My Review of the 2015 Oscars

Well, here we are. So I'm gonna timestamp this. The Oscars just finished. It is now past midnight, and I am very tired. But I love you guys, and I have a very busy week upcoming so if I want to write this I gotta do it now. So, y'all are coming on a magical journey with me through my mind. After typing basically non-stop for the last 7 hours, I'm gonna just let my brain run wild. Ok. There were two movie titles in that last sentence. I swear I did not plan for that. Hope you like what you see while you tour my mind! 

We're gonna start with the picks. I'm kind of sad here. The Academy got every category before the Big 4 right. Well, they screwed up Documentary Feature but they screw that up every year so it's not a big deal. And they didn't give Best Animated Feature to The Lego Movie. Which they should've done even though it wasn't nominated. But OTHER THAN THAT, they nailed everything, including several big, and deserving, upsets. I think the biggest upset was the David v. Goliath battle in Sound Mixing that was Whiplash v. American Sniper. Never in a million years would I have thought Whiplash was going to win this category, even though it did a far better job in the mixing department. This was the only point in the evening that I actually screamed in disbelief when the names were called out. Everything was going so well! And then the Big Four happened. So I shouldn't do this, because I'll probably sound like a bitchy child, but I'm tired. So I think this is the best course of action to take right now. (I'll probably delete this too.) I'm gonna go through each of the Big Four, and talk about why the winners did not deserve the award and who instead did deserve it and why. Ok? Ok. Now for the record, I'm not saying any of the victors were bad. They are excellent choices by the Academy, and it's great that someone like Alejandro González Iñárritu is getting the recognition he absolutely deserves. The same goes for Eddie Redmayne. And Julianne Moore. And Birdman. But there were vastly superior choices in each category that I am honestly baffled as to why the Academy did not choose them. So first off, Best Director. Yes, Alejandro González Iñárritu was great. But I believe that his greatness was achieved by assembling an once-in-a-generation cast and just letting them do their thing. When Naomi Watts, a woman who has 2 Oscar nominations to her name, is in about 15 minutes of your film, you probably have something spectacular. When you hire Emmanuel Lubezki to do your cinematography, you basically let him do his own thing and say ok! that sounds good! On the other hand, you have Richard Linklater and Boyhood. That project was his brainchild. It was his name on the line. Not Ethan Hawke, or Patricia Arquette, or anyone else on that team. It was all Linklater. The amount of work he put into writing the story and executing it with a CRAZY 12 year production period is something we've never seen before, and may never see again. I think of every single category this evening, this is the biggest snub of all. Linklater's work on Boyhood was on a whole 'nother planet, man.

Then you have Actor and Actress. The Academy looooves their quantifiable acting, once again giving these awards to the best physical performances of the year. However, the Best Actor category was screwed up from the start so I don't feel like talking about it because I disagreed with most of it, (Eddie Redmayne and Bradley Cooper's performances didn't even show up in my Actors Awards last week-David Oyelowo and Jake Gyllenhaal AND Tom Hardy for Locke (which I just saw and HOLY CRAP GO SEE IT) deserved nominations over them) and I can understand the make-up call with Julianne Moore. Before this year, Moore had been snubbed too many times on Oscar night, so it was nice to see her finally take home a much-deserved Oscar. I'm just sad it came at the expense of both Rosamund Pike and Reese Witherspoon. Oh well. You two are both winners in my heart, and we all know that's what matters. Obviously. And then there's Best Picture.

Dear Academy: why did you not split Director and Picture this year? Look I knew Whiplash wasn't going to win. Even though it was easily my number 1 film of 2014, there was simply no way the little Indie film that could was going to pull out the biggest upset in, well, ever. So the category was basically between Boyhood and Birdman. Both had impressive technical features going for them. So, why don't you split the two main awards for a film between them? Why you leave Boyhood on the side of the road with only a Supporting Actress win? Both of these films will be remembered, but I think Boyhood's technical achievements should've been highlighted more by the Academy than it was. Sigh....also I realize that was more picking on the fact that Boyhood didn't win Best Director but I don't care. I'm ok with Birdman winning Best Picture! It just should not have won both categories.

