Midnight: Spotlight.
11:57 I like Leonardo DiCaprio a lot, liked him from when I first saw him in Gilbert Grape a very very long time ago. In Wolf of Wall St., in Titanic, in lots of movies. I just wish he wasn't getting an Oscar for The Revenant.
11:53 PM I would happily see Michael Fassbender or Malcom's dad or Matt winning for Best Actor. But this is not likely to end happily. Steve Jobs was a great movie, and Fassbender's performance is a huge part of that. Matt Damon was too good, made it seem too easy! Trumbo better for me than for most critics.
11:45 PM Best Actress is a depressing category for me. Saw 45 Years, and not a fan. And not a fan of Brooklyn, or of Carol. Didn't see Joy. So I guess I'll hope for Brie Larson to win, as she is touted to do.
11:38 PM Not a surprise, but I so wish something or someone else would have won for Best Director. What can he do next year in his quest for Best Award Bait? Maybe we'll find out he's secretly been filming a movie for a few days every year that takes some character from his bar mitzvah through his 30th birthday. Yes, he is "very lucky."
11:35 PM For all the people complaining how long the Oscars are... well, it's actually not much longer than seeing a bloated 2:20+ superhero movie with the accompanying previews of coming attractions. And here, you got to tweet and eat and do the whole social media thing and complain at the TV set, and just now you got to learn about an exciting drug to ask your doctor about. Which beats needing ear plugs during the overblown SFX CGI spectacular half hour battle at the end of the bloated superhero movie.
11:34 PM If they could do a revote after seeing the performances tonight, would the same song have won?
11:33 PM Curious to see what movies won Best Score when Ennio Morricone could have won for The Mission, The Untouchables, or Casualties of War. His collaboration with Brian de Palma was, for me, a particularly rewarding period for Morricone's work.
11:26 PM Look at Ennio Morricone's filmography, it's stunning he's never won an Oscar before, and wonderful for him to get one for something that's good on its own terms, rather than Leonardo DiCaprio potentially winning for something like The Revenant that is far from his best role, movie, or performance. Much as I like John Williams, and hope he'll get one more Oscar for his career, thks deserved to be Morricone's year.
11:17 PM Happily Lady Gaga's great moment is followed shortly thereafter by another one of those great Kohls ads.
11:15 PM Lady Gaga is kind of special. Very powerful moment that crept up in the middle of a song.
11:08 PM No rooting interest in Foreign Language category. The more reviews I read of Son of Saul, the less interested I was in seeing it. So the only one of the five nominees I ended up seeing was the Danish film A War, which opened in NYC just this month. Which was good, though I'd say the director's earlier A Hijacking was somewhat better.
11:05 PM So they found a way to get Jacob Tremblay on to the stage in the year of his amazing performance in Room. A way that worked kind of nicely. This is a really, really sweet moment. Kudos.
11:02 PM It was not a good year for the art of cinematography, with Slocombe, Zsigmond and Miroslav Ondricek all passing away.
11:01 PM Douglas Slocombe passed away just recently. He did additional filming on Close Encounters, leading to work as Director of Photography on the Indiana Jones movies. Only in the Oscar memorial crawl am I noticing that he passed in the same "Oscar year" as the primary cinematographer for Close Encounters, Vilmos Zsigmond.
10:51 PM So I guess I am celebrating an anniversary of seeing Whoopi Goldberg's Oscar-winning performance in Ghost. I saw Ghost at the Loews Elmwood. Where did you see Ghost?
10:48 PM The award for Best Tweet from @isaacbilmes: Patricia Arquette seems bored and confused
I wish I'd come up with that one.
10:46 PM I don't even get the joke about the kids and Price Waterhouse. But I feel like Chris Rock is very very in command of the festivities this evening.
10:43 PM Per my comment a little while ago, Amy was great. The Best Documentary award might have gone to the actual best documentary of last year.
10:39 PM If you want to understand the regard for the caliber of Mark Rylance's performance in Bridge of Spies, just look at his filmography. It's full of, frankly, not very much. The award isn't being given for career achievement. But he's done enough that it isn't being given for being someone we've never heard from and won't hear much from again, which is another tradition in the supporting categories. I first heard Rylance's name associated with Angels and Insects, an overrated UK artsy film that came out some twenty years ago. And it isn't like I've heard it in association with much else since. Lots of Shakespearean and UK theatre credits. But this is an award that's given for a great performance that commanded recognition.
