My history with the Oscars goes something like this:
- watched live, would make up “voting ballots” with a friend and put a lot of thought into who/what I thought might win and who/what I thought should win
- watched live, dropped the whole ballot thing
- watched live or if unable due to work/blimp accident/etc. would record and watch later
- recorded to watch later
- recorded and watched a few highlights
- recorded then never watched
- stopped recording
I can’t say why I lost interest, exactly, but I did. However, I do stay apprised of who and what gets nominated and then wins, so here’s my shallow, uninformed analysis of last night’s winners:
The We Can’t Give You Important Oscars So You Get All the Technical Awards: Mad Mad: Fury Road (won 6 Oscars, all for things like sound recording)
Important Movie We Can Give An Oscar To And Feel Good About: Spotlight (about investigative reporting on naughty priests)
The He’s Been Nominated Enough, Give Him An Oscar, Especially Since There’s No Decent Mimic Performances This Year Award: Leonardo DiCaprio
The We Can Give An Oscar to Pixar This Year Award: Inside Out (this wouldn’t have happened if The Good Dinosaur had been their only 2015 release)
We Love Directors Who Make Very Stylish Movies Award: Alejandro G. Inarritu for The Revenant (it would have won Best Picture, too, except Important always trumps Stylish, see above)
The Skyfall Effect Award: Giving the Best Song Oscar to the terrible “Writing’s on the Wall” because it’s from a Bond movie and Skyfall had an awesome song, so this one must be awesome, too, right?
The I Don’t Know These People Awards (impressively given to three of four acting nominees this year): Best Actress (Brie Larson) and Best Supporting Actress (Alicia Vikander), Best Supporting Actor (Mark Rylance)
The Better Give Him an Oscar Before It’s Too Late Award: Ennio Morricone (87), who won for his score for The Hateful Eight. He had five previous nominations, going back to 1979.
The What Did We Do Wrong Award: To the Oscar telecast itself, scoring its lowest viewership since 2008.
