Any drop of white blood in a person should be unacceptable in Hollywood.

It will also be L.A. law that everyone must carry their DNA papers with them at all times. Failure to have your papers will result in immediate expulsion from the movie industry.

The 23 and Me results could actually become a fun part of Oscar night where an envelop is opened on stage revealing the film with the most diversity, which is then declared Best Picture. I think we can all agree this is how Best Picture should always be determined, not by the antiquated measure of artistic quality and worth.

3. One troubling diversity and inclusion loophole is that some deplorable straight white male could claim to be gay, thus qualifying as a minority. Let it be known throughout Hollywood that just using unorthodox pronouns like They/Them or Ze/Zir will not be enough to prove minority status!

I am sure there is some enterprising young man or selfless older male studio executive out here in Tinsel Town who’d be willing to advance his standing in the Academy by doing special intimacy examinations, preferably on camera, to see if these white men are “gay enough” to be allowed to work.

Obviously the Academy should hire me as a turncoat consultant, but if they don’t I’m already getting deviously entrepreneurial by hoarding hearing aids that I can rent out on the white market for $200/a day to other straight white men so that they can claim to be “hard of hearing” just to keep their grueling gigs as gaffers.

My sincere wish is that Hollywood succeeds in curing itself of its straight white male pandemic. Straight white men, be they Martin Scorsese, Daniel Day-Lewis or regular working Joes, have stained cinema with their straight white maleness for long enough.

Somewhere there is a deaf, transgender Indigenous actor signing the phrase, “Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up!” Let’s hope these new diversity and inclusion rules make They/Them into the biggest star in the universe and the dream of a woke Hollywood utopia relentlessly churning out cinematic mediocrity into a reality.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 7- Joker

This week we dive into the 2020 Best Picture Nominee Joker.  We go deep and wide on the film, its influences, impact on cinema and why it is such a polarizing movie.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA PODCAST EPISODE 7 - JOKER

or check us out at iTunes.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA PODCAST EPISODE 7 - JOKER

Thanks for listening!

Do You Believe in Miracles? Parasites Shocking and Glorious Upset Win at the Oscars

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 37 seconds

The 92nd Oscars were a chaotic and turbulent train wreck, until Parasite shocked the world and won Best Picture.

In 1980 the overwhelming underdog U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey beat the juggernaut Soviet Union 4-3 in the semifinal game of the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. As a result of this improbable win, dubbed the Miracle on Ice, the rag tag U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.

When the final seconds of the Miracle on Ice ticked down the play-by-play announcer Al Michaels gave his now iconic call of “Do you believe in miracles?”

It is a shame Al Michaels wasn’t doing the play-by-play for the Oscars last night…as the heavy favorite and presumed winner, 1917, went down hard in defeat to the Korean film Parasite, not only in the Best Picture race but also in Best Director. Parasite became the first foreign language film to ever win Best Picture. Do you believe in miracles?

The irony of Parasite’s completely unpredictable victory is that the Oscar show itself, was a predictably scattershot mess.

The show dragged on for three hours and thirty-one interminable minutes.  Renee Zellweger’s Best Actress acceptance speech alone took up three hours and twenty minutes. Do you believe in miracles? It would be a miracle if Renee wasn’t still talking over at the Dolby theatre right now, rambling on as she named all the people that are heroes in the world…one by one.

The show opened with a very disjointed musical number by singer and actress Janelle Monae who was pretending to be Mr. Rodgers. Monae had a mild wardrobe malfunction where her blouse was accidentally unbuttoned in front of her breasts and she couldn’t get her coat off and Mr. Rodger’s sweater on. Welcome to the Oscars everybody!

After that the evening was chock full of the same stereotypical politically correct posing and pandering we’ve come to expect from Hollywood on its big night…all of which was greeted with unabashed adoration by the audience in the echo chamber that is the Dolby theatre.

A plethora of stars and award winners, including Best Supporting Actor winner Brad Pitt, trotted out a variety of political and social complaints that were all too familiar. Among the buzzwords that made appearances were ”representation”, “inclusion” and “diversity”.

Another one of the night’s big topics was women’s issues.

There were proclamations from stars Brie Larson, Gal Gadot and Sigourney Weaver that all women are superheroes, and that it is tiresome and maybe misogynistic for women to have to keep answering the question of “what is it like to be a woman in Hollywood?”

I wonder, would Larson, Gadot and Weaver also complain if no one asked them what it was like to be a woman in Hollywood? Do you believe in miracles? Well, it would be a miracle if the answer is anything other than yes.

As the evening wore on the show became more and more unintelligible. Eminem performed a song to pay homage to how songs are used in movies sometimes. Greta Thurnberg showed up in a film clip. Some guy I have never heard of who was dressed like a waiter at a moderately priced suburban restaurant did a rap that summarized the night. A group of foreign women sang some terrible song from Frozen 2 with Idina Menzel for some inexplicable reason.  It would be a miracle if any of these things made any sense.

As the night wore on and on and on…things became more and more unhinged. A highlight was Joaquin Phoenix’s entirely expected win for Best Actor, and his acceptance speech was…well…something else.

Phoenix is a weird dude, and his speech fantastically on brand. That is not to say that he didn’t make some valid and profound points.

For instance, Phoenix was the only speaker of the entire evening who had the courage to not tell the Dolby audience what it wanted to hear. In fact, Joaquin took the audience to task and talked about cancel culture and how destructive it is. Between referencing artificially inseminating a cow and stealing its calf and milk, he also said that he and the other people in that room had a tendency to think of themselves as the center of the universe. What?! Do you believe in miracles, indeed!

Then, after having won earlier for Best Original Screenplay, Bong Joon-ho won for Best Director and Al Michaels was in my head whispering about believing in miracles.

The Oscars rarely get anything right but Bong winning Best Director is a shockingly fantastic turn of events as Parasite is impeccably directed and most worthy.

And then Best Picture was up and I was ready to throw my shoe at the television when the middle-brow 1917 won, but then Parasite was announced and I was yelling like Al Michaels in my living room “Do you believe in miracles!”

And then during Parasite’s producer’s acceptance speech the Dolby Theatre house lights went down and in response the audience chanted for them to be turned back on…and they were! And I believed even more in miracles.

And then Jane Fonda did one pump fake, then another and then another…and then the greatest miracle of all occurred and she finally and officially ended the 92nd Oscars. And then I really believed in miracles!

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

92nd Academy Awards: The 2020 Oscars Prediction Post

THIS IS NOT A BETTING GUIDE. THE OSCARS ARE SACRED AND ANYONE WHO DARES GAMBLE ON THEM IS GOING TO STRAIGHT TO HELL!

The Oscars are once again upon us.

Man’s distant descendants crawled out of the primordial ooze millions of years ago and began the arduous journey to the apex of their evolution…which is Oscar night.

The Oscars are like a Presidential election, Royal coronation, Papal conclave and public execution all at once. It is majestic, glorious, somber and gratuitously gruesome…and that’s why we love it more than life itself.

This has been a particularly good year for cinema, which translates into it being a frustratingly bad year at the Oscars, as the Academy will no doubt over look greatness in favor of blandness.

So sit back, buckle up and let’s take a deep dive into my 2020 Oscar predictions!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Kathy Bates - Richard Jewell : My patience with Clint Eastwood movies has worn perilously thin…so I have not seen Richard Jewell. Kathy Bates is terrific actress though so I assume she’s good in it.

Laura Dern - Marriage Story : The praise Dern is getting for this performance is baffling. Not only is she not great in this movie, she is actively bad. This performance feels so contrived and mannered to me.

Scarlett Johansson - Jojo Rabbit : I really like ScarJo as an actress but I have to say that I found her grating in this role. It is not all her fault as the writing is paper thin but boy oh boy did this performance not work for me.

Florence Pugh - Little Women : I have not seen Little Women…I know, I know…I am a terrible human being. That said, Florence Pugh is undeniably one of the best young actresses working in cinema.

Margot Robbie - Bombshell : I have a screener of Bombshell but just have never found the time to watch it. Margot Robbie is an actress I usually admire a great deal so I have little doubt she does solid work here.

WHO SHOULD WIN - None of the Above. This is an abysmal year for female performances. The one I thought should win…Margot Robbie in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…wasn’t nominated.

WHO WILL WIN - Laura Dern. This is set in stone. Dern is well-liked and respected in Hollywood and this is one of those “it’s her turn” awards.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Tom Hanks - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood : I haven’t seen this movie…and have no interest in seeing this movie. But here is a hot take for you…and I’ve been saying this for a long time. Tom Hanks is not that great of an actor. Yes…I agree…I am a horrible human being.

Anthony Hopkins - The Two Popes : Hopkins is fantastic in this movie as he gives Pope Benedict a humanity that has never been evident in real life.

Al Pacino - The Irishman : Pacino has ocassionally spiraled into self-parody in his later years, but his turn as Jimmy Hoffa is fantastic. He brings a palpable sense of self-destructive tenacity to a role that would have been farce in any other hands.

Joe Pesci - The Irishman : Pesci’s self-contained yet vibrant work as mobster Russell Buffalino is among the very best of his stellar career.

Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood : Pitt goes full on movie star while, ironically, playing second fiddle to a fading movie star. I have yet to meet a women who hasn’t swooned when Pitt goes shirtless on the roof to fix an antenna. This is as charismatic and magnetic as Pitt has ever been…and that’s saying something.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Pacino and Pesci technically do the best work in this category. While they have very different parts, they both do supremely subtle and complex work. That said, Pitt also is spectacular in his less complicated but very dynamic role. It would be fine if any of the three won.

WHO WILL WIN - Brad Pitt. Pitt is a lock to win this thing as he turned in a glorious movie star performance and has kept it up with his speeches in at other awards shows. Pitt is well liked and has worked hard to be respected out here in Hollywood…his victory will be roundly cheered, including in my home.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Knives Out - Rian Johnson : This movie and this script are utter horseshit. Awful.

Marriage Story - Noah Baumbach : A narcissistic and vapid script.

1917 - Sam Mendes : This script could have been written on the back of a napkin…and probably was.

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino : Tarantino is a great director…he is an even better writer. A crisp and crackling script that is astonishing for its brilliance.

Parasite - Bong Joon-ho : An absolutely fantastic script filled with genuine human characters, profound political and social insights and a plethora of entertaining twists and turns.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Quentin Tarantino…with Bing Joon-ho a distant second

WHO WILL WIN - This is a very tough category as Mendes may win this as part of the 1917 Oscar tsunami…but I am actually going to go upset with Quentin Tarantino.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Irishman - Steve Zaillian : Yes the movie is long…but Zaillian’s script is pretty tight considering the vast swath of history it covers.

Jojo Rabbit - Taika Waititi : I thought the script was a weak point in this uneven film.

Joker - Todd Phillips : A masterful script that turns comic book intellectual property into dizzying social commentary.

Little Women - Greta Gerwig : I haven’t seen the film or read the book…yes…I agree…I must be a misogynist.

The Two Popes - Anthony McCarten : this is a very well crafted script (that was scuttled by very poor direction) that was able to create context and complex characters all at the same time…not a common feat.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Zaillian or Phillips. Both scripts are truly inspired pieces of work.

WHO WILL WIN - This is another tough one. In some ways I think Gerwig has the edge as the Academy wants to reward women…but I also think that a lot of Academy members think the Little Women script is not very good. Jojo Rabbit isn’t very good either…but I may be in the minority in that belief. Coin flip…my pick is…Greta Gerwig.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Irishman - Rodrigo Prieto : A beautifully and subtly photographed movie.

Joker - Lawrence Sher : Sher’s work is the most profound of the bunch as he came from nowhere to produce one of the most visually intriguing movies of the year.

The Lighthouse - Jarin Blaschke : Nice black and white and some inventive use of aspect ratio…but he stands no chance.

1917 - Roger Deakins : The master. One of the greatest of all-time…and 1917 is a major flex.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Robert Richardson ; Richardson is one of my favorite cinematographers of all time. His work here is absolutely stellar.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Deakins is a god and his victory is well earned but I actually think Lawrence Sher also deserves to win here.

WHO WILL WIN - Deakins by a mile. 1917 is really his movie and it is going to clean up at the Oscars this year. Nice to see Deakins get his second award after being left at the altar so many times.

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Corpus Christi - Poland : I haven’t seen it…and yes…I am sure that makes me a Pole-phobe.

Honeyland - North Macedonia : I haven’t seen it…and yes…I loathe North Macedonia…I’m a South Macedonia fan…GO SOUTHIE!!

Les Miserables - France : Not a great movie and certainly not worthy of an Oscar nomination.

Pain and Glory - Spain : Almodovar is a terrific filmmaker, and I enjoyed this movie on a certain level as it was his most quiet and reflective work I can remember.

Parasite - South Korea : A stunningly great piece of film making.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Parasite.

WHO WILL WIN - Parasite.

BEST DIRECTOR

Martin Scorsese - The Irishman : Scorsese is Scorsese…little else need be said, but I’ll say something anyway. This movie, bad old man face altering aside, is a fantastic piece of work.

Todd Phillips - Joker : Phillips made the The hangover movies…what the hell is he doing at the Oscars. Well…he belongs after making one of the very best and most insightful films of the year.

Sam Mendes - 1917 : Mendes is about to win his second Best Director Oscar and he has no business even having one, nevermind being in the rarified air of two.

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood : This film may very well be Tarantino’s best…and his direction on it is superb.

Bong Joon-ho - Parasite : Technically as well directed a movie as I have seen in years. Magnificent.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Tarantino is due…and deserving but will get passed over again. Phillips and Bong Joon-ho are also more than deserving but will be left in the dust.