10:37 PM And the clip for Sylvester Stallone showed why the Oscar didn't go to him, shouldn't have. It's said that acting is about listening, and the quickest glimpse of Michael B. Jordan listening to Sylvester Stallone's Rocky shows so much in just a few seconds of quiet listening. So much feeling, so much thought, so much thinking about what's being said. I mention in my #OscarsSoWhite post that it's tough to judge negatively on categories Creed could have been nominated in and wasn't; which Best Actor nominee do you boot in favor of Michael B. Jordan. But Jordan delivered a better performance in Creed than Sylvester Stallone did, and let's hope Michael B. Jordan's time will come...
10:32 PM Glad to hear Mark Rylance singling out Tom Hanks for praise. Tom Hanks should be the Men-yl Streep, picking up nomination after nomination in the Best Actor category, and he isn't. He's so effortless and so likable that it's hard to appreciate just how good he is, continues to be, in many different roles.
10:31 PM The win for Mark Rylance is something of an upset, but he gives a great performance in Bridge of Spies. Which I really liked. And which now has an Oscar win.
10:30 PM Everyone thinks Stallone wins for Creed, but the Supporting Actor category is full of great performances from Stallone, Bale, Ruffalo and Rylance. Anyone but Tom Hardy for The Revenant.
10:20 PM These Android ads. This was better than the first, but still has so little to do with the product that I don't think it works. And did I suggest that Kohls start the search for a new ad agency?
10:15 PM Will take advantage of song to finish my cole slaw from my take-out last night from the excellent John Brown Smokehouse. Better BBQ than any place in NC or TX or KC or wherever, just a ten-minute walk from my apartment. For good BBQ, come to NYC and join me at John Brown Smokehouse. I got there too late yesterday, though, and they were out of turkey. Sigh.
10:14 PM I also like Kevin Hart's tux. If I ever have to go the National Book Awards or something, I hope I can find a tuxedo with pizzazz. Not that this is a problem I am very likely to have to worry about. But yes, "a suit with shiny stuff on it," as Kevin Hart just said. That's the way to go.
10:13 PM I didn't like Inside Out at all, but I guess as a 51-year-old I can't muster the energy to hate what happens in the Animation category. Don't go to many of the movies. I liked Peanuts Movie, which wasn't even nominated.
10:11 PM Is there any chance that people voted for Bear Story in the Animated Short category because they thought they were voting for the Bear Mauling in The Revenant, thus heightening the chances that some other, better movie will take the Best Picture award?
10:10 PM I'm going to talk a little about documentaries while the Minions are speaking. 2015 was a great year for documentary films, and most of the best to me aren't even on the Oscar ballot. From those we can choose from, Amy is my hands-down favorite. It's informative, enlightening, happy, sad, opinionated but even-handed. Takes a musical figure I'd known only from a great distance and humanizes her. Finds the tragedy without dwelling in sadness. Don't know if it will win tonight. Do know I would strongly suggest checking it out.
10:07 PM They don't have near enough boxes for 3000 people.
10:05 PM Is Wednesday's episode of The Goldbergs finally the excuse I need to give it a try? Have an hour of TV to replace The Flash with. Try that? Try Black-ish?
10:02 PM One of my professional frustrations is the ghettoization and lack of appreciation of serious science fiction. Ex Machina should have gotten even better reviews, been seen by even more people. But there are a lot of people who don't even have the tools to understand and evaluate Ex Machina, to appreciate the suppleness of its writing, the elegance with which the performances conveyed those words, and the idea that Alex Garland put into them. So it is incredibly, incredibly sweet to have it take something home on Oscar night. It takes some unexpected yet obvious turns, in the tradition of but more serious than something like Sixth Sense. I would see this again if it popped up at a New York movie house.
9:57 PM And I am kind of stunned and kind of super happy that Ex Machina has taken an actual Oscar to go with its honorary win for Alicia Vikander in the supporting arts category.
9:57 PM Quick glimpse of bear mauling sequence that would have cut The Revenant short. Too bad it didn't.
9:55 PM Very nice gesture to single out Andy Serkis for some special recognition, since his contributions to movies like the Planet of the Apes and Lord of the Rings sagas have been hard to acknowledge within traditional acting categories.
9:53 PM Quite a year for achievement in unexpected sequels, with both Mad Max Fury Road and Creed setting a standard that I can pretty much guarantee won't be exceeded by the next Avengers or Superman movie.
9:52 PM We're now at six wins for Mad Max: Fury Road; we can safely say it will be taking home the most Oscars on the evening. Maybe not the biggest Oscar, but definitely the most of them.
