Oscars 2016: My Worst Score In Five Years

Last night, I watched the 88th Academy® Awards broadcast with friends and over 150 people at the Rialto Theater in Raleigh. There was a lot of laughter, and some gasps, at host Chris Rock’s hilarious opening monologue, which, of course, was completely about the whole #oscarsowhite controversy. You knew it was coming way before he walked out on stage to Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” but that didn’t lessen the impact of such lines as: “This year, in the In Memoriam package, it’s just going to be black people that were shot by the cops on their way to the movies.”

I’ve read that some folks think Rock went too far with some of his material, but I found it to be maybe the best Oscars opening monologue ever – at least the funniest. So were appearances by Louis CK, Sarah Silverman, and Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G, but there were, as always, some bits that bombed like when CLUELESS actress Stacey Dash came onstage as the supposed new “director of the minority outreach program” and wished everyone a happy Black History Month to zero laughter, and Rock bringing his daughters out to sell girl scout cookies was pretty lame too.

Was happy to see Leonardo DiCaprio win for THE REVENANT - the lock of the night. Naysayers complain that his acting was just angry grunting, but I thought he put in a intensely passionate performance. Of course, in the Oscar tradition, this also majorly a win for his previously nominated work, so you got to factor in his terrific turns in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, and THE AVIATOR among others. DiCaprio had a nice eloquent speech too.

Anyway, on to the actual awards. My predictions were really off as I had my worst score in five years: 16 out of 24. In 2012, my score was 15/24 (My best score was in 2014: 21/24). I had THE REVENANT down for Best Picture, it went to SPOTLIGHT, which I came very close to going with as it was my favorite film of 2015. THE REVENANT did win all the other categories that I predicted, including Alejandro G. Iñárritu for Best Director, making him the first person in 66 years to win the award two years in a row. With SPOTLIGHT and BIRDMAN’s wins last year, I guess I’ll know to vote for the Michael Keaton movie that is up for Best Picture next year.

Here are the eight predictions I got wrong:

BEST PICTURE: SPOTLIGHT (I picked THE REVENANT)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Mark Rylance for BRIDGE OF SPIES (I picked Sylvester Stallone for CREED)

ORIGINAL SONG: “Writing’s on the Wall” – Sam Smith from SPECTRE (I picked: “Til It Happens to You” from THE HUNTING GROUND)

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT: STUTTERER ( I had SHOK down for this, I thought it would lose to AVE MARIA).

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: A GIRL IN THE RIVER: THE PRICE OF FORGIVENESS (I took a stab in the dark with BODY TEAM 12)

BEST ANIMATED SHORT: BEAR STORY I missed all three of Best Short Film nominees, even though I’ve actually seen all of the Live Action and Animated ones. I guessed with my heart on these for sure.

VISUAL EFFECTS: EX MACHINA (I thought the Academy would throw a bone to the hugely successful STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS. My second choice would’ve been MAD MAX: FURY ROAD so I was going to lose this one either way.

COSTUME DESIGN: MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (I had picked Sandy Powell for CINDERELLA; my second choice was Powell for CAROL, so I really underestimated MAD MAX, which won 6 Oscars). I loved how Jenny Beavan, MAD MAX Costume Designer, looked like she could've been in the movie with her outfit:

So that's Oscars 2016. Despite my poor score, I had fun and I'm glad there were a few surprises.

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Film Babble Blog’s Top 5 Oscar Best Picture Beefs

Just like every year, in anticipation for the latest Academy Awards ceremony (this year's, the 88th, airing tonight on ABC), film buffs/blowhards like me can't help bitching about the great movies that didn't win Best Picture in previous years while some incredibly undeserving film took home the gold. 

I've had these conversations many times, especially when I worked at a video store (remember those?), about how a favorite movie, like, say PULP FICTION, got passed over for some forgettable piece of fluff, like, say, FORREST GUMP, that was nowhere as influential and hasn't held up in the long run.

So these Top 5 picks are pretty f-in' obvious, and predictable if you know me (2 Scorsese films are on the list), but they stand as the five instances where I most thought the Oscars got it dead wrong.

Counting down:

5. Robert Benton's (who?) KRAMER VS. KRAMER winning over Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW. (1979) 

That's right, this:

won over this:

Crazy, huh?

4. THE ENGLISH PATIENT winning instead of the Coen brothers' crime comedy drama masterpiece FARGO! (1996) Yeah, I mean who even mentions Anthony Minghella's weepy war rom drama THE ENGLISH PATIENT now? It's probably better remembered as a reference point on a episode of Seinfeld than as an actual film that people saw and liked. At least Frances McDormand won Best Actress for her peppy portrayal of police woman Marge Gunderson, one of the greatest movie characters of all time.