WHO WILL WIN - Mendes. Sam Mendes is literally the only director in this group who SHOULDN’T win the award…which means he is going home with another Oscar. Awful.

BEST ACTRESS

Cynthia Erivo - Harriet : Haven’t seen the movie…you know what that means…

Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story : ScarJo is actively awful in this dreadful movie.

Saoirse Ronan - Little Women : Haven’t seen it, but i think Ronan is a phenomenal actress.

Charlize Theron - Bombshell : Haven’t seen it but I hear Theron is good.

Renee Zellweger - Judy : I, along with every other human being on the planet, have not seen this movie…i wonder…does that make me a homophobe?

WHO SHOULD WIN - Shrug…no idea.

WHO WILL WIN - Zellweger. For some reason this has been a lock from day one. If there is an upset I think it is ScarJo winning for Marriage Story…but I don’t think that will happen.

BEST ACTOR

Antonio Banderas - Pain and Glory : Banderas does the best work of his not so great career in this film.

Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood : Leo has had one hell of a career and he isn’t even 50 yet…and his work as Rick Dalton is the very best acting in a leading role he has ever done. Truly fantastic.

Adam Driver - Marriage Story : The mystery continues. I don’t get it. I don’t get it here or anywhere else. I just don’t get it. How is this dopey mother fucker a thing? How?

Joaquin Phoenix - Joker : Transcedant performance from the greatest actor of his generation.

Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes : Pryce is a pro and he brings all of his skills and craft to bear in an impressive piece of work.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Phoenix (but Leo is astounding). He should have won for The Master…but now he gets his due.

WHO WILL WIN - Phoenix. Discussion over.

BEST PICTURE

Ford v Ferrari - I really enjoyed this film and am glad it was nominated. In some other years it could have been a real contender.

The Irishman - This is a late period Scorsese masterpiece and a sterling piece of work.

Jojo Rabbit - At times brilliantly funny in a Mel Brooks-ian type of way, but not an Oscar worthy film at all.

Joker - A staggering piece of work that is remarkably profound and terrifyingly insightful.

Little Women - There are women and they are little. Why hasn’t anyone made this movie before?

Marriage Story - An over-rated, bad stage play of a movie. This thing is just God-awful.

1917 - This is juicy Oscar bait for the older Anglophile Academy members who adore these sort of morally simple war movies.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Tremendous, stupendous and glorious. A masterwork from a master writer/director. Everything a movie should be.

Parasite - Sublime direction and a sterling cast combined with a terrific script make for an electrifying cinematic experience.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Joker/Once Upon a Time - Both films are masterpieces in their own right and both deserve recognition for their artistry.

WHO WILL WIN - 1917. 1917 is going to dominate this year’s Oscars. That is depressing news but it is true. It is depressing because there are so many films much more worthy of attention and adoration that 1917. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Joker, Parasite and The Irishman would all be worthy champions but they won’t get the chance.

If there is an big upset in this category it will either come from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Parasite. I tend to think Once Upon a Time has a better chance than Parasite to sneak in for the win…but what the hell do i know?

THE BEST OF THE REST

My best guesses…

Visual Effects - Lion King - If 1917 wins this then it is going to win big all night.

Makeup and Hairstyling - Bombshell

Animated Short - Hair Love

Live Action Short - Brotherhood

Documentary Short - Learning to Skateboard

Sound Mixing - 1917 : If this doesn’t win than maybe the night won’t be as predictable as I worry it will be. Ford v Ferrari could pull the upset. If Once Upon a Time wins…LOOK OUT! That could mean a big night for Tarantino!

Sound Editing - 1917 : Same exact scenario as above in sound mixing.

Costume Design - Once Upon a Time

Production Design - Once Upon a Time : If 1917 wins here then it will clean up across the awards.

Film Editing : Ford v Ferarri : If Parasite wins here it could portend a big night for the foreign film…and maybe a Best Director or Best Screenplay or even a Best Picture victory.

Original Score : Joker - If 1917 wins here, a distinct possibility, it may be a long night.

Original Song : Rocketman - The Academy likes stars and Elton John is a star.

Documentary Feature - American Factory : It is possible that Sama or Honeyland sneak in for the win, but I think the fact that Obama produced American Factory will put it over the top. The Academy likes stars after all.

Animated Feature - Toy Story 4 - An outside chance that Klaus wins but i think familiarity pushes Toy Story to victory.

POTENTIAL NARRATIVES

1. 1917 dominates - This is the most likely scenario as it seems to be the default pick for Academy members in most categories. Could win in screenplay and editing and is the odds on favorite to win in director and picture and definitely will win in cinematography. If it wins in the sound and design categories than the blowout is on.

2. Once Upon a Time upset - it is unlikely but the film could go on a run and win screenplay, director and picture while winning a bunch of under the line awards too. Look to the sound awards as a bellwether…if it wins there than it has a shot to upset the 1917 apple cart in the big time awards like director and picture.

3. Parasite upset - It is within the realm of possibility that Parasite wins screenplay and sneaks in to win either director or picture. Long shot but possible. keep an eye on the editing award…if it wins there than it has a legit shot to upset in major categories…if it doesn’t win in editing…game over.

4. Joker shocks the world! - Highly unlikely but remotely possible that Joker goes on a miraculous run and ends up with a bevy of awards including picture and/or director. Again…the longest of long shots. if it wins in costume, makeup and editing…then hold tight because we are in for a wondrously bumpy Oscar night.

5. Splits - The most likely shockers would be a split ticket with 1917 winning picture and Tarantino or Bong winning director. It is possible for a reverse of that with Parasite or Once Upon a Time winning picture and Mendes winning director…but that is less likely than the reverse.

©2020

You're Welcome World! Academy Awards Courageously Save Earth From Global Warming

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 31 seconds

Hollywood has been averting doomsday scenarios in movies for decades - but now the Oscars are serious about it, brandishing a ‘sustainable’ plant-based menu for the cream of the virtue-signaling celebrity crowd.

Hollywood has an extended and rich history of depicting mankind in peril from various existential threats.

If you recall, it was Hollywood that showed us the nefarious nature of robots, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Skynet and their T-1000 killer robot minions (that speak with a strange Austrian accent for no apparent reason) in the Terminator franchise, and the dead-eyed evil of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network.

Hollywood also raised the red flag concerning the threat from other worlds. Alien, Signs, War of the Worlds and Independence Day are among the many films that show what will happen when E.T. phones home and his dastardly reinforcements arrive to even the score.

Hollywood’s most accurate depiction of humanity’s inevitable destruction was shown to us in the various Planet of the Apes films. Watch the news long enough and you will surely stumble across some supposedly heart-warming story of an ape learning sign language….but don’t be fooled, that Helen Keller wannabe mini-Kong is a stepping-stone to mankind’s slavery under brutal ape overlords. I guarantee you that if enough of these monkey bastards learn to sign we will all end up wearing leashes and loin cloths and yelling at some descendant of Harambe to “take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”

Which brings us to global warming…oops…I mean climate change, that scary storytelling device Hollywood adores. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm and Al Gore’s Oscar winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth have told the all too frighteningly real story of the climate crisis and how it will impact mankind.

Hollywood has taught us that climate change will inescapably lead to a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max type of world where we must wage endless resource wars that include some pretty spectacular car chase battles with Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy, in order to survive.

Thankfully though, the Academy Awards, showcase of Hollywood’s best and brightest, has solved the climate crisis and eradicated it forever as a threat to humanity.

What is the Academy Award’s plan to stop the climate crisis? Well the noble geniuses at the Oscars have declared that instead of serving meat-based foods at their annual luncheon for nominees and in the theatre lobby on the night of the awards, they will instead serve only plant-based foods!!

Take that climate change! Go straight to hell global warming!! Way to kick ass Oscar and you are very welcome Mother Earth!

To be fair, the Oscars weren’t the first to come up with this ingenious plan, as it is the same plan the Golden Globes put into effect at their most recent awards show in early in January. After seeing the tremendous impact the Golden Globes magical vegetarian menu had on the earth over the last month, it is nice to see the Oscars deciding to double down on the effort.

The impact of the vegan Oscar menu is impossible to over estimate. It seems extremely likely to me that by serving Tinseltown’s elite vegetables instead of chicken, not only will the Academy Awards halt global warming but also bring about world peace and maybe even end the scourge of physical ugliness so prevalent in non-famous regular people.

Just imagine how much better earth and all of its inhabitants will feel when self-satisfied movie stars fly to Los Angeles from across the globe in their private jets and then cruise in their first world limousines past the hordes of homeless that literally litter every nook and cranny of third world La La Land, and then go to an Oscars ceremony with its plant based menu which these stars won’t eat anyway because they’re fasting so they look thin for photographs in their glamorous outfits. A complex problem like climate change doesn’t stand a chance in the face of that kind of total sacrifice and complete commitment.

I personally think serving a mostly vegan menu at an awards show is so much better for the environment than say, living a simple and sustainable life, or refusing to do any business with carbon based energy companies, or better yet, divesting from one of the worst degraders of the environment, The Pentagon, and deciding to stop being the propaganda wing for American Empire.

How about this Hollywood… instead of self-congratulatory awards nonsense why don’t the Academy Awards have a full and healthy menu, but as an alternative to serving it to narcissistic actors who won’t eat it because they don’t want to look bloated in photos, take it into the streets of Los Angeles where 60,000 poor, tired and ill homeless people struggle to find access to clean water, food and sanitation as they scratch out an existence in tent cities beneath nearly every underpass and in every open space in the city. Maybe then the Oscar’s plant-based menu would make an actual difference in the real world instead of just in the delusional minds of self-centered eco-poseurs.

I’m just kidding…let them eat cake!! Just as long as it is an environmentally sustainable and 100% vegan cake!

Speaking of the Academy Awards, “and the Oscar for Best Faux Eco-Friendly Virtue Signaling goes to…”

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

91st Academy Awards: The 2019 Oscars Prediction Post

Estimated Reading Time: Just Like the Oscar Ceremony this article will last 4 hours and 38 minutes

As every sentient being on the earth, in the solar system, in the galaxy and in the universe knows, this Sunday night is the biggest night in the history of history. Yes, Oscar night is upon us. Ever since a loathsome but determined little creature crawled out of the primordial ooze, that creature has been making its way to this Sunday night, which will be, after billions of years of evolution, symbolic of the apex in human development. When most impossibly beautiful people gather to congratulate one another for their superiority, be it artistic, moral or both, mankind will officially have made the Kubrickian leap from fighting monkeys to star children.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is my church, movies are my religion and the Oscars my high holy days. I have been fasting and meditating for months to prepare for this most sacred of nights…and to hopefully fit into my gown by Karl Lagerfeld (RIP)!!

This has been an awful year for Hollywood movies and I have to admit that this years Oscars are particularly difficult to predict. Since the “New Academy”, formed in the wake of the ridiculous #OscarsSoWhite controversy three years ago, I have yet to figure out with any confidence or certainty how these new members and the old guard come together to form some sort of consensus. Obviously identity politics, diversity and inclusion are important issues to the new members…but how important? And how much has the old guard either embraced these issues out of solidarity or rejected them out of resistance? The answer of course is…I have no idea.

But will my ignorance stop me from making not just humble predictions but bold and assertive declarations of my Oscar picks? No. No it won’t. As long time readers can attest, not having a clue on a subject has never, ever stopped me from loudly pontificating my less than useful opinion…and that is most definitely true when it comes to the Oscars.

So with that in mind…light some incense, spike the holy water and buckle up because the most holy and most sacred Oscars are here. Like the Israelites in Moses’ absence, we must worship the golden calf of the Oscar statuette, for it may bring us salvation!! But please keep in mind that since the Oscars are a religious holiday…please no wagering.

So here are my picks for the 91st Academy Awards…

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams - Vice : Amy Adams has had a great career garnering 6 Oscar nominations. Adams’ portrayal of Lynne Cheney is the best performance of her stellar career, which is saying a lot.

Marina de Tavira - Roma : I loved Roma…but I have no idea why Marina de Tavira is nominated. Her role is so small and unremarkable that I am entirely baffled as to why she is here.

Regina King - If Beale Street Could Talk : Regina King is a fine actress but If Beale Street Could Talk is not a fine film and her work in it is just as underwhelming as the movie.

Emma Stone - The Favourite : The Favourite is proof that Emma Stone keeps getting better and better with each year. Stone’s manipulative social climber is a finely-tuned, sexy and charismatic performance that is a testament to her skill and talent.

Rachel Weisz - The Favourite : Weisz’s immovable object meeting Stone’s irressistable force makes The Favourite one of my favorites. Weisz’s masterful use of physicality in this role is something that actors should study closely.

Who Should Win - Amy Adams : Amy Adams first scene in Vice is so good as to be delicious and sets the stage for her powerhouse performance. Adams deftly turns Lynne Cheney into a formidable Lady MacBeth that is the straw that stirs the drink of Darth Cheney’s career. A truly great performance from one of the best actresses working in film today.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY : The Academy’s push for diversity clearly gives the edge here to Regina King over Marina de Tavira because for some reason diversity, at least in the eyes of the New Academy, only relates to Black people.

WHO WILL WIN - Regina King : King’s work is strikingly inferior when compared to Adams, Stone and Weisz, but she will walk away with the Oscar due to the Academy’s yearning to be “inclusive” and to quell any charges similar to the #OscarsSoWhite nonsense from a few years back.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mahershala Ali - Green Book : Ali does strong work as Dr. Don Shirley, the Black, gay, effete (and upper class) pianist struggling to survive in a decidedly hostile 1960’s world. Ali makes Shirley a genuine human being and uses his formidable skill to masterfully avoid falling into the easy trap of caricature.

