A little Oscar buzz

Well, I watched the Oscar ceremony last night and thought that there were good moments and bad moments.  I wasn't impressed with Chris  Rock and evidently neither was Shaun King.  Someone needs to tell Chris that when he's speaking about diversity he's speaking about many, many peoples and not just black people.  His comment after Sam Smith's acceptance speech indicates he doesn't believe LGBT people should be included.  Bringing 3 little Asian-American kids on stage as the punchline for a racist joke was detestable.  And making a joke about Rhianna's panties and a party there?  When did sexist behavior become a pillar of diversity?  Oh, and a grandmother hanging by a rope?  No class there.
Anyway, some of the show was really good.  Some presenters were passable, some were great.  I thought the bit between Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe put the others to shame.  The two reminded me of Abbott and Costello - their routines were sharp, smart and sounded spontaneous.  Gosling and Crowe did the same thing.
I thought Sam Smith's performance was very good.  A lot of people are saying that Lady Gaga's was the best - I wish she would have just sang the song instead of spasming every couple of beats in an attempt to create drama.
I was really surprised that Tom Hardy didn't win for The Revenant.  I thought he was far and away the best part of that movie.  Of course, DiCaprio won and his speech was fine until he hit the part about global warning.  When he noted that they had to move filming down to southern Chile in order to get the right amount of snow, he failed to add that when they were filming up in the Vancouver area it was during the summer and that's why there wasn't a large enough snow pack.  When it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere it's going to be winter in the Southern Hemisphere, which means there's going to be a lot more snow in the Chilean Andes then there is in the Rockies.  What a horses ass.

And, of course, the Picture of the Year was Spotlight.  Academy voters gave the award to a film they felt to be socially relevant.  They want to be seen as artistic rather then commercialistic, so while The Revenant was seen as artistic, it made way too much money and therefore became irrelevant.  A film about investigating the cover up of child abuse by the Catholic church, however, fit the bill.  So, my advice to black actors who want to get nominated is this: get cast in a socially relevant film that doesn't do too well at the box office.  Remember Precious?  That was a big hit with Academy voters. 

The Revenant has no money shot

I went to see The Revenant last night, as did quite a few other people; since it received 12 Oscar nominations the theater was packed.  Described as brutal, I have to say that the beginning was, as was the end... however, the 2 and a half hours in between was a lot of pretentious, artsy fartsy bullshit with lots of problems.
Problem one is time:  The bear attack - it's lush, it's green, there are leafy plants all over the place and ten minutes later it's snowing, and for the rest of the movie there is snow (deep snow) on the ground.
Problem two is location:  At one point a character says that something is about 13 miles away.  Now, I'm going to drop you down in a very snowy landscape without a map and see how close you get.
Problem three is what I call the serendipity of meetings:  In this vast, snowy wilderness, characters seem to be very lucky when it comes to meeting other characters in what are supposed to be random meetings.  They're not.  They're essential for moving this long, long story forward.
Problem four is predictability:  You know what's going to happen, and I'm not just talking about the revenge aspect.  At one point DiCaprio intervenes in another character's story line and you know exactly what's going to happen at the end of the movie.  People get shot and, sadly, you know they're going to get shot before they actually die, other wise the story falls apart.

And then there is DiCaprio, bearded and expressionless.  In a lot of his scenes he doesn't talk and, unfortunately, as they used to say back in the 60's, he doesn't emote very well. He has no money shot where he takes you heart and twists it into a knot.  His problem is you don't really care about him as a character, let alone a human being.

I did like Tom Hardy, who's nominated for a supporting Oscar, but is a lead actor in this film.  His running dialogue scenes are the only thing which really made this watchable.

An indicator of what the audience around me thought:  they were leaving their seats before the end credits started.  In fact, as soon as it faded to black, people started getting up. This was a mass exit from the theater, and in the long walk to the lobby I didn't hear one word of praise.  I did hear people saying "it was too long," or variations of those 4 words.  No one talked about the violence, the brutality, or the panoramic vistas because not one of those things gave the audience what they paid for: the money shot that makes it all worthwhile.