If you were keeping score at home and scored my sheet that I posted, you would see that I earned a 15.2, which is almost exactly like last year's score where I tied for first place.
This time, however, we had much higher scores.
In 3rd place is Nicole Koubek, who earned a respectable 17.2.
In 2nd place is my wife, CatholicLoisLane, who edged out Nicole with a 17.4.
And in 1st place this year is Elizabeth Smith with an 18.2. Congratulations, Elizabeth.
I hope everyone had fun this year playing the game.
Anyway, back to the Oscars themselves and my assorted musings.
1. NOT THE LOWEST RATED OSCARS
Last year, I predicted this:
"The winner of Best Picture, The Shape of Water, has a domestic box office of around $60 million. That means that in a nation of around 300 million people, around 6 million or 2% of the country have seen this movie. Contrast that with Black Panther which to date is around $530 million, which is closer to 18% of the population or 9x as many people as have seen The Shape of Water. If Black Panther gets nominated next year you are going to see a huge bump in the ratings."
I was only partially correct. There was a bump in ratings, but it was not huge.
You did have big crowd pleasers like Bohemian Rhapsody and Black Panther. But I don't know anyone who saw The Favorite.
I think that I overestimated how much of an impact Black Panther would have. This may be because people have not gotten into the habit of ignoring the Oscars. Where it was once a juggernaut of an event that was filled with excitment and glamor, it now feels long and dull with not as much excitement.
The fact that it did not have a host did not hurt the show in the slightest. What hurt it was the its biggest problem...
2. BORING
The Academy actually tried to fix this problem by cutting a few awards from the telecast. But there was such a hissy-fit from those in the industry, that they backed off. Originally they were going to cut cinematography, editing, hair and makeup, and live action short. I think the mistake that they made was they chose the wrong categories. Cinematography and Editing are essential to the quality of a feature length film. Instead, they should have cut the categories where almost no one in the general population has seen:
-Best Documentary Short
-Best Animated Short
-Best Live Action Short
-Best Foreign Language Feature
-Every single montage except for the "In Memoriam"
-The "Best Song" nominees should be combined into one mashup number.
We also don't need a special speech and montage for every Best Picture nominee.
3. GREEN BOOK SURPRISES
I was actually incredibly surprised by The Green Book winning for both writing and Best Picture. I thought that the social media campaign against Tony Lip's son would have sunk its chances. But I was very happy for the winners. While I think that Bohemian Rhapsody is a better movie, I believe the Academy was squeamish about giving any credit to Bryan Singer who is currently accused of sex crimes. So they steered towards awarding that movie with things less related to Singer. Regardless, I'm glad that The Green Book won. It is a wonderfully uplifting film with great chemistry between the leads.
4. The Other Results.
- When I saw Queen playing at the beginning I thought "This is going to be awesome!" And then Adam Lambert started singing and I tuned out.
-Roma looks so pretentious and boring that I knew it would win at least a few Oscars.
-thought I didn't see either performance, I was surprised that Olivia Coleman beat out Glenn Close. I have like Coleman since Broadchurch, so I am happy for her.
-Rami Malek deserved his Oscar. In fact, this and Best Song ("Shallows") are the only things the Academy and I agreed on were the best this year.
-I thought the Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga performance was great. This is how you present a song worth of "Best Song."
-Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won a well-deserved Oscar, not only for its quality, but its boldness in its unique visuals and expansive story.
-Spike Lee really likes Samuel L. Jackson. I don't think I've ever hugged my friends like that.
-Politics at awards are bbooooorrrriiiiinnnngggg.
-Black Panther is now the super hero film with the most Oscars (it is tied with Dick Tracy for comic book movie Oscars).
Thoughts?
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