Adam Driver - BlackKklansman : Adam Driver is…fine…in Spike Lee’s racial drama set in 1970’s Colorado. I didn’t think the performance was Oscar worthy…but what the hell do I know. It isn’t awful…but it isn’t great either. To be fair, I am entirely baffled as to why Adam Driver is a thing…I just don’t get it.

Sam Elliott - A Star is Born : I think you have to love Sam Elliot to love A Star is Born or love A Star is Born to love Sam Elliot. I love neither.

Richard E. Grant - Can You Ever Forgive Me: This is not a great movie…but Richard E. Grant is great in it. Grant turns what could have been a stereotype into a fascinating, frustrating and engaging character that captivates every second of his screen time.

Sam Rockwell - Vice : Rockwell gives his dim bulb character George W. Bush a desperate yearning for acceptance and respect that is genuine and compelling and shows an exquisite command of craft in avoiding the pitfall of imitation.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Mahershala Ali/Richard E. Grant - Both men give stand out performances that highlight their mastery of craft and undeniable talent. A win for either will not garner complaints from me.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY - The New Academy will want to reward Ali, who won the award just two years ago for his work in Moonlight, for no other reason than he is African-American in order to satiate the knee-jerk #OscarsSoWhite criticisms. That said, Ali’s award for Moonlight could actually hurt him this year as the Academy may feel they don’t NEED to award him since he already has one.

WHO WILL WIN - Richard E. Grant : Mahershala Ali has won all the preceding awards and is the favorite, but I am sensing that this will be the first upset/surprise of the evening. Grant has been on a charm offensive recently and with my ear to the ground I am picking up a great deal of support for him. Another factor helping Grant is that Mahershala Ali won the award two years ago and the actor’s actor, Grant, has never won it.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Favourite - Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara : A tight and smart script that plumbs the depths of palace intrigue to create a darkly funny and insightful story. The dialogue is exceedingly smart, funny and crisp.

First Reformed - Paul Schrader : Paul Schrader is one of the great screenwriters in Hollywood history, having written both Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. First Reformed is a better script than it is a movie, which is both an indictment of Schrader’s directing and an endorsement of his writing.

Green Book - Nick Vallelonga and Peter Farrelly: This average script was elevated by Farrelly’s skilled direction, and with the addition of the controversy surrounding the writers, I don’t think it will win. If it does…this is going to be a very interesting Oscars indeed…and a very controversial one too.

Roma - Alfonso Cuaron : A phenomenal script in terms of the themes it tackles and the scope of its narrative. Cuaron’s singular vision starts with his script and this one is chock full of magical realism mixed with working class reality. A truly terrific piece of screenwriting.

Vice - Adam McKay : I felt this script bit off more than it could chew, lacked focus and was structurally flawed. Definitely could have used a few more re-writes and edits to fine tune the whole thing.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Roma/The Favourite - Two high quality scripts that were exceedingly well written. An Oscar for either and you’ll hear no complaints from me. If Alfonso Cuaron wins this award…expect Roma to have a very, very, very big night.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: With no “diverse/inclusive” candidates to choose from (the New Academy doesn’t count Mexican men as diverse/inclusive for some reason), the New Academy will only work in the negative here by cutting Green Book off at the knees. Vallelonga and Farrelly have made enemies among the New Academy for their less than politically correct behavior and will be punished accordingly.

WHO WILL WIN: The Favourite : While I’d like to see Roma sweep the entire awards ceremony, I think voters hold a grudge against the film because it is a Netflix movie and it is foreign, the former of which will particularly hurt it in this category since the dialogue is in Spanish and Mextec. The Favourite is certainly deserving of an Oscar though as it is a beautifully written movie.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - The Coen Brothers - I have seen Buster Scruggs but have not reviewed it. I enjoyed it. I don’t think this script deserves a nomination though.

BlacKkKlansman - Spike Lee and friends - This was a good movie, but I do not think it deserves a nomination for its script. Spike Lee has written some masterworks in the past, Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, but this is not his strongest work.

Can You Ever Forgive Me - Nicole Holofcener - I thought this script and this film was pretty shitty as it never figured out what it wanted to be and ended up being not much.

If Beale Street Could Talk - Barry Jenkins - Again…a bad script and an at-best average movie. The story and characters did not translate well at all from James Baldwin’s book.

A Star is Born - Bradley Cooper and friends - This script was a piece of junk too. God what an awful category. How is modernizing a movie that has been made three times before considered Oscar worthy?

WHO SHOULD WIN: BlackKklansman : As I said, I don’t think this is an Oscar worthy script…but this category is pretty terrible so this movie wins the tallest dwarf award.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: Well, obviously the New Academy want to reward either Spike Lee or Barry Jenkins due to their race. Nicole Holfcener is another sleeper pick because she is a woman. The fact that Jenkins won this award two years ago, and Lee has never won and has never been properly awarded in his entire career, and his film was so politically charged for this moment in time, I think the New Academy goes with Lee.

WHO WILL WIN: BlackKklansman : Spike Lee finally gets the Oscar he deserves but only for a script that is undeserving.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Cold War - Lukasz Zal: Zal’s use of black and white and his framing in Cold War is impeccable and stunning. A beautifully photographed film whose cinematography was integral to the storytelling.

The Favourite - Robbie Ryan: Ryan’s use of candles, shadow and light is exquisite in The Favourite and is a wonderful cinematic device that reveals much of the sub-text.

Never Look Away - Caleb Deschanel: I found Deschanel’s work on this film to be less than Oscar worthy. Not terrible at all, but just not noteworthy.

Roma - Alfonso Cuaron : Cuaron puts on a virtuoso performance with Roma, and his cinematography is the icing on this cinematic cake. A stunning film to behold, Cuaron’s use of black and white and his extremely effective and complex camera movements and beautifully rendered framing is simply magnificent.

A Star is Born - Matthew Libatique : I found Libatique’s cinematography, with its excessive use of flares and close-ups, to be as underwhelming as the film.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Roma - Roma is a cinematic masterpiece and Cuaron’s cinematography is absolute artistic and technical perfection.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: Since the New Academy doesn’t recognize Mexican men as qualifying for their diversity/inclusion games, then this category offers no chance to virtue signal.

WHO WINS: Roma - Alfonso Cuaron: This is a tough category where virtually anyone can win. The knock against Cuaron is that the Academy, for a variety of reasons, do not want him to win all the awards. In this category cinematographers and other behind the camera technical people will resent Cuaron a bit for being a director AND a cinematographer…this stuff can be very territorial. A sign of that was when Lukasz Zal won this award at the American Society of Cinematographers Awards. Anyone can win this thing…and as much as I think the Academy has a bug up its ass over Cuaron and Netflix…I still think he sneaks out of here with this win. But if he loses it will be to Zal…who to be fair is a very deserving candidate as well.

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Capernaum - Due to time constraints, this is one of the few noteworthy films I haven’t seen this year…which bums me out. I hope to see it soon though.

Cold War - One of the best films of the year that boasts two outstanding performances and luscious black and white cinematography.

Never Look Away : An enigmatic movie that never quite lives up to its grandiose ambitions although it does raise something interesting thematic questions.

Roma - An absolute masterpiece that is as heartbreaking as it is gripping.

Shoplifters - An absolutely mesmerizing film that stayed with me for weeks on end after seeing it. Deftly directed and wonderfully acted, Shoplifters is an understated yet exquisite gem.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Roma - It is easily the best film of the year and should easily win this award.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: Roma hits all the right notes for New Academy voters but because it is a Netflix movie there is resistance to it.

WHO WILL WIN: Roma - There is an outside chance that the Netflix/Cuaron related backlash against Roma elevates Cold War to the victory. If that is the case, then this Oscar night will be turned upside down. I adored Cold War and it is one of the very best films of the year, but Roma is the best film, foreign or domestic, of the year, and if it doesn’t win here it will be a major upset.

BEST DIRECTOR

Alfonso Cuaron - Roma : Cuaron’s directing on Roma is a auteur’s virtuoso performance, a stunning tour-de-force that masterfully brings to life his vision with singular cinematic genius and reminds us of the power and artistry of cinema.

Yorgos Lanthimos - The Favourite : Lanthimos is one of the best directors in cinema and his masterful work on The Favourite has catapulted him to the heights he deserves.

Spike Lee - BlackKklansman : Spike Lee was once one of the most important figures in cinema, but that was over 25 years ago. Lee’s direction on BlackKklansman is not perfect and is at times jarringly shoddy, but in a down year for movies this one is a good enough comeback vehicle for him.

Adam McKay - Vice : I wanted to love Vice…I didn’t love Vice. McKay’s direction is scattered and uneven…a lot like this movie.

Pawel Pawlikowski - Cold War : Pawlikowski direction on Cold War is superb as he crafts a compelling and beautifully profound film that is packaged in a tight 88 minute running time.

WHO SHOULD WIN : Alfonso Cuaron - Not to sound like a broken record, but damn Cuaron showed himself to be at the very top of his game and at the top of his profession with his work on Roma.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: The New Academy want to reward Spike Lee for his career and his making an overtly political film this year that is a favorite of social justice warriors, and because he is Black which would feed their need to virtue signal. Once again, Alfonso Cuaron, a Mexican man, doesn’t qualify for the diversity vote…a fact which helps those arguing that the Oscars aren’t “inclusive” since Mexican men have won this award 5 of the last 6 years.

WHO WILL WIN: Alfonso Cuaron - Roma : There is a chance…and it is actually a pretty good chance…that the New Academy and its “diversity” initiatives rear their ugly head and Spike Lee wins this award. If Roma and Cuaron are getting beat in other categories like screenplay and cinematography, then watch out for Spike Lee sneaking in for the upset which would be a travesty. That said, I think Cuaron’s work, regardless of the fact that it was for Netflix, is so overwhelmingly spectacular that voters will find it nearly impossible to deny him this Oscar…but stranger things have happened.

BEST ACTRESS

Glenn Close -The Wife: The Wife is a truly dreadful film, just awful, and to be frank, Glenn Close is pretty terrible in it. That said, she has been nominated a bunch over her long career and never won. The consensus seems to be that it is her time.

Yalitza Aparicio - Roma : A first time actress nominated for an Oscar is a pretty great story. Aparicio is terrific in Roma, totally present, genuine, grounded and alive on screen. A pleasantly surprising but very well deserved nomination.

Olivia Colman - The Favourite: Olivia Colman’s scenery chewing performance as the emotionally incontinent Queen Anne, who has the attention-span and temperament of a toddler, is a joy to behold. Colman is deliriously and deliciously delightful in The Favourite and is most-deserving of her nomination and if it happens, the award.

Lady Gaga - A Star is Born: I don;t get it. I don’t get Gaga being nominated, I don’t get all the love this film gets. This movie is kind of a hot mess, and Gaga’s performance is most definitely not Oscar worthy.

Melissa McCarthy - Can You Ever Forgive Me : This movie stinks but Melissa McCarthy is a revelation as the curmudgeonly Lee Israel. McCarthy uses he natural comedic ability to great effect in this role but never allows it to overwhelm the dramatic honesty of her character.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Olivia Colman : Colman is so good in The Favourite it made me giddy. Just a ridiculously great performance that is compelling, energetic and devastatingly honest. I can’t wait to see Colman as Queen Elizabeth II on The Crown.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: Glenn Close made a smart move at the Golden Globes by giving a speech that spoke to the Girl Power/Pussy Hat contingent in the media and the New Academy. This speech positioned Close to be the recipient of the New Academy’s diversity/inclusivity vote even though she is a White woman. Well played Ms. Close.

WHO WILL WIN: Glenn Close - The Wife: As much as I want Olivia Colman to win this award, and as much as I think she deserves it, I think Glenn Close wins it because she is a symbol of the #ImWithHer/Hillary brigade due to her always being the bridesmaid and never the bride come Oscar night. The Academy will reward Close despite the shitty work she does in that shitty movie. Such is life. That said, I put the chances of Colman sneaking in and winning this thing pretty high…so don’t be too shocked if Close is left holding the bag once again…and try not to laugh too hard at her expense.

BEST ACTOR

Christian Bale - Vice: Bale’s work in Vice is absolutely stunning. His physical transformation into Dick Cheney never falls into the trap of imitation and that is a testament to Bale’s remarkable talent and skill.

Bradley Cooper - A Star is Born: Cooper’s work is the best thing about A Star is Born and I think he is deserving of an Oscar nomination even though i think the movie is not. Cooper is establishing himself as one of the top movie star/actors in the business. The next few years of his work will be interesting to see.

Willem Dafoe - At Eternity’s Gate : Dafoe’s acting in At Eternity’s Gate is very impressive, but the film never lives up to the stellar work he does in it.

Rami Malek - Bohemian Rhapsody : I like Rami Malek. Everybody likes Rami Malek…he’s a good guy. That said, I was not as impressed by his performance as everybody else was. To me the script was so thin that Malek was never really able to get much depth to his performance. That said, he does the very best he can with the little he is given.

Viggo Mortenson - Green Book : Green Book has gotten a lot of heat for its racial politics, but Mortenson’s solid performance is beyond reproach. Mortenson uses skill and craft to give great depth and nuance to a character that easily could have fallen into caricature.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Christian Bale - Bale is head and shoulders above everyone else in this category. A remarkable performance that elevates Bale into the stratosphere of best working actors on the planet.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: This category has no Black actors in it so it is open to moronic charges of #OscarsSoWhite. But rest assured, Rami Malek is of Egyptian descent so the New Academy will rally behind him and be able to virtue signal their moral superiority due to their embrace of “diversity”.

WHO WILL WIN: Rami Malek - Everybody loves Rami Malek. While his performance isn’t Oscar worthy to me, my vote doesn’t matter. Malek is winning and there is nothing we can do about it. Since he is such a good guy, I won’t get mad about it. I do hope he wears the Freddie teeth to the ceremony though…or at least thanks them in his speech.

BEST PICTURE

Green Book - Green Book is a well crafted and fine film. Is it Oscar worthy? No. If this were 1985 then Green Book would win this award with ease…but this isn’t 1985. This sort of simple film is a lightning rod for those who hate it AND for those that hate the people who hate it. To be frank, I find all this shit exhausting.

Black Panther - It is a total joke that Black Panther, an at best middling super hero movie that isn’t even the best super hero movie of the year (which is easily Infinity War), is nominated for an Oscar. Black Panther is the recipient of the “leg up” program, and its nomination is a blatant piece of pandering and paternalism and is frankly a disgrace.

BlackKklansman - I liked this movie but it is deeply flawed and because of that do not think it is Oscar worthy. That said, due to Spike Lee directing, it is a sentimental and political choice for some.

Roma - The greatest film of the year. A masterpiece.

Bohemian Rhapsody - This movie is an absolute mess, a total shitshow. Yes, it is entertaining and fun to get see Queen rocking Wembley once again…but Oscar worthy? Good Lord no!

A Star is Born - I don’t get it…I just don’t get it. Thought this movie was not great…not great at all. Why people are so invested in it is beyond me.

Vice - An ambitious (and noble) misfire that boasts fantastic performances but never coalesces into a coherent piece of cinema enough to be considered an Oscar worthy movie.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Roma - This is as clear as day. Roma is easily the greatest film of the year and it isn’t even close.

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: I think Black Panther is going to get an awful lot of love for its diversity and inclusivity.

WHO WILL WIN: Buckle up. Roma should win…but in the shock of the night…BLACK PANTHER is going to steal this award. Roma has a lot of hurdles in the voting, the most obvious is that it is a black and white, foreign language film, and a foreign language film has never won Best Picture…and on top of that it is a Netflix film and the movie industry is very uncomfortable with Netflix. The Academy doesn’t want Roma to win Best Picture (or sweep all the awards) and is actively trying to find a substitute…and what I have picked up out here in Hollywood is that Black Panther is that choice. Listening to and talking with Oscar voters over the last month and Black Panther is the film that keeps getting mentioned…and never because people think it is great but because to a person they say they will vote for it because of the message it will send about “representation”, “diversity” and “inclusion”. Sadly, this is the world in which we now live, and Black Panther, that ridiculously shitty super hero movie, is going to beat out one one of the greatest films in recent history, Roma, because of a wave of self-righteous, identity politics driven virtue signalling.

Hopefully I am wrong (Please God let me be wrong!!). Hopefully Roma is justly rewarded, not just in the Best Picture category but in Screenplay, Cinematography, Directing and Foreign Picture…but I don’t have my hopes up.

As for the rest of the categories…I have even less of an idea about these than I do about the previous picks…so take them with a grain of salt as they are my best guesses.

VISUAL EFFECTS - FIRST MAN : If Infinity War wins this award it could signal the Academy’s acceptance of Marvel films and point to a big night for Black Panther.

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING - VICE

ANIMATED SHORT - BAO

LIVE ACTION SHORT - SKIN

DOCUMENTARY SHORT - PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE.

SOUND MIXING - FIRST MAN - Bohemian Rhapsody has a shot here, but the one to watch is Black Panther, which if it wins this award could point to a big night for the Marvel film.

SOUND EDITING - FIRST MAN - Same comment as the Sound Mixing award.

COSTUME DESIGN - BLACK PANTHER - If BP loses these next two awards to The Favourite…then it is done and won’t win Best Picture. (I have my fingers crossed this is what happens!!)

PRODUCTION DESGIN - BLACK PANTHER

FILM EDITING - VICE - Bohemian Rhapsody has a shot here.

ORIGINAL SCORE - BLACKKKLANSMAN - Black Panther is the favorite…but I think the Academy rewards Terence Blanchard…which will make me happy. But if BP wins this…and the Design awards and Sound Awards…look out…Best Picture is coming.

ORIGINAL SONG - “SHALLOW”, A STAR IS BORN - Outside chance BP and Kendrick Lamar wins this award.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - RBG - This is neck and neck with Free Solo, but I went with RBG because of the politics.

ANIMATED FEATURE - SPIDER-MAN : INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

Ok gang…I think I covered all the categories. A few other things to touch upon before I go. Keep an eye out for certain narratives taking shape in the early awards.

The narratives that are in play…

  1. Roma dominates - Roma has a chance to absolutely destroy these Oscars as the film has a legitimate chance to win Best Picture, Best Foreign Film, Best Director and Best Cinematography and has an outside chance to win Best Screenplay and Best Editing as well…and if the longest of longshots happens and Yalitza Aparicio wins Best Actress…that will signal Roma has had a totally and gloriously dominant night…and I will be the happiest man on earth….except for Alfonso Cuaron.

  2. Roma destroyed - There is also a chance that Roma, due to its affiliation with Netflix and its artistic pedigree, could get snubbed across the board. There is a scenario where voters don’t vote for it for Best Picture because they assume it will win Best Foreign Film, and then other voters don’t vote for it for best Foreign Film because they assume it will win Best Picture…and it ends up winning neither. This scenario is much much more likely than I would like to imagine…and that along with all of the cocaine I’ve been doing is keeping me awake nights. In addition, it is very possible that Spike Lee is chosen over Alfonso Cuaron for Best Director out of a sense of wanting to finally reward Lee for his career’s work. Then throw in a Best Cinematography win for Cold War (which won the Guild award) and there is a chance that Roma leaves empty handed. YIKES.

  3. Black Panther goes on a run. As noted above, I have Black Panther winning Costume and Production Design…and if that happens it will look very good for my prediction of a Best Picture win. If the movie wins Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and either Original Score or best Song in addition to the production awards…it will definitely win Best Picture. There is a shot that we are looking at an Oscars where Black Panther wins 7 awards…let that sink in for a minute.

  4. Black Panther gets shut out. Things could go this way if Black Panther loses to The Favourite in costume and production design. If Black Panther loses those awards it is done in the Best Picture race and we Roma fans can breath a sigh of relief. If BP loses in the production awards it will not win Song, Score or either Sound award and will leave empty handed. The fact that this is a Marvel/Disney film could be a hurdle that even its identity politics cannot overcome. We will see.

  5. Bohemian Rhapsody goes on a run. Bohemian Rhapsody is an awful movie but it did win the Editing Guild award and has a legit chance to win Best Sound Editing and Sound Mixing awards as well as the Best Editing award which would be a terrific night for the film. Add in Rami Malek’s guaranteed win for Best Actor and we are looking at 4 Oscars for this fun piece of crap.

  6. Chaos - A totally incoherent Oscars. In this scenario a non-Roma film wins Best Picture, Olivia Colman wins Best Actress, there are upsets in both Supporting actor categories as well as in Best Director and the Screenplay awards. Green Book ends up being a big winner.

  7. Non-chaos. All of the favorites win. Roma does well and everything goes according to plan with the other categories.

If you pay attention to the early awards you might be able to discern how the rest of the night is going to go…or not…who knows. This Oscars has me baffled and it shouldn’t because Roma is so clearly the best of this sad bunch in a very down year for Hollywood Cinema (foreign films excluded).

And thus ends my rambling and ragged Oscar predictions post. I have zero confidence in my picks and am genuinely concerned I will lose for Oscar pool for the first time in my life this year. That said, i do reserve the right to change my mind between now and the awards show. In a fit of cinema idealism I may discard my Oscar cynicism (Black Panther) and embrace my optimism and pick Roma to win because my heart tells me to…I’m just not sure my head will let me.

©2019

Thoughts on the Academy Awards

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 02 seconds

Well the Oscars are finally over, thank the Good Lord, and I thought I would share some very brief thoughts on the big night. 

- The Oscar telecast was awful…but it is ALWAYS awful. The show is ALWAYS too long, montages are ALWAYS moronic, and the comedy bits are ALWAYS idiotic. The Oscars are almost a parody of themselves at this point, and so the only thing that matters are the awards. I think they should actually expand the number of awards and have more technical awards and more in-depth filmmaking stuff like that…but I love cinema so I am probably in the minority on that. 

- Most of the speeches were fine this year. I enjoyed Sam Rockwell's, Allison Janney's, Gary Oldman's and Guillermo del Toro's speeches, and the editors and costume guy were good too. I admire people who are composed, graceful and grateful when they are accepting awards, which to me doesn't seem like a whole lot to ask. 

- I disliked Frances McDormand's speech a great deal. I thought McDormand came across as entirely graceless and ungrateful. I would tell Ms. McDormand to act like she's been there before because you know…she has been there before. Her demand that every female nominee stand up was playing to type and remarkably asinine and tiresome. The cry for people to demand "Inclusion Riders" was annoying as well. How about this, instead of demanding "inclusivity", "diversity" or "equality" in a cast and crew, why not demand straight up quality regardless of race or gender instead…what a novel idea!!

- Emma Stone's introduction of the Best Director category was equally graceless and repulsive. Stone said in effect, here are the four men and Greta Gerwig. It was a classless thing to do, especially considering the fact that she said it as an identity politics rallying cry but ignored the fact that Jordan Peele, one of only five African-American nominees ever in the category, and Guillermo del Toro, a Mexican immigrant, were among the male director nominees she insulted. Obviously, I find the identity politics horseshit to be so stupid and self-defeating as to be amazing, but the hypocrisy of people like Emma Stone is what makes it all even more daft. I wonder how Ms. Stone would've felt if last year at the Oscar's the presenter for her Best Actress award said, "Here are four White actresses and Ruth Negga". Probaby not so great. 

- As I expected, Kobe Bryant won Best Animated Short for his shitty tribute to himself, Dear Basketball. He got a huge ovation from the Oscar crowd, which proves that the #MeToo and Times Up stuff is all a big self-serving show. Go read about Kobe and the details of his rape case in Colorado, and how there were more women than just the one who came forward. Then watch the standing ovation he got Oscar night. The fact that Casey Affleck couldn't even show his face at this year's awards but Kobe is celebrated is insane. Hollywood is full of lying, hypocritical scumbags…but "Inclusion Rider!!" Yay!!!

- Jimmy Kimmel is not my cup of tea, but he is proficient at hosting the awards, and that is to his credit. If he could stop with the bits where he takes celebrities to meet regular people, then he'd be a much better host. 

- I was extremely pleased that The Shape of Water won Best Picture over Get Out, which I thought would win due to identity politics. The Shape of Water is a considerably heftier film than many of its Oscar critics would allow, and Get Out is a considerably more flimsy film than its Oscar critics would ever dare admit. 

- I was very pleased that an overrated sitcom of a movie like Lady Turd…oops, I mean Lady Bird, was shut out. It is always satisfying when the undeserving get what they truly deserve. Greta Gerwig is a media darling, but the reality is that she is not a good writer or director. Ms. Gerwig can fool some of the people, some of the time, but she can't fool everybody, all of the time. Time caught up with Ms. Gerwig and her underwhelming movie. 

- The ratings for the Oscars were apparently way down again this year, and in response there is a lot of talk of Black Panther getting nominated next year. This is absurd. If Black Panther is one of the ten best films of 2018…they should shut down Hollywood forever. And what these "Black Panther should be nominated" folks don't get is that the nature of watching the Oscars, like all tv watching, has changed. It has nothing to do with big blockbusters getting nominated, it has to do with the fact that most people can't sit still to watch a thirty minute sitcom, never mind a four hour industry homage to itself. In addition, for a variety of reasons there are no true movie stars anymore, so no one is going to tune in to see the big names like in the old days, when Jack Nicholson was ruling the earth. If you are going to nominate Black Panther in an attempt to get higher ratings, you might as well nominate all of the Kardashians as well, it would make as much sense, both artistically and business wise. 

- My favorite story highlighting imbecility at the Oscars is the one about Emma Watson's "Times Up" tattoo. What makes the tattoo so amusing is that it lacks an apostrophe…it should say "Time's Up". What a wonderful representation of all the poseurs in corporate Hollywood pretending to be in some sort of fierce resistance. It is also faintly reminiscent of the Clinton campaign's slogan "Love Trumps Hate", which is totally different if you add an apostrophe…"Love Trump's Hate". Regardless, both Watson's tattoo and Clinton's slogan made me laugh because I think Watson's time may in fact be up…and Clinton supporters aren't even aware of it, but they actually do love Trump's hate. 

- I did much better on my Oscar picks this year than I did last year, but I still wasn't perfect. I won my Oscar pool of course, extending my record-setting, DiMaggio-esque streak. As I said, I was extremely pleased that The Shape of Water won Best Picture and not Get Out, even though that screwed my pick percentage, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

 - Well, the Oscars are over but they are just a warm-up act for the biggest award of them all which are coming this week. This is the official notice that the Mickey™® Awards, THE most prestigious of all the awards on the entire planet, will be announced later this week!! Take a deep breath and try to contain your excitement…for the Mickeys™® are on the way!!

©2018

 

 

Oscars Aftermath : Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

Estimated Reading Time : 3 minutes 58 seconds

SOME RANDOM,  ENTIRELY INCOHERENT THOUGHTS ON THE OSCARS

Dear gentle reader…the unthinkable has happened. I was wrong about the Oscars. Unlike being wrong about the election or the war, being wrong about the Oscars is no trivial matter. My record for Oscar predictions is unimpeachable…until now. This year I took a major thrashing on my Oscar picks. I have brought great shame upon this esteemed website. 

Due to my egregious errors in Oscar picks, I have decided the only honorable thing to do is to step away from Oscar predictions in order to "spend more time with my family". My downfall and Oscar exile is a tragedy for a myriad of reasons, the most glaring being that the family I am "going to spend more time with" absolutely detest me. I feel for them.

Oscar night was a catastrophe for me…but the great question remains...did I win my Oscar pool? Let's not get ridiculous, of course I won my Oscar pool. I was horrendously wrong on many of my Oscar picks this year, but I still was better than the clueless fools I was competing against. So I am sort of like the tallest midget in my Oscar pool. 

As for the rest of Sunday night, it was a strange evening. I thought La La Land would go on a big run, but it just never happened. Hacksaw Ridge and Suicide Squad, which were, by a long shot, the two worst movies I saw this year, won Oscars. 

As I said in my Oscar post, this year was going to be tough to predict because of the new Academy members…this is not an excuse for my failure, only an explanation. I got Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Picture wrong. Calibrating these new members is going to be tough as they had no discernible pattern to their choices. It is too bad I will never predict the Oscars again because I am itching to try and figure these folks out. Alas, it is not meant to be.

AND THE WINNER IS.

And then there was the Best Picture announcement. The whole episode was bizarre, but what I was most alarmed by was not the error in awarding La La Land the award, but in Faye Dunaway's face. What the hell is going on there? Dunaway was once a great beauty, it bums me out that she feels the need to do…whatever she has done to her face…in order to "stay beautiful". I find it so disheartening when people cannot age gracefully. I realize that I am throwing stones from my glass mansion right now, as anyone who knows me knows that I have had numerous plastic surgeries. I've had my nose, cheeks, eyes, chin, calfs, thighs, buttocks, penis and scrotum done. I look like Frankenstein's taut, beautiful teenage son. Enough of my medical history though, what concerned me was what happened to Faye Dunaway's face. Disappointing. 

Another odd thing was Warren Beatty. Beatty is one of the all-time greats and is a real Hollywood icon. I admire Beatty as an actor a great deal. But Warren Beatty is turning 80 this month. As my friend Jiminy McCricket III reminded me, Warren Beatty's career started during the Eisenhower administration. I think it is time for Warren Beatty to find something else to do with his time. 

ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT AND IDENTITY

Many liberals are ecstatic over Moonlight's win because it is a "gay - Black" film and what that means in the broader context of the culture…but I would caution them to temper their excitement. Moonlight is, in one sense, the upstart, anti-establishment choice. La La Land was the old guard, the establishment choice. Moonlight winning Best Picture is a signal that the establishment is in some very deep shit.

This victory for Moonlight is like the groundhog seeing his shadow…we've got six more weeks (years), at least, of winter for the establishment. And like it or not, even though Trump is president, he is still the symbol of the anti-establishment. The media and Washington elite better understand very quickly what is happening in the collective unconscious. The anti-establishment wave is alive and well in the US, and the world, and will be for some time. It will be useful to keep an eye on the upcoming Dutch election and Geert Wilders, and the French election and Marine Le Pen as well. The Isaiah Wave Theory "Level 4 Rebellion Wave" looks like it isn't reducing to Level 3, but might be swelling to Level 5, and that is bad news for the status quo…just ask La La Land…and my Oscar picks.

In addition, Moonlight is also a symbol of what the left is celebrating at the moment…and also what it isn't. Moonlight is identified as a "Black - gay" film…symbolic of even more of the identity politics that got the democrats into the political wilderness they are currently aimlessly wandering. Moonlight's victory reveals where liberal loyalties lie at this time.

If the Academy (and its new members) wanted to reward a great film based on merit alone and not identity politics, they could have…the best film in the best picture category wasn't La La Land or Moonlight, it was Hell or High Water…and it wasn't even close. And Hell or High Water is a very political and anti-establishment film to boot, just that its politics are of class and not race. It looks like Hollywood liberals are under the same spell as the democrats were in the election, choosing identity over class…a very big error as race divides and class unites. 

When seen in combination with the election of Tom Perez to head the DNC, and Nancy Pelosi in the House and the excruciatingly repugnant Chuck Schumer in the Senate…and you have the democrats embracing the establishment and status quo with all their might, and simply put,  this is not the time of the establishment. It just isn't. If it were the time of the establishment…La La Land would be Best Picture…and Hillary Clinton the president.

RACE AND THE OSCAR RACE

The new Academy members did what they were supposed to do…nominate and vote for Black actors, artists and films. The Academy brought these folks in, and jettisoned the old (White) guard, in order to counter the ludicrous #OscarsSoWhite nonsense that has no grounding in fact, only feeling

The problem with making nomination snubs or losing about race, is that when you win, it also becomes about race. The thought that many believe but no one will utter aloud is that Moonlight won because it is a Black film, not because it is the best film. That sucks…for cinema and for Moonlight, which deserves a considerably better fate. The same is true of Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis. Which isn't fair to them either as they are two fine actors, but that is the reality of what is being whispered about in private here in Hollywood.

Was Viola Davis better than Michelle Williams? In my opinion…no. Davis did have substantially more screen time than Williams, so that works to her benefit. But then the question becomes, was Mahershala Ali better than Jeff Bridges? Again, no…and by a mile. And in this scenario, Jeff Bridges had considerably more screen time than Ali, which undermines the case for Ali. So did Davis and Ali win because they were Black and Black actors needed to win this year? There is compelling evidence the answer is yes…which sucks for everyone involved, especially both Ali and Davis, who are unquestionably Oscar caliber actors. 

By crying racism when Black actors weren't nominated over the previous two years (who was supposed to be nominated those years? Will Smith? When Will Smith is your counter argument, I have bad news…you have lost the argument…badly), the Academy caved to pressure and put in members whose sole purpose was to vote for Black artists. By doing this, the awards then become watered down and less worthy, especially for the Black actors who were chosen this year. By crying foul in previous years when no foul was committed, the game got rigged and now nobody wins. It is a shitty thing, but it is what it is. 

WHEN YOU'RE A HAMMER, THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKS LIKE A NAIL

When you're a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail, and so it is with the cries of racism at the Academy Awards (or Grammys for that matter). Even when Moonlight won, it wasn't good enough. The Guardian had an article about how the Best Picture fiasco was a slap in the face to Moonlight, that was on par with having Hattie McDaniel sit in the back of the auditorium when she won for Gone with the Wind. Really? So even when Black artists or films win, it is still a sign of racism. A great example of this was a Washington Post article the day after the Grammy's, where the writer laments the racism of the Grammys. In the piece the writer says that Chance the Rapper, a Black artist, won the Best New Artist award, but even that was a sign of racism because the Recording Academy only voted for him because he put a charm offensive on the members. What the fuck? So no matter what, everything is racist. Hammer…meet nail.

THE NEVER ENDING SHRIEKS OF THE OUTRAGE MACHINE

Another thing to happen since the Oscars is the outcry from the usual suspects about Casey Affleck beating Denzel Washington for Best Actor. There have been many claims of racism and that Denzel was robbed. This is a joke. Denzel is one of the all-time greats…as evidenced by the two Oscars he has already won…but his work in Fences was not nearly as good as Affleck's. It just wasn't. And to claim racism is why Denzel lost is the absolute most asinine thing imaginable. If you are someone who thinks this…you are an imbecile. 

People are also horrified that Affleck, who they claim is a sexual predator, won the award. The virtue signaling has been turned up to 11. The same people decrying Affleck's win are the same people who were so stupid to believe that Marlon Brando actually anally raped Maria Shneider on film, during the shooting of Last Tango in Paris. Do these people believe anything? Yes, they do. 

This Affleck kerfluffle, just like the Brando uproar, is nothing more than people aching to be outraged, so they search far and wide for reasons. Brando didn't anally rape anyone on film, but logic and reason are the first casualties when the Outrage Machine gets fired up. And so it is with Affleck. Affleck was accused…not convicted…of sexually harassing two women. Not raping them, or assaulting them…harassing. And since he was accused…that makes it so. Maybe it did happen, I don't know, I wasn't there…but when you look at the facts of the case, it is….questionable. 

Race rears its head in regards to the Affleck harassment story as well. People claim that Affleck can get away with anything, where a Black actor can't , and they use Nate Parker, star and director of this years Birth of a Nation, as proof. Parker was charged with rape while he was in college. He was acquitted of the charge. So the Outrage Contingent says Parker was screwed over by the Academy because he is Black, and Affleck gets the nomination and win because he is White. The idiocy never ends. 

Affleck and Parker's cases are very different, as harassment and rape are two very different things. Affleck has always denied he harassed anyone, while Parker admitted to having sex with the woman, along with his roommate, but said it was consensual. Add to that the fact that the young woman in question in Parker's case committed suicide, and you can see how much more serious the Parker situation was. Also…and this is the biggest difference…Nate Parker is not a good actor. His performance in Birth of a Nation was not anywhere close to Oscar worthy. Also…Nate Parker was an asshole when asked about his personal history doing press for his film. He handled the entire thing horrendously from a public relations stand point. Now…Casey Affleck may very well be a gigantic, sexually harassing asshole…but he can act…considerably better than Nate Parker…and he has proven it over many years of superb work, which include an Oscar nomination years ago. 

But none of that matters to the Outrage Gang. All they see is racism and misogyny lurking behind every corner. The Outrage Machine is exhausting, and it is never ending. These dipshits, who believe every single thing and every single accusation, are the worst of the worst. They should be ignored and shunned at every opportunity. Eventually they will cannibalize their own, and the world will be a better place when they vanish from it. 

Who am I to rant? I am such an idiot I got three of my Oscar picks wrong. I am not worthy of an opinion, so I should shut my racist, misogynist mouth. The Outrage Machine will be happy to see me go. The public square is all theirs now.

I will now exit the stage and spend the rest of my days with my most unfortunate family. God help them.

 

 

©2017

 

 

Oscars and Grammys Racism : Perception or Reality?

Estimated Reading Time : 5 minutes 17 seconds

It is understandable, with the ugly history of discrimination against them, that Black artists would feel awards shows disregard them solely because of their race…but is that perception accurate?

On Sunday February 9th, 2017, Adele won the Grammy for Best Album over Beyonce, and ever since there have been cries of racism in the media against the Recording Academy. The next morning both the New York Times and the Washington Post had articles decrying the award's racism and making claims of #GrammysSoWhite.  

The New York Times opined, "The Grammys’ race problem is so pernicious that some white winners have chosen contrition over exuberance". 

The Washington Post wrote of the Grammys dispute, "Somehow, lots of listeners are fine with shrugging this off. Some balk at taking a nice Sunday evening television show and making it about race. (Counterpoint: It would be irresponsible not to.)" 

This Grammy controversy, combined with the #OscarsSoWhite uproar last year over the absence of Black actors nominated for Oscars, certainly gives the impression that both the music and film industries have serious racial issues. But do the Grammys and Oscars actually have a "pernicious" race problem? A closer look at the relationship between the Grammys, Oscars and race, is warranted to find out whether these charges are factual and substantial, or emotional and scurrilous.

A good place to start the investigation is to see if Black artists are under-represented in awards in relation to their population percentage. According to the U.S. Census, African-Americans make up 12.6% of the U.S. population. A review of the amount of Grammy and Oscar nominations and wins for Black artists over the last thirty years (1988 – 2017) will indicate whether they are under-represented or not. 

The four most prestigious categories for the Grammys are Best Album, Record of the year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. Over the last thirty years in the Best Album category, 37% (56) of nominees were Black artists and they won 23% of the awards. 

In the Record of the Year category, Black artists scored 36% (54) of the nominations and won 20% (6) of the awards. 

In the Song of the Year category, Black artists have 28% (42) of the nominations and prevailed for 23% (7) of the awards. 

And the in the Best New Artist category, there have been Black nominees 32.6% (49) of the time, who triumphed for 40% (12) of the Best New Artist awards. 

It is obvious upon review of the data that over the last 30 years Black artists are, in fact, substantially over-represented at the Grammys in relation to their percentage of the U.S. population.

In regards to this years supposed racial controversy, Beyonce has won a total of 22 Grammys (one in the big four categories) throughout her stellar career, which is 8th most all-time. Of the top four popular music Grammy winners in history, three are Black artists, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Beyonce, with Alyson Krause being the only White artist on that list. It seems to me, that if the Grammys have a “pernicious” race problem, they sure have a funny way of showing it. 

The statistics regarding the Academy Awards for Black artists over the last 30 years (1988 – 2017) are quite illuminating as well. In the Best Actor category, Black actors have received 10.6%(16) of the nominations and won 10% (3) of the awards.

The Best Supporting Actor award has had 8% (12) of its nominees be Black actors and they have taken home the golden statue 10% (3) of the time.

Black actresses have been nominated for 9.3% (14) of the Best Supporting Actress awards and have won 16.6% (5) of the time.

Lastly, the Best Actress category has had Black nominees 4% (6) of the time and only Halle Berry has won the award, which amounts to 3.3% of the awards.

At first glance it would seem that, unlike the Grammys, the Oscars definitely have a race problem as in all but one category, Best Supporting Actress wins (16.6%), do Black artists equal or surpass their U.S. population percentage. But looking more deeply at the numbers reveals that this alleged race issue is more illusion than reality.

If you expand the parameters of the debate beyond the borders of the U.S., and I think it is fair to do so since Hollywood draws the overwhelming majority of their acting talent from the U.S, U.K., Canada, Ireland and Australia, also known as the Anglosphere - all the major countries that speak English as their first language, then the supposed inequality among nominations and wins for Black actors all but disappears.  If you combine the populations of the Anglosphere nations, their Black citizens make up 9% of that general population.

According to the 9% Black population percentage in the Anglosphere, Black actors are over-represented in Best Actor nominations (10.6%) and wins (10%), Best Supporting Actress nominations (9.3%) and wins (16.6%), and in wins for Best Supporting Actor (10%). It does still show slight under-representation in the Best Supporting Actor nominations (8%) and massive under-representation in the Best Actress category in both wins (3.3%) and nominations (4%).

In addition, if the Black actors nominated this year win, then the data is even more compelling against the Oscars alleged race problem. If Denzel Washington wins Best Actor, and as expected, Marshehala Ali wins Best Supporting Actor, then the Black actor win rate over the last thirty years in those two categories becomes 13.3%, which is not only higher than the Black population percentage of the Anglosphere (9%), but also of the U.S. (12.6%). If the heavy favorite Viola Davis wins Best Supporting Actress, the win rate for Black actresses in that category will swell to 20%, more than double the Anglosphere’s Black population percentage (9%) and considerably more than the U.S. percentage (12.6%). If Ruth Negga wins Best Actress, which would be a huge upset, then the win rate for Black Actresses in that category would grow to a still lackluster 6.6%.

The #OscarsSoWhite argument also makes claims of racial inequality against Black artists in casting, but those charges ring just as hollow when you look at the data. According to the Screen Actors Guild, Black actors make up 12% of their members, just below the African-American population percentage (12.6%). A study by the Annenberg Center shows that from 2007 to 2013 (the last year of the study) Black actors were cast in films at a rate of 12.6%, identical to their U.S. population rate. A Screen Actors Guild study from 2008 (most recent year available), reports that Black actors are cast in 14.8% of all film and television roles, including 13.2% of lead roles and 16% of supporting roles.

What these studies and the historical data prove is that Black artists are not under-represented at the Grammys and Oscars, or on film and tv, but in many cases over-represented in relation to their population percentage. So why does the perception of racism in these entertainment fields persist? I believe the biggest reason is a failure to put aside emotional arguments and to put the statistical data into the proper demographic context.

A case in point was when The Economist magazine did a study last year and found that Black actors were cast in 9% of “top roles” in films since 2000. The Economist used this evidence to conclude that Black actors are under-represented due to the 9% “top role” number being below the 12.6% U.S. population percentage of African-Americans. What The Economist failed to take into account was the broader population of the Anglosphere, which would put this 9% “top role” number right in line with the Black population percentage in major English speaking countries.

Another example of this sort of analytical blindness was on display this week in The Guardian where a writer was horrified to learn that Black artists had only won 10 Best Album Grammys since 1959. When you put the fact of “only” 10 Black artists winning Best Album over 58 years into demographic context, you discover that means that Black artists won 17.2% of the Best Album awards over that time, which is considerably more than their percentage of the population in the U.S.

Simply put, Black artists are thriving in show business. As an example, the Forbes 2014 list of the ten most powerful people in entertainment had Beyonce in the number one spot and African-Americans in seven of the top ten positions.

These knee-jerk cries of racism after awards snubs are emotionally-driven, and undermine more substantial claims of discrimination in regards to significant topics like police brutality, incarceration rates, economic opportunity and healthcare quality. These scurrilous accusations of award show prejudice make a mockery of the struggle against the scourge of racial inequality and injustice. There’s no accounting for taste, but to chalk up awards losses by Black artists to racial animus is a cheap way to avoid artistic responsibility and ignore demographic reality.

Previously published on Sunday, February 26, 2017 at RT.

©2017

#OscarsSoWhite : Don't Believe the Hype?

***ESTIMATED READING TIME: 20 MINUTES***

On January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards. For the second year in a row none of the actors nominated in the four acting categories, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, were minorities. All twenty nominations went to White actors. The lack of Black acting nominees in particular, set off firestorms of outrage in the media and online.

A day after the nominations were announced, in response to the alleged "snub" of Black actors, artists and films, Spike Lee declared he would not attend the Oscar ceremony where he would have been an honored guest having been awarded an honorary Academy Award in November. Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of one of the actors thought to be "snubbed", Will Smith, also publicly declared she would "boycott" the awards show by not attending or watching it on television. Pinkett Smith tweeted "At the Oscars…people of color are always welcomed to give out awards…even entertain. But we are rarely recognized for our artistic accomplishments. Should people of color refrain from participating altogether?".

Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, a Black woman, said that changes would be made in order to make the Academy, which does not make public it's membership demographics but which is rumored to be 94% White and 77% male with a median age of 62, younger and more diverse. On January 20th, the Academy announced an expansion of membership to include more women and minorities and to make the membership younger and with more recent work experience in the industry. This has done little to quell the anger felt by the Black community and their supporters of all colors, which have used the #OscarsSoWhite meme as a rallying cry.

The emotional response by the #OscarsSoWhite community to what they perceive as racially biased slights and snubs by the Academy and the film industry are very understandable in a historical context, but that doesn't make them rational or even real. Racism is a deadly serious topic, and charges of racism are not a matter to be taken lightly. I believe that the reaction to the alleged slights by the Academy are a result of emotionalism and not rationalism. A closer look at the film business here in America and abroad, and the demographic reality of Black people in those places, shows that the perception of massive Black under-representation in the Oscar acting categories is not one backed up by facts. A closer examination of the films, artists and actors alleged to have been snubbed this year, and their artistic merit, shows that this controversy is much ado about nothing, at least in regards to race. That doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist, it just means that it isn't the reason there have been no Black actors nominated for Oscars in the last two years.

THE SUBJECTIVE

CONTEXT

Part of the uproar this year has to do with perceived snubs from last year. The film Selma is often brought up as a film that was snubbed along with its African-American director Ava Duvernay and its Black lead actor David Oyelowo. The thing that people tend to overlook is that yes, Duvernay and Oyolowo weren't nominated last year, but the film Selma was nominated for Best Picture and won an Oscar for Best Original Song.

Duvernay is a gifted director, and her work on Selma is admirable, but her not being nominated is far from a grievous slight. Selma is Duvernay's first major feature film, and if history is a guide, the Academy needs to be strongly convinced to give any first time director a nomination. It isn't impossible, but it is rare. For instance, John Singleton, an African-American man, was the youngest person ever nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay for his first feature Boyz in The Hood. Selma is a good movie, but I think we can all agree that it is no Boyz in the Hood. And just to put the Academy's reluctance to embrace directors early in their careers into perspective, consider that Martin Scorsese, maybe the greatest American film director, was not even nominated for his fifth feature film Taxi Driver, one of the most iconic films in american cinematic history. In fact, the Academy didn't nominate Scorsese for Best Director until his seventh feature, Raging Bull, and it took the Academy another 30 years after Taxi Driver to finally give Scorsese an Oscar win with his Best Director award for The Departed.

Oyolowo was in a similar boat, as he was relatively unknown to the Academy prior to Selma. His work is terrific in the film, but it isn't transcendent. If Oyolowo had been a more familiar face to the Academy I believe he would have been nominated for Selma. If Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle or Jamie Foxx gave that same exact performance they would have been nominated because the Academy knows and trusts them and their work. Not nominating Oyolowo and Duvernay is not a decision based on racism, but on typical Academy trends and  politics. Which leads us to Oscars General Rule #1Except in the most rare of occasions and with the most transcendent performances, the Academy votes for talent with whom they are very familiar.

DEFINING OSCAR

Before going any further, we should try and define what exactly is the purpose of the Academy Awards. Historically, the goal of the Academy when giving out awards to is try and the thread the needle between commerce and art. It wants to reward 'prestige' films which are close enough to the mainstream that they are financially viable yet have artistic merit to them. The Academy wants people to tune in to their awards show, so they nominate films that people have heard of with famous actors in them, but that are not seen as pure popcorn, money making enterprises. I reek of the art house, so for my taste the Academy leans much too far towards commerce, but to the general public they probably lean much to far towards art with their awards. Regardless, this is what the Academy is trying to do. With all of that said, let's take a closer look at this year's controversy.

The purported snubbing of Black actors at this years Oscars has a very simple premise to it, that there are Black actors who gave better performances this year than the White actors nominated. So let's examine the performances most mentioned when discussing the Oscar snubs of this year and see if this premise could be a valid one. 

GUESS WHO'S NOT COMING TO DINNER?

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

The first film mentioned is almost always Straight Outta Compton, the bio-pic of the famous rap group N.W.A. and their rise to fame, and their struggles once they got there. The film was very successful, making $200 million at the box office from a $28 million budget. Which brings us to… Oscars General Rule #2 : Box office success does not guarantee a film is great, or even good, and it certainly doesn't guarantee Oscar nominations. For instance, Star Wars : The Force Awakens, has made a billion dollars this past year but received no nominations. Sometimes films that are extremely financially successful do get nominations, Titanic for example, but that is not always the case.  

Straight Outta Compton is, in my professional opinion and to my terrible disappointment as a fan of N.W.A., not a great movie. It is a pretty standard, paint by numbers, musical bio-pic. It is not very compelling, it looks flat visually, and it has major pacing, performance and narrative issues. The thing that stands out the most to me about the film is how relentlessly safe it is, in structure and in execution. The fact that in reality, N.W.A. was so successful because they were deemed to be so "dangerous" and hard only heightens how flaccid and impotent the film really was. If you are someone who really loved the film and think it deserves an Oscar nomination, I would tell you that I believe that you are seeing the film you wanted to see and not the film that actually was.

In addition, there is not a single standout performance from any of the actors. Yes, the actors looked like the people they were playing, but none of the actors are even remotely good at actually, you know…acting. There is a lot of posing and preening, but there are no genuine human moments in the entire film. The acting performances are incredibly shallow and hollow, it is almost like watching someone trying to act someone who is trying to act. Giving an acting Oscar nomination to any of the cast would be the equivalent of nominating an Elvis impersonator.

Musical bio-pics of iconic bands like N.W.A. are not usually heartily embraced by the Academy. A perfect example is Oliver Stone's The Doors from 1991. Just like Straight Outta Compton, The Doors tells the story of a revolutionary American band from its start to finish and all the turmoil in between. Both films were made about twenty years after their musical subjects broke up and/or died. Unlike Straight Outta Compton though, The Doors had a two-time Oscar winning director at the helm, Oliver Stone, and had a universally praised, dynamic performance from its lead actor, Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison. Unlike Oliver Stone, Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray has had basically a journeyman's career with no track record for successful dramatic and artistically relevant films. Unlike Val Kilmer in The Doors, Straight Outta Compton has no well known lead actors and none of them give performances that would rank up there with Kilmer's Morrison. The Academy gave no nominations to The Doors film, its director Stone or its lead actor Kilmer. Like many people, the Academy didn't like The Doors, and like many people, they didn't love Straight Outta Compton either.

One thing to point out is that Straight Outta Compton, like Selma, was not entirely overlooked by the Academy, but rather got a nomination for Best Screenplay. The problem for many though is that the writers of the film were White and not Black. #OscarsSoWhite have used this as proof that the Academy is racist as it shows they only reward White artists and not Black ones. This is just a short cut to thinking. I guarantee you that Academy members had no idea what color the writers of Straight Outta Compton were and just threw the unworthy film a bone in the form of a screenplay nomination in order to NOT be perceived as being racist. Straight Outta Compton doesn't deserve a screenplay nomination, but the fact that people use this one nomination as proof of racism is the height of absurdity. One question that maybe the #OscarsSoWhite people should be asking as opposed to why the Academy only nominated the White writers, is why did Ice Cube hire White writers instead of Black writers to write his film? Could it be that Ice Cube just wanted the best writers he could get at the price he was willing to pay, and these White writers filled the bill? Is Ice Cube racist because he hired White people to write his film? The answer to that is obvious.

WILL SMITH : PARENTS JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND

Another actor often brought up as being rebuffed by the Academy is Will Smith for his performance in the film Concussion. Again, this is quite a stretch in searching for proof of racially biased snubs. Will Smith is, or was at one time, a giant movie star, but he is not now nor has he ever been a great actor. If Will Smith had made Concussion fifteen years ago, he would have been nominated, because he was, at that time, at the height of his career. Which bring us to…General Oscars Rule #3 : The Academy rewards big money-making movie stars for taking chances on prestige films, hence Smith being nominated for Michael Mann's Ali and for his work in The Pursuit of Happyness. It would be an error to conclude that Smith gave great performances in those films because he was nominated, he didn't. He was very average in The Pursuit of Happyness and he was not good at all in Ali, but the Academy rewards people who make them a lot of money, and Will Smith made a helluva lot of people a helluva lot of money, so he was rewarded by the Academy for taking the chance on those two prestige-type films. For an example of the Academy rewarding a movie star with a nomination, look back to Harrison Ford, the box office champ of all time with the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, and his lone nomination for Witness. Ford wasn't great in Witness, but he had made people tons of money, so the Academy rewarded him for that. Ford tried his hand at other 'prestige' type films, Mosquito Coast and Regarding Henry as two examples, and his work was ignored by the Academy both times.

It is also mildly amusing that Smith and N.W.A. should be brought up in the same Oscar discussion as they are polar opposites in regard to their rap music ability and credibility. Will Smith got into the music and film businesses in order to get rich and famous, not to express his artistic self like N.W.A., this is painfully obvious by the choices he made. His rap career was the worst, most cringe worthy attempt to appeal to as large an audience as possible. Remember "Parents Just Don't Understand"?  In contrast to N.W.A.'s body of work, and Dr. Dre and Ice Cube's post-N.W.A. work, Smith is a laughably soft and weak rapper. His acting career has been equally tepid and just as pandering. Remember "The Fresh Prince"or the calculatingly formulaic Bad Boys, Men in Black, Independence Day and Wild, Wild, West? Smith has succeeded not by being great at anything he attempted, be it rapping or acting, for he is mind numbingly average at both, but by being an extremely appealing presence and a genuinely likable guy. Being so likable and enriching so many people is how he got nominated for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness. For Smith to feel slighted that he is not getting his artistic due with his lackluster performance in Concussion is beyond a ludicrous.

CREED

Which brings us to Creed. There has been much angst that Sylvester Stallone (who is White) was nominated for his role in the 6th Rocky movie but that Michael B. Jordan (who is African-American) was not nominated. Again, this has nothing to do with race. Michael B. Jordan is a terrific young actor, with a great chance at a bevy of Oscar nominations in his future. The reality is that Creed is nowhere near an Oscar worthy film either, but that it is perceived to be Stallone's swan song. It might not actually be his swan song, and the Academy might be getting head faked by the Lazarus-esque Italian Stallion, but the Academy wanted to reward him for his long career and to let walk him off into the sunset a winner (much like they have done with Clint Eastwood…on numerous occasions). Stallone was rewarded for Creed not because he was great in it, but because he, and the film, were 'good enough' given the low expectations they had going in, to give him a pass.

Which brings us to General Oscars Rule #4 :The Academy eventually rewards actors for their long careers and for making a lot of people a lot of money over the course of their careers. Look, God knows Stallone is no Marlon Brando, but he has made people very rich with not only his Rocky movies but with Rambo and all his other films. The question could be raised, if the Academy is rewarding Stallone for all the money he's made people, why not reward Will Smith too? Well, the biggest issue here is not race, but age. Will Smith needs to be around for another two decades or so before the Academy will contemplate giving him what they are giving Stallone, which really amounts to a lifetime achievement type of Oscar nomination. In other words, it simply isn't Will Smith's time yet.

Michael B. Jordan has a truly fantastic career ahead of him, but Creed is the 6th Rocky movie and isn't exactly a prestige film. It was perceived as a money grab to make one more Rocky movie, but the film was better than expected, which doesn't make it great, it just makes it not awful. This is not a reason to nominate the film or Jordan. The same can be said of director Ryan Coogler, who has a very bright future ahead of him as well, but a Rocky sequel is not the place to cry foul on not getting an Oscar nomination.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON

Samuel L. Jackson has also been mentioned as being snubbed for his work in The Hateful Eight. Samuel Jackson has done some remarkable work in his career, but The Hateful Eight is not one of his better performances. It is very derivative of his other, better work (from Pulp Fiction for instance, where he was nominated), and the fact that the film is a lesser outing from Quentin Tarantino doesn't help his argument either.

I would argue that Jackson has lost out on nominations before, most notably in Tarantino's Django Unchained and in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, but I don't believe those lack of nominations were the result of racial bias, just a weak-kneed, poor taste in film by the Academy.

BEASTS OF NO NATION

The performance by a black actor that I think should have been nominate this year, but wasn't, is Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation. I believe the film, it's young Ghanaian-born lead actor Abraham Atta, and Idris Elba all deserved Oscar nominations. Beasts of No Nation, Atta and Elba were not overlooked because of racism, but because of the insidious arrogance of the film business. Beasts of No Nation was distributed by Netflix and because Netflix skirted some arrangements with movie theaters, it was only shown in very limited release in theaters. It was available immediately on Netflix though. The Academy still hasn't wrapped their head around Netflix and looks at Beasts of No Nation as some sort of hybrid film/tv project. Which brings us to…  General Oscars Rule #5 : The Academy only respects film, not tv. Thus Beasts of No Nation was in an industry no man's land and the film, Elba's and Atta's performances were lost to the Academy voters. This is a terrible oversight but not a racially motivated one.

WHO SHOULDN'T BE NOMINATED?

When #OscarsSoWhite talk publicly about the racism in the Academy and this year's lack of Black actors, one thing remains elusive but very important, namely, what White actors who were nominated shouldn't have been nominated. If the #OscarsSoWhite people are going to accuse Academy members of being racist and nominating people based on race, why wouldn't the #OscarsSoWhite people have the courage to say what actors they think should not have been nominated? This is a pretty important point that no one seems to want to bring up.

Who should Will Smith replace on the Best Actor list? Michael Fassbender? Leonardo DiCaprio? Eddie Redmayne? What about Samuel L. Jackson? Should he replace Matt Damon? Or Bryan Cranston? There are arguments to be made, but #OscarsSoWhite has to have the courage to actually make them. They can't say one person deserves a nomination without implying another person doesn't deserve it, so they should have the intestinal fortitude to tell us who they would throw out. 

Since I am asking people to say who should NOT be nominated, I will go first. This year I think Abraham Atta from Beasts of No Nation should, without question, be nominated for Best Actor over Bryan Cranston of Trumbo. Trumbo is a dreadful film and Cranston is awful in it. I would also have nominated Idrs Elba of Beasts of No Nation over Sylvester Stallone from Creed. As previously stated, there are reasons that have nothing to do with race as to why Stallone and Cranston were nominated this year over Atta and Elba. The first reason is (General Oscars Rule #5) the Academy's issue with the releasing of the film through Netflix and not into theaters. The other reasons are that (General Oscars Rule #1) Atta is a total unknown and Bryan Cranston is a beloved actor in Hollywood for his previous work. Elba being overlooked has to do with the Netflix issue (General Oscars Rule #5) and with the Academy rewarding Stallone for his long and prosperous career (General Oscars Rule #4). 

A final note about snubs in general. Snubs happen every year to all sorts of actors. great actors get snubbed one year when they deserve a win, and then get an award another year when they don't. The Academy is slow to reward fresh talent, and quick to give make-up awards. For instance, Denzel Washington should have won a Best Actor Oscar for his tremendous work in Malcolm X. While Denzel was nominated he ended up losing the award to Al Pacino for his work in Scent of a Woman. Denzel deserved the win, but Pacino got the trophy. This was not due to racism, it was because of the fact that the Academy had overlooked Pacino's stellar work earlier in his career. Which brings us to General Oscars Rule #6 : The Academy makes up for most of their very stupid mistakes over time. So in this case, Pacino, who didn't win for his unbelievably great work two decades earlier in The Godfather and Godfather II, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, finally got his award for a less than stellar performance in Scent of a Woman. Denzel was overlooked for his remarkable work in Malcolm X, but a decade later got his Best Actor Oscar for a good but not great (by his lofty standards) performance in Training Day. Another example of this rule in action is that in 1990 Martin Scorsese was nominated but did not win for Best Director for his time-less classic Goodfellas. Instead the Academy gave the Best Director award to…GULP…Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves. This is maybe the most egregious and embarrassing of idiotic mistakes the Academy has made in recent history. But, a decade and a half later, the Academy made it "right" by awarding Scorsese a Best Director Oscar for his rather underwhelming work on The Departed. The Academy can be pretty maddening in its choices, and slow to recognize true genius but…this is how the Academy works, and as Denzel Washington and Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino can attest, it works this way regardless of race.

THE STATISTICS

DEMOGRAPHICS AS DESTINY?

African-Americans have long been a marginalized minority group here in America. Black history is littered with one heinous struggle after another, from slavery to Jim Crow to civil rights and beyond. The African-American community's perception of racially motivated slights, or outright racism, is strongly grounded in historical precedence, so one can't blame that community's thought from taking the shape of a hammer and seeing every problem as the nail of racism. In the case of the Academy Awards though, that perception does not perfectly align with reality.

According to the US Census, in 2014 African-Americans made up 13.2% of the general population of the United States, and, rather interestingly, according to a 2014 study by the Motion Picture Association of America, they made up 12% of the movie ticket buying population. In contrast, Latinos only made up 17.4% of the general population but 23% of the movie ticket buying population.  Asians/others made up 8% of the general population and 11% of the movie ticket buying population. Non-hispanic Whites made up 62.1 % of the general population (not to be confused with European-Americans, who make up 72.4% of population) but only made up 54% of the movie ticket buying population. What does this have to do with Oscar snubs and potential racism? A closer look at Oscar history and statistics reveals that the Academy's choices may not be as racially biased as some perceive them to be.

THIRTY YEARS

In the last 30 years, since 1986, there have been 120 Oscar winners in the acting categories, and there have been 12 Black actors who have won Oscars. Which means that 10% of all acting Oscar winners have been Black, which is 24% below the percentage of African-Americans in the general  U.S. population and 17% below their percentage in the movie ticket buying population.

An even closer look at this 10% number shows us that while it is roughly 24% below the national population percentage of African-Americans, it is actually above the percentage of the African-American population in the state of California where the film industry is centered and one can assume it is also where the majority of the Academy members either live or have lived. In California, African-Americans make up 7% of the general population, and more specifically to the movie industry, in Los Angeles County make up 8.7% of the general population.  Even more specifically to Hollywood, African-Americans make up 9.6% of the general population of the city of Los Angeles. So, the 10% win rate of Oscars for Black actors mirrors back to Academy members almost exactly the general population of the city in which most of them have lived and worked.

Another number of interest is the population of english speaking countries with vibrant film industries, as those countries would more than likely have members in the Academy. So if you add up the total populations of the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Ireland, the Black population combined comes to 9% of the total overall population in those countries. Meaning that according to this metric, Black actors are over-represented by 10% in Oscar wins over the last thirty years. If you add Canada's total population to the U.S., U.K., Australia and Ireland grouping, and add Canada's black population to those countries Black population, the numbers turn out exactly the same, with the Black population being 9% of the overall population. If you reduce the metric to just the U.S. and Canada's populations together, then their overall Black population is 10.9%, showing a small under-representation in terms of Black actor Oscar wins.

When you expand the numbers over the last thirty years to look at Oscar acting nominations and not just wins, the numbers thin, as there have been 600 acting nominees since 1986 and 44 of them have been Black. That is 7.3% of the nominees, which is slightly higher than the percentage of African-Americans living in California, and slightly lower than the Black population in Los Angeles, L.A. county and in the general population of the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Australia combined.

TWENTY YEARS

If you look at Oscar nominations and wins over the last twenty years (1996-2015), Black actors have been nominated 33 times out of 400 nominations and have won 10 Acting Oscars out of 80. That means from 1996 to 2015 (the Oscar ceremony is in February but it awards films from 2015), Black actors have a nomination rate of 8.25% and an Oscar win rate of 12.5%. The win rate is a 25% increase from the thirty year rate (10%) and gives Black actors 24% wins over their population rate in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia. The 12.5% win rate is also 4% higher than the Black percentage of the movie ticket buying population. The nomination rate has increased 11.5% from the thirty year rate and has reduced Black actor under-representation in nominations from the thirty year mark of 19% to 8.3%.

TEN YEARS

If you look at the last ten years, 2006-2015,  Black actors were nominated for Oscars 18 times out of 200 nominations, and won 5 Oscars out of 40. The ten year nomination rate is 9% and the win rate is 12.5%. Compared to the twenty year rates, the nominations have increased by 5.8%, and the win rate has stayed exactly the same. The win rate of 12.5% is still 24% higher than the Black percentage of population in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia and 4% higher than the movie ticket buying population in the U.S.. The nomination rate is exactly the same as the population rate of Blacks in the U.S., Canada, U.K. Ireland and Australia general population combined. This is a pretty fascinating statistic.

CASTING

Another argument by the #OscarsSoWhite movement is that Black actors are under-represented in the casting of roles, so they have fewer opportunities to be nominated for Oscars. According to a study by the Annenberg Center for Communications and Journalism, this is simply not the case. Black actors were cast at a rate of 12.6% from 2007 to 2013 (the last year of the study) which is exactly proportional to their percentage of the U.S. population in the 2010 Census, which is 12.6%. When you expand the casting rate of Black actors to the wider english speaking film industry, they are over-represented by 28.5% in proportion to their 9% population percentage in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, and Australia over that same time period. 

According to the Screen Actors Guild, Black actors are 12% of their membership, which is roughly equivalent to their percentage of the U.S. population in the 2010 Census, and to their Oscar win rate percentage over the last twenty years. Another SAG study from 2007-2008 (the most recent year that study results are available) shows that Black actors are slightly over-represented in casting of film/TV roles, snagging 14.8% of total roles. Black actors were cast in 13.2% of lead roles and 16% of supporting roles.  Black actors being cast in 14.8% of total roles is 10.8% higher than the black percentage of the U.S. general population and 19% higher than the Black actor percentage of the Screen Actors Guild population. Also, it is 39% higher than the Black percentage of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia general population. Black actors being cast in 13.2% of leading roles is perfectly in line with the Black percentage of the U.S. population, which according to the U.S. Census information from 2014 is 13.2%.

In addition, the Economist Magazine did their own study and found that Black actors get 9% of the top roles in films (they define "top roles" as the top three names on the cast list at IMDB, in films with a 7.5 rating or higher, an American box office gross of at least $10M, and which were neither animated nor foreign-language). Interestingly enough, The Economist claims this shows that Black actors are under-reopresented in "top roles" as compared to the U.S. population, but what it really shows is that The Economist misinterprets their own study by ignoring the vital data of the populations of Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia in addition to the U.S.

A QUICK REVIEW 

A quick review shows a steady progress for Black actors over the last thirty years in regards to Oscar nominations and wins. The Oscar nomination rate has gone from 7.3% (30 yrs.) to 8.25% (20 yrs.) to 9% (10 yrs.). The Oscar win rate for Black actors has gone from 10% (30 yrs.) to 12.5% (20 yrs.) and held steady at 12.5% (10 years). This seems to be in stark contrast to the claims made by the #OscarsSoWhite people.

The statistics also show that Black actors were cast in roles from 2007-2013 at a rate of 12.6% which is in identical proportion to the black percentage of the general U.S. population over that same time period (2010 Census: 12.6% African-American population percentage). The numbers also show that Black actors are cast in "top roles" 9% of the time, which is in direct proportion to their 9% population rate in the wider english speaking film industry nations of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia.

PERCEPTION AND REALITY

As the statistic show, Black acting Oscar winners are under-represented when compared to the African-American population in the U.S. but are slightly over-represented in regards to the wider english speaking industry, and are right in line with or slightly higher than the African-American population in California, L.A. and L.A. County. But the perception remains that somehow they are dramatically and unfairly under-represented, why is that? I think part of the answer to that question is that Black people are massively over-represented in other media and entertainment fields when compared to the general U.S. population. For instance, on the Forbes list of the most powerful people in entertainment, seven of the top ten people on the list are Black. That is pretty extraordinary considering it is 6 times greater than the African-American representation in the general U.S. population.

The same can be said of the Black percentage of players in professional sport. 74.4.% of all NBA players are Black as opposed to the 23% that are White. That means that Black players in the NBA are over-represnted by roughly 82% when compared to their general population percentage in the U.S. 68% of all NFL players are Black as compared to the 28% who are White, which means Black NFL players are over-represented by 80.5% in relation to their percentage of the U.S. population. These numbers are wildly out of sync with the general population numbers and can give a distorted perception of the demographic reality of the Black population here in the U.S. 

Adding together the inordinate amount of Black entertainers at the top of their fields and Black athletes populating professional sports, it is easy to see where the perception of racism in regards to the Oscars can take shape. By awarding only 10%-12.5% of the acting awards to Black actors, the Oscars seem to fall horrendously short in recognizing Black people when compared to other areas of public life. But the reality is that the Oscars aren't greatly under-representing Black artists, but rather that the other areas, be they music, TV or sport, dramatically over-represent Black people.

The movie business is a business and so these demographic numbers tell us the real story. Racism isn't behind the Academy or the industry and their relationship to blacks, but money is. Blacks make up 13.2% of the U.S. population and 12% movie going population, but according to the MPAA study they only make up 10% of the multiple movie going population (people who see more than one film in a theatre in a given year). In purely business terms, the Black audience is stagnant at best and at worst, shrinking. So not trying to appease or chase the Black audience is not about racism, but it is about the bottom line. Add to these numbers the perceived reluctance of foreign markets, particularly the Chinese market, the holy grail of every studio executive in Hollywood, to embrace Black actors (whether this perception is based on facts is a discussion for another day, but I find it dubious), and you have a recipe for the Black minority to be even more marginalized by Hollywood than they are by their demographic reality in America. Hollywood may be a lot of things, but the one thing it is without question…is a cut-throat, bottom line business. The powers that be in Hollywood do care a great deal about color, but that color is green.

This may not be a pleasant reality, but it is the reality. It is easier to be emotionally swayed to  accuse the Academy and film industry as being "racist" rather than actually looking at and digesting the facts and figures. Black actors are being treated and rewarded right in line with their perceived economic usefulness to the film industry's money lusting overlords. You can rightly blame capitalism, corporatism, globalization or demographics, but you'd be unwise to blame racism, because then you'd be ignoring reality, no matter how cold and hard it may be. 

A DRY WHITE SEASON

If, as the #OscarsSoWhite people seem to be arguing, you believe that the racial breakdown of the U.S. population should be mirrored by Oscar nominations and wins, then there is another group of people who are under-represented in Acting Oscar nominations and wins over the last thirty years….White Americans. Since 1986, there have been 362 nominations for White American actors, which is a percentage rate of 60%. White American actors have won acting Oscars 65 times in this same time period which means they win 54% of the time. Non-hispanic White Americans are 62% of the general U.S. population, which means that White American actors are under-represented in nominations by 3.2%. If you also include Canada in with the U.S., the amount of under-representation slightly grows, as the White population is 67% in the combined countries and the Oscar nomination and win rate stay the same, meaning American/Canadian Whites are under-represented by 10.4% in nominations and 19.4% in wins.

Over the last twenty years White-American actors have a 56.75% nomination rate (227 nominations out of 400) and a win rate of 42.5% (34 wins out of 80). This means that White-American actors are under-represented over the last twenty years by roughly 8.5% in nominations and roughly 31.5% in wins when compared to the White population percentage in the U.S.

Over the last ten years, White-American actors have a 65% nomination rate (144 out of 220) and a 37.5% Oscar win rate (15 out of 40). This means that White-American actors are over-represented over the last ten years by roughly 5% in nominations and under-represented over the same time period by roughly 40% in Oscar wins when compared to the percentage of Whites in the general population of the U.S.. 

When you take nationality out of the analysis, things get even more interesting. If you combine all of the White American actors and the white Canadian, British, Irish and Australian actors to have been nominated in the last thirty years, it comes to 520 nominations. 520 nominations is 86% of all of the acting nominations and the white populations 96 wins are 80% of all Oscar wins over this same thirty year time period. This seems to back up the argument that White actors, regardless of nationality, are massively over-represented. The White population of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia is 66% of the overall population of those countries combined. Which means that White english speaking actors are over-represented by 17.5% in Oscar wins and 23% in Oscar nominations. Although, if you only count the White and Black populations, and eliminate all other races and ethnicities, in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland and Australia, then things align a bit more in that Whites make up 87.4% of the population and have been awarded 86% of acting Oscar nominations and 80% of wins, and Blacks make up 12.6% of that population and have been awarded 10% of acting Oscar wins and 7.3% of nominations over the same time period.

While this proves that U.S., Canada, U.K., Irish and Australian White actors are over-represented in regards to the total population, our earlier analysis shows that this over-representation does not come at the detriment of Black actors. So who is getting left out and why?

THE SILENT MINORITIES : LATINOS AND ASIANS

In terms of America, the answer is pretty obvious, Latinos are dramatically under-represented in the acting categories in relation to their percentage of the U.S. general population. As previously stated, Latinos make up 17.4% of the U.S. general population, but with just 5 acting nominations in the last 30 years, make up .008% of the nominated actors. The only Latino American actors to have ever been nominated are Edwards James Olmos (Best Actor), Andy Gracia (Best Supporting Actor), Benicio del Toro (two Best Supporting Actor nominations), and Rosie Perez (Best Supporting Actress). Del Toro represents the lone Latino American acting Oscar win for his work in Traffic, which brings the Latino American win rate to .008%. Even when taking into account the expansion of the Latino population in America over the last thirty years, this statistic is pretty shocking and oddly consistent.

If you expand the search criteria to actors who speak Spanish as a primary language then the numbers mildly soften. There have been 11 actors nominated from majority Spanish speaking countries over the last 30 years, with 5 nominations coming from Spain, 3 from Mexico, 2 from Argentina and 1 from Columbia. There is only one win, that being Spaniard Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The percentage of nominations for Hispanic/Latino/Spanish speaking actors over the last thirty years is roughly .027%. The percentage of wins is roughly .017%.  Even if you expand the U.S. Latino population into the "English Speaking, vibrant film industry" countries of the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Australia, the U.S. Latino population is still 3.5%, well above their Oscar nomination and win rate.

Another group of people seriously under-represented in Acting Oscar nominations and wins are Asians-Americans. Asians make up 6% of the U.S. population, yet an Asian-American actor has not been nominated at all in the last thirty years. When you expand the search to Asians across the globe, there have been just two nominations, one best Supporting Actor nod for Japanese actor Ken Watanabe in The Last Samurai and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Japanese actress Rinko Kakuchi for Babel. That equals a .002% rate for Asian nominations and a 0.0% win rate over the last thirty years, both of which are obviously drastically below the Asian-American U.S. population percentage and so small as to nearly incalculable in regards to the global Asian population.

If we are trying to understand why the Latino and Asian communities are under-represented, we have to make a bunch of assumptions that I don't have the data to confirm or deny. The main assumption is that language is a big barrier to foreign-born Latino and Asian actors. Acting in your primary language is one thing, but the difficulty of acting in a second language cannot be over estimated. Knowing how to speak a language is one thing, and knowing the rhythms, nuances and intricacies of it are entirely another. Also, the Academy is more likely than not, made up of english speakers, so films in foreign languages may get less of a viewing opportunity from members who don't want to read subtitles, and the subtlety of performances may be lost to those not fluent in the language being spoken on screen. Those may be some of the reasons why Latino and Asian actors are so under-represented, but frankly, this argument holds little to no water in regards to Asian-Americans and Latino-Americans, as it assumes that Latino-Americans or Asian-Americans are recent immigrants who are not entirely assimilated into the culture and language, which based on my own personal experience, is an extremely weak premise at best and totally absurd at worst.

It should be noted though that Japan, China, Korea and India all have thriving film industries in their own right, so there would be less of a pressing want or need for success in Hollywood coming from those areas. That said, Asian and Latino directors have still found some success in the Academy where Asian and Latino actors have not. In fact, the last three Best Director Oscar winners have been Latino or Asian, with Mexican directors Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Innaritu winning in 2013 and 2014 respectively and Taiwanese director Ang Lee winning his second Best Director Oscar in 2012. Innaritu is nominated again this year for The Revenant (his third Best Director nomination) and may be a favorite to win the award. The relative success of Latino and Asian filmmakers in recent years is a positive for the film industry and for diversity of artistic vision, even if it hasn't yet translated into more Asian and Latino actors gracing our movie screens.

In looking at the numbers what strikes me the most is that people like Jada Pinkett-Smith, Spike Lee and the #OscarsSoWhite movement are mostly directing their outrage at only Black actors being "snubbed" and under-represented and not about Latino and Asian actors being overlooked. I suppose this makes sense in the case of Lee and Pinkett-Smith since both are African-American. In contrast, what is fascinating to me is that the Latino and Asian communities are not up in arms and claiming racism over their obvious exclusion from the Academy Awards like the Black community has been. Why that is I don't know, but it is very striking nonetheless since the Asian and Latino communities have a much more solid argument. There is a much more compelling case to be made for Benicio del Toro to have been nominated this year for Sicario than there is for any of the previously mentioned Black actors to have been nominated. But the question becomes, was del Toro not nominated because he is Latino? Since Del Toro has been nominated and won an Oscar before, that is a difficult argument to prove.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Which brings us to another uncomfortable question, namely, when race, religion and ethnicity comes up in regards to under-representation, slights and snubs, what group is being over-represented? The "safe" answer is to say "Whites". Of course, not all Whites are the same, or created equal in terms of Hollywood. What does that mean? It means that the thing you aren't supposed to say is something you need to say if you want to have an honest discussion. Namely, that another minority in America, Jews, who make up 1.2% of the general population, are massively over-represented in the film business. This is an easily observable fact. Look at the heads of many of the studios and agencies, Brad Grey at Paramount, Bob Iger at Disney, Michael Lynton at Sony, Les Moonves at CBS/Viacom, Ronald Meyer at Universal, Ari Emanuel at William Morris and Harvey Weinstein at the Weinstein Company, these are just a few of the Jewish movers and shakers in Hollywood.

In regards to Acting Oscar nominations and wins, in just the Best Actor category alone, Jewish actors have won nine times in the last thirty years, for a win rate of 30%, and have been nominated 23 times for a rate of 15.3%. Both the Best Actor win rate and nomination rate are well above the 1.2% Jewish population rate in the U.S. But the question becomes, is that a problem? Is it bad that Jews make up the majority of Hollywood power brokers and a disproportionate amount of Oscar nominees and winners when they are a tiny minority in the population at large? If #OscarsSoWhite thinks Blacks are under-represented than they should have the courage to say that Jews are massively over-represented. This is an extremely uncomfortable topic for obvious historical reasons, but it needs to be brought up if we are saying that the Academy is racist, since the Academy, like Hollywood, is likely populated by many Jews.

In my opinion the answer to the question of Jewish over-representation is…what difference does it make? Just like with Blacks being the overwhelming majority of players in the NBA and NFL, or being 7 of the top 10 most powerful people in entertainment, it is entirely irrelevant. Making it in professional sports requires not only inordinate talent but an immense amount of hard work. So it is with entertainment in general and the film industry in particular. If you succeed in any of these fields it is not because of your race, religion or ethnicity, it is because you are just plain better than the competition and/or have worked harder. In all bottom line businesses, be they sport, entertainment or any other, if you don't get better results than your competition, you won't be around very long. There is no room for ethnic, racial or religious loyalty when victory is the only goal.

CONCLUSION 

Hollywood is an awful, awful place. The film industry is brutal and dehumanizing. Women in particular, of all ethnicities, are treated absolutely atrociously. All people, regardless of color, are seen as little more than opportunities for the powerful to exploit for their own profit. The business is next to impossible to break into, and even when you do break in, you basically have to sell your soul just to get in the room to have the opportunity to audition for a part that might lead to another audition that might lead to another part that might actually get you somewhere. But there is always someone else, someone better looking, someone more interesting, someone better connected, someone 'newer' and 'fresher', or someone just plain better. This is life in Hollywood and entertainment….regardless of color, religion or nationality. The callous gauntlet of Hollywood could not care less about your race, religion or ethnicity, it just wants to know what you can do for it, not what it can do for you.

In the final analysis, the Academy Awards are a pretty ridiculous endeavor, where wealthy, famous and powerful people congratulate one another on how fantastic they think they all are. It is a narcissism measuring contest held by the Narcissism Society of America in the Narcissism Capital of the World (well…it is in the top three with Wall St. and Washington D.C.). The Academy is many things...stupid, sentimental, cowardly, myopic, greedy, but to blindly and emotionally call it racist would be to reduce the power of that charge and diminish the needed impact it would have in areas where the diabolical curse of racism is real and at times deadly. #OscarsSoWhite is a misguided meme that unwittingly endorses emotionalism over rationalism, feelings over reason and a distorted but understandable perception over reality. People would be more accurate, and better served, to say #OscarsSoSHITE than to say #OscarsSoWhite. Regardless, if someone says the Oscars are racist because there are no Black acting nominees this year, be sure to tell them...#DontBelieveTheHype!!!

©2016