96th Academy Awards

Over the last ten plus years, Sharon and I have enjoyed working our way through the Oscar nominated films. Sunday night, we watched the 97th Academy Awards.

I texted my predictions to Clan Heringa, including:

• Best Picture - Anora
• Best Actor - Adrien Brody - The Brutalist
• Best Supporting Actor - Kieran Culkin - A Real Pain
• Best Actress - Demi Moore - The Substance
• Best Supporting Actress - Zoe Saldana - Emilia Perez

I got all of these right except Best Actress. Sharon and I were both shocked that Demi Moore didn't win.

Personally, I was rooting for Timothee Chalamet rather than Brody. Additionally, I am not a big fan of Anora. Anora ended up with five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

We still have a couple more films that we would like to see including: Flow, September 5 and I'm Still Here.  

96th Academy Awards

Over the last ten plus years, Sharon and I have enjoyed working our way through the Oscar nominated films. Sunday night, we watched the 96th Academy Awards.

I texted my predictions to Clan Heringa, including:

• Best Picture - Oppenheimer
• Directing - Oppenheimer
• Best Actor - Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer
• Best Supporting Actor - Robert Downey - Oppenheimer
• Best Actress - Lily Gladstone - Killers of the Flower Moon
• Best Supporting Actress - Da’Vine Joy Randolph - The Holdovers
• International Feature Film - The Zone of Interest

I got all of these right except Best Actress. I was pleasantly surprised that Emma Stone won. Personally, I would have picked Stone over Lily Gladstone, but would have bet that the Academy would give the Oscar to Gladstone.

Oppenheimer won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Murphy, Best Supporting Actor for Downey Jr., Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score. Seven of the 10 best-picture nominees went home with at least something, with Maestro, Past Lives and Killers of the Flower Moon being the three that left empty-handed.

One footnote. We watched Zone of Interest and Society of the Snow over the last couple of days. I will post about those two movies this coming week.

95th Academy Awards

Over the last ten years, Sharon and I have enjoyed working our way through the Oscar nominated films. Sunday night, we watched the 95th Academy Awards.

In the past, I have typically made Oscar predictions. This year, I texted Clan Heringa "No Oscar predictions this year. Everything I read and listened to says that Everything Everywhere All Once is going to clean up. I have very mixed feelings about that…" My notes on Everything Everywhere All At Once are here.

Everything Everywhere All At Once won seven Oscars, including: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Actress; Best Supporting Actor; Best Supporting Actress; Best Original Screenplay, and; Film Editing. Three films have won 11 Academy Awards: Ben-Hur (1959), nominated in 12 of the 15 possible categories; Titanic (1997); nominated in 14 of the 17 possible categories, and; The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), nominated in 11 of the 17 possible categories.

94th Academy Awards

Over the last few years, Sharon and I have enjoyed working our way through the Oscar nominated films and then watching the Academy Awards show. Hopefully, we will be able to host an Academy Awards party again some day!

This year, I went five for five in the major categories. Honestly, I picked CODA for Best Picture partly due to our dislike of The Power of the Dog.

As someone who lost his temper more than occasionally as a young man (I had some really bad role models; more in my book about 1991), I have a hard time passing judgment on the Will Smith/Chris Rock incident. As I suspected, I am starting to see some stories that Smith and Rock have a history.