Then there's everything else. So, Neil Patrick Harris was funny. We all knew that was going to happen. However I must really give him credit for making the Academy feel super uncomfortable with some of his racist jokes, as well as being willing to run out onto the stage in just his undies. I'd be shocked if he's ever invited back to host the Oscars. However, apart from having the good joke here and there, nothing really stood out from him. Well, other than the Birdman/Whiplash homage which was the greatest moment ever BUT BESIDES THAT. Nothing! (Just imagine me being drunk right now. I'm not, but I am REALLY tired.) The only other truly memorable moment for me was Lady Gaga's song. Which, believe me, I did not think I would be saying this right now. But in a year where the Academy really screwed itself with its Best Original Song nominees and found itself scrambling to bring in notable pop icons of today's music, Lady Gaga absolutely delivered for them. It was just interesting that it was in an homage to a film that I think a lot of those under 25 have not seen in The Sound of Music. I think it's criminal that a large portion of our age has not seen it, but I think it's also true. It was not as memorable as last year's Bond tribute was or the musical tribute of the year before. Honestly most of this year was just full of meh. But I digress.

One last thing to mention were the speeches. This. This is what the recipients of the awards got right this year. This year we saw several men and women get up on the stage and use their 45 seconds to make a powerful statement. From Patricia Arquette's statement on women's inequality, to Common and John Legend's powerful statement on the mistreatment of African Americans, to Graham Moore from The Imitation Game absolutely wrecking me with his statement to the LGBT community, (which, by the way, Tegan and Sara absolutely would've done too had they won Best Song over Common and John Legend, so I'm glad Moore did it for them) the speeches were far and away the most memorable part of the Oscars this year. In the last few years, we've seen a criminally small amount of powerful speeches like these made by those given the spotlight for 45 seconds on a stage being watched by millions. And, most of the time, the Academy knows they're coming so they might start the music early or something. For example, they knew that Common and John Legend were going to make a political statement, but, after the #OscarsSoWhite chant that's been trending forever they knew they had to let them have their say. But Patricia Arquette and Graham Moore? Safe to say that was not expected. So I'm glad we made up for it this year. Also, wanna talk about moving? How about the cut to David Oyelowo balling his eyes out after Common and John Legend's performance of Glory? That made me tear up too. Also Meryl Streep's introduction to the In Memorandum portion of the broadcast. Even though....there were a lot of problems with this year's In Memorandum. It lacked a lot of emotion surprisingly on top of the fact that they didn't include Joan Rivers for some reason unbeknownst to me at the time of this writing. And now that I'm about to release this, I STILL don't know why they didn't include her! She kind of invented the red carpet. And is something of a household name. Oops.

Well, that's all I got. Overall, this year's Oscars were almost good, but due to a surprising lack of memorability out of anything other than the speeches, I'm hesitant to actually say the Oscars were good. But, they were definitely a step backwards from last year. Now, if only we could get a host to be as memorable as Ellen was ON TOP OF some great speeches. Next year, right?

MY VERDICT FOR THE 2015 OSCARS: 6.5/10 Almost Good.

OHHHHHHH YA. I forgot about the musical number that opened the Oscars with Anna Kendrick and Jack Black.Well, that was cool, but obviously it was not the most memorable thing in the world seeing as, at 1:30 in the morning after the Oscars, I had already completely forgotten about it. But, that's just me. It was good, yes, but it could've been so much better. Just meh. Ok. That's all I got. For real this time. Thanks for reading and following me on this wonderful trip inside my brain, and following me for the entire run of Oscar season. I'm actually a little sad at the moment, because now II don't get to do this again for another 10 months. Oh well. I'm looking forward to it already. See ya next time, Internet! DEUCES!