My take on The Oscars 2016

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.