3. Robert Redford's ORDINARY PEOPLE winning instead of Martin Scorsese's RAGING BULL. (1980) This is just silly. However, I did appreciate ORDINARY PEOPLE, but just thought it came nowhere near the majesty that was Scorsese's fourth film with Robert De Niro.

2. John Ford's HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY won over Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE! (1941)

Now I obviously wasn't around when this happened, but I can sure feel the 7 decades plus ripple effect from what many consider the greatest film of all time losing out to a movie that has been pretty much left in the dust bin of history. Actually, HGWMV isn't a bad film - I watched it a few years back and found it be a well made drama. And it's much better than the next film for sure:

1. Kevin f-in' Costner's DANCES WITH WOLVES winning over Martin Scorsese's mangum opus mob epic GOODFELLAS. (1990). This one still kills me. Scorsese makes two of his greatest movies and they both lose to pretty boy actor's directorial debuts. I'd like to think that Marty and co.'s reaction to the announcement looked like the picture above. At least Joe Pesci won the Best Supporting Actor award, and Scorsese went on to grab the gold with 2005's THE DEPARTED. That one was one of the biggest example's of payback in the entire history of Oscar.

#5 on this list also has to do with my biggest Best Actor beef ever, that Peter Sellers' brilliant work in Hal Ashby's BEING THERE, one of my all time favorite films, was passed over.

Sellers could walk on water, but he still lost to Dustin Hoffman in that damn divorce drama.

Anyway, let's see what beefs tonight's Oscars show will give me. You'll know immediately as I'll be live tweeting the event (follow @filmbabble).

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TRIPLE 9: A Serviceable Off Season Heist Thriller

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

TRIPLE 9 (Dir. John Hillcoat, 2016)

A “triple 9” is slang for the police code 999, which means “officer down.” In this heavy on the grit heist thriller, it’s what a group of corrupt cops and a few criminal partners are counting on in order to pull off a dangerous job involving breaking into a heavily guarded government facility.

Sure, it sounds like a pretty standard issue premise for the February dumping ground (especially to be released on Oscar weekend), but hear me out as I had a bit of fun with it.

We are introduced to the crime busting/crime creating crew, made up of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Clifton Collins, Jr., Aaron Paul, and Norman Reedus, in an opening sequence bank heist in downtown Atlanta. You know the drill - menacing thugs in black masks shouting at tellers, and customers to get on the ground, a look-out in a white van outside monitoring police scanners, frazzled bank manager being forced to open the vault, etc.

Yet all these routine elements are efficiently handled and there are some genuine thrills along the way as the gang’s getaway hits a snag in the form of a red smoke bomb that goes off in one of the cash bags, which leads to a freeway bridge shoot-out (you know, sort of like in DEADPOOL!).

After the smoke clears and our gang escapes scot free, they are refused payment for the bank job by the Russian mob headed by an initially unrecognizable Kate Winslet (it’s the big, brassy blonde hair that threw me off). Winslet’s Irina Vlaslov (great name) demands that the crew do the aforementioned break-in so that they can steal computer files that will get her husband released from a Russian prison.

Their plan to manufacture a 999 has a mark in good cop Casey Affleck as Mackie’s new partner. Affleck, whose presence here recalls his roles in the OCEAN’S ELEVEN movies, and TOWER HEIST, and also brings to mind his brother’s THE TOWN, is the nephew of the detective (Woody Harrelson) investigating the first robbery, so he may be able to figure out who the bad apples on the force are before he’s targeted.

There’s not a lot to Affleck’s character, but the sweaty, boozing Harrelson, in a part that’s shaky, where his True Detective persona was smooth, may be the film’s saving grace. He certainly steals the movie with lines like “be careful what you insta-face-tweet,” and (to Affleck) “your job is to out-monster the monster and make it home at the end of the night.”

Winslet, who’s up for an Oscar on Sunday night for STEVE JOBS, also stands out with her not bad Russian accent, garish outfits, and big hair. It’s way against type but she successfully disappears into the evil Irina. It would be fascinating to see what Cate Blanchett, who was originally cast in the part, would do with it, but I’m glad Winslet got this chance to show us yet another layer.

Despite their underwritten roles, Mackie deftly proves he can be a dark dude when not dolled up in a Marvel suit, Ejiofor gets some steely stoical moments in, and Paul, of course echoing Breaking Bad’s Jesse, basically just goes through the movie as if he’s on a really bad trip.

TRIPLE 9 is a serviceable off season thriller. Its workmanlike screenplay by first-timer Matt Cook holds it back somewhat, but its committed cast, and its flashes of craft by director Hillcoat ensure that it’s at least a notch above the generic genre exercise that most critics will accuse it of being.

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