9:50 PM One of those Mad Max dudes is wearing a great tux. The Mad Max tech crew is setting the bar high for wardrobe tonight, which is probably not what they were covering on the red carpet. Like, I want that tux.
9:49 PM Maybe Star Wars can get a token win in one of the sound categories?
9:45 PM Two dud ads from Kohls. I vote they start the search for a new ad agency first thing Monday morning.
9:43 PM Hasn't Liev Schreiber come a long way from lighting up the screen in the Scream movies? Lots of critics have him on their "Should have" lists for Spotlight.
9:41 PM Four wins now for Mad Max Fury Road, and against tough competition. Spotlight and The Big Short also had serious cred for winning in this category.
9:40 PM Editing is a category with a snub. I think Bridge of Spies should have gotten a nod in this category.
9:38 PM Not a surprise to see The Revenant win for photography. It looked beautiful in the 30 minutes I saw of it. But this was a category with a lot of achievement from all of the nominees.
9:34 PM: McDonalds ad just used the word "montage," hopefully to better results than Sam Morgan rolling it out when we played Codenames in the office on Wednesday.
9:33 PM: Steve Jobs hasn't been in the discussion much this awards season, and I just want to interrupt to say how good a movie it was.
9:30 PM: I saw Mad Max Fury Road with noted YA author and JABberwocky client E C Myers!
9:30 PM: The bear -- nice touch!
9:27 PM Are these three straight tech wins for Mad Max Fury Road three leaves at the bottom of a tea cup?
9:25 PM Can we acknowledge that the "thank you" crawl at the bottom isn't working, and do away with it before the end of the evening?
9:23 PM And I kind of am surprised. But not going to complain. Anything but The Revenant is my motto for the night, and Mad Max Fury Road was a very well-crafted film.
9:23 PM Will be surprised if The Revenant doesn't win Production Design.
11:57 I like Leonardo DiCaprio a lot, liked him from when I first saw him in Gilbert Grape a very very long time ago. In Wolf of Wall St., in Titanic, in lots of movies. I just wish he wasn't getting an Oscar for The Revenant.
11:53 PM I would happily see Michael Fassbender or Malcom's dad or Matt winning for Best Actor. But this is not likely to end happily. Steve Jobs was a great movie, and Fassbender's performance is a huge part of that. Matt Damon was too good, made it seem too easy! Trumbo better for me than for most critics.
11:45 PM Best Actress is a depressing category for me. Saw 45 Years, and not a fan. And not a fan of Brooklyn, or of Carol. Didn't see Joy. So I guess I'll hope for Brie Larson to win, as she is touted to do.
11:38 PM Not a surprise, but I so wish something or someone else would have won for Best Director. What can he do next year in his quest for Best Award Bait? Maybe we'll find out he's secretly been filming a movie for a few days every year that takes some character from his bar mitzvah through his 30th birthday. Yes, he is "very lucky."
11:35 PM For all the people complaining how long the Oscars are... well, it's actually not much longer than seeing a bloated 2:20+ superhero movie with the accompanying previews of coming attractions. And here, you got to tweet and eat and do the whole social media thing and complain at the TV set, and just now you got to learn about an exciting drug to ask your doctor about. Which beats needing ear plugs during the overblown SFX CGI spectacular half hour battle at the end of the bloated superhero movie.
11:34 PM If they could do a revote after seeing the performances tonight, would the same song have won?
11:33 PM Curious to see what movies won Best Score when Ennio Morricone could have won for The Mission, The Untouchables, or Casualties of War. His collaboration with Brian de Palma was, for me, a particularly rewarding period for Morricone's work.
11:26 PM Look at Ennio Morricone's filmography, it's stunning he's never won an Oscar before, and wonderful for him to get one for something that's good on its own terms, rather than Leonardo DiCaprio potentially winning for something like The Revenant that is far from his best role, movie, or performance. Much as I like John Williams, and hope he'll get one more Oscar for his career, thks deserved to be Morricone's year.
11:17 PM Happily Lady Gaga's great moment is followed shortly thereafter by another one of those great Kohls ads.
11:15 PM Lady Gaga is kind of special. Very powerful moment that crept up in the middle of a song.
11:08 PM No rooting interest in Foreign Language category. The more reviews I read of Son of Saul, the less interested I was in seeing it. So the only one of the five nominees I ended up seeing was the Danish film A War, which opened in NYC just this month. Which was good, though I'd say the director's earlier A Hijacking was somewhat better.
11:05 PM So they found a way to get Jacob Tremblay on to the stage in the year of his amazing performance in Room. A way that worked kind of nicely. This is a really, really sweet moment. Kudos.
11:02 PM It was not a good year for the art of cinematography, with Slocombe, Zsigmond and Miroslav Ondricek all passing away.
11:01 PM Douglas Slocombe passed away just recently. He did additional filming on Close Encounters, leading to work as Director of Photography on the Indiana Jones movies. Only in the Oscar memorial crawl am I noticing that he passed in the same "Oscar year" as the primary cinematographer for Close Encounters, Vilmos Zsigmond.
10:51 PM So I guess I am celebrating an anniversary of seeing Whoopi Goldberg's Oscar-winning performance in Ghost. I saw Ghost at the Loews Elmwood. Where did you see Ghost?
10:48 PM The award for Best Tweet from @isaacbilmes: Patricia Arquette seems bored and confused
I wish I'd come up with that one.
10:46 PM I don't even get the joke about the kids and Price Waterhouse. But I feel like Chris Rock is very very in command of the festivities this evening.
10:43 PM Per my comment a little while ago, Amy was great. The Best Documentary award might have gone to the actual best documentary of last year.
10:39 PM If you want to understand the regard for the caliber of Mark Rylance's performance in Bridge of Spies, just look at his filmography. It's full of, frankly, not very much. The award isn't being given for career achievement. But he's done enough that it isn't being given for being someone we've never heard from and won't hear much from again, which is another tradition in the supporting categories. I first heard Rylance's name associated with Angels and Insects, an overrated UK artsy film that came out some twenty years ago. And it isn't like I've heard it in association with much else since. Lots of Shakespearean and UK theatre credits. But this is an award that's given for a great performance that commanded recognition.
10:37 PM And the clip for Sylvester Stallone showed why the Oscar didn't go to him, shouldn't have. It's said that acting is about listening, and the quickest glimpse of Michael B. Jordan listening to Sylvester Stallone's Rocky shows so much in just a few seconds of quiet listening. So much feeling, so much thought, so much thinking about what's being said. I mention in my #OscarsSoWhite post that it's tough to judge negatively on categories Creed could have been nominated in and wasn't; which Best Actor nominee do you boot in favor of Michael B. Jordan. But Jordan delivered a better performance in Creed than Sylvester Stallone did, and let's hope Michael B. Jordan's time will come...
10:32 PM Glad to hear Mark Rylance singling out Tom Hanks for praise. Tom Hanks should be the Men-yl Streep, picking up nomination after nomination in the Best Actor category, and he isn't. He's so effortless and so likable that it's hard to appreciate just how good he is, continues to be, in many different roles.
10:31 PM The win for Mark Rylance is something of an upset, but he gives a great performance in Bridge of Spies. Which I really liked. And which now has an Oscar win.
10:30 PM Everyone thinks Stallone wins for Creed, but the Supporting Actor category is full of great performances from Stallone, Bale, Ruffalo and Rylance. Anyone but Tom Hardy for The Revenant.
10:20 PM These Android ads. This was better than the first, but still has so little to do with the product that I don't think it works. And did I suggest that Kohls start the search for a new ad agency?
10:15 PM Will take advantage of song to finish my cole slaw from my take-out last night from the excellent John Brown Smokehouse. Better BBQ than any place in NC or TX or KC or wherever, just a ten-minute walk from my apartment. For good BBQ, come to NYC and join me at John Brown Smokehouse. I got there too late yesterday, though, and they were out of turkey. Sigh.
10:14 PM I also like Kevin Hart's tux. If I ever have to go the National Book Awards or something, I hope I can find a tuxedo with pizzazz. Not that this is a problem I am very likely to have to worry about. But yes, "a suit with shiny stuff on it," as Kevin Hart just said. That's the way to go.
10:13 PM I didn't like Inside Out at all, but I guess as a 51-year-old I can't muster the energy to hate what happens in the Animation category. Don't go to many of the movies. I liked Peanuts Movie, which wasn't even nominated.
10:11 PM Is there any chance that people voted for Bear Story in the Animated Short category because they thought they were voting for the Bear Mauling in The Revenant, thus heightening the chances that some other, better movie will take the Best Picture award?
10:10 PM I'm going to talk a little about documentaries while the Minions are speaking. 2015 was a great year for documentary films, and most of the best to me aren't even on the Oscar ballot. From those we can choose from, Amy is my hands-down favorite. It's informative, enlightening, happy, sad, opinionated but even-handed. Takes a musical figure I'd known only from a great distance and humanizes her. Finds the tragedy without dwelling in sadness. Don't know if it will win tonight. Do know I would strongly suggest checking it out.
10:07 PM They don't have near enough boxes for 3000 people.
10:05 PM Is Wednesday's episode of The Goldbergs finally the excuse I need to give it a try? Have an hour of TV to replace The Flash with. Try that? Try Black-ish?
10:02 PM One of my professional frustrations is the ghettoization and lack of appreciation of serious science fiction. Ex Machina should have gotten even better reviews, been seen by even more people. But there are a lot of people who don't even have the tools to understand and evaluate Ex Machina, to appreciate the suppleness of its writing, the elegance with which the performances conveyed those words, and the idea that Alex Garland put into them. So it is incredibly, incredibly sweet to have it take something home on Oscar night. It takes some unexpected yet obvious turns, in the tradition of but more serious than something like Sixth Sense. I would see this again if it popped up at a New York movie house.
9:57 PM And I am kind of stunned and kind of super happy that Ex Machina has taken an actual Oscar to go with its honorary win for Alicia Vikander in the supporting arts category.
9:57 PM Quick glimpse of bear mauling sequence that would have cut The Revenant short. Too bad it didn't.
9:55 PM Very nice gesture to single out Andy Serkis for some special recognition, since his contributions to movies like the Planet of the Apes and Lord of the Rings sagas have been hard to acknowledge within traditional acting categories.
9:53 PM Quite a year for achievement in unexpected sequels, with both Mad Max Fury Road and Creed setting a standard that I can pretty much guarantee won't be exceeded by the next Avengers or Superman movie.
9:52 PM We're now at six wins for Mad Max: Fury Road; we can safely say it will be taking home the most Oscars on the evening. Maybe not the biggest Oscar, but definitely the most of them.
9:50 PM One of those Mad Max dudes is wearing a great tux. The Mad Max tech crew is setting the bar high for wardrobe tonight, which is probably not what they were covering on the red carpet. Like, I want that tux.
9:49 PM Maybe Star Wars can get a token win in one of the sound categories?
9:45 PM Two dud ads from Kohls. I vote they start the search for a new ad agency first thing Monday morning.
9:43 PM Hasn't Liev Schreiber come a long way from lighting up the screen in the Scream movies? Lots of critics have him on their "Should have" lists for Spotlight.
9:41 PM Four wins now for Mad Max Fury Road, and against tough competition. Spotlight and The Big Short also had serious cred for winning in this category.
9:40 PM Editing is a category with a snub. I think Bridge of Spies should have gotten a nod in this category.
9:38 PM Not a surprise to see The Revenant win for photography. It looked beautiful in the 30 minutes I saw of it. But this was a category with a lot of achievement from all of the nominees.
9:34 PM: McDonalds ad just used the word "montage," hopefully to better results than Sam Morgan rolling it out when we played Codenames in the office on Wednesday.
9:33 PM: Steve Jobs hasn't been in the discussion much this awards season, and I just want to interrupt to say how good a movie it was.
9:30 PM: I saw Mad Max Fury Road with noted YA author and JABberwocky client E C Myers!
9:30 PM: The bear -- nice touch!
9:27 PM Are these three straight tech wins for Mad Max Fury Road three leaves at the bottom of a tea cup?
9:25 PM Can we acknowledge that the "thank you" crawl at the bottom isn't working, and do away with it before the end of the evening?
9:23 PM And I kind of am surprised. But not going to complain. Anything but The Revenant is my motto for the night, and Mad Max Fury Road was a very well-crafted film.
9:23 PM Will be surprised if The Revenant doesn't win Production Design.
9:21 PM Costume Design for Mad Max! I didn't have an opinion until they started announcing the awards, and they got to Mad Max, and I said "you know, these costumes had to be created actually from whole cloth to form a full world that couldn't be based on pictures from a book or a newspaper." I'm happier about this than I would have thought. And the winner is wearing quite a costume, herself.
9:17 PM Followed by an ad for Mr. Holland's Opus. Wait. No. An ad for Android. How couldn't I have figured that out?
9:16 PM Cadillac ad is a glorified version of the Kohl's ad. So well done, so intriguing, all the art and artistry. And it's an ad for a car nameplate.
9:13 PM: Yeah. I don't like it when someone wins for a movie I didn't see, but since she was in another movie this year that I saw, and that movie was really good, and she was really good. Congrats to Alicia Vikander.
9:12 PM: Even Alicia Vikander from the movie I didn't see. I can pretend it's for Ex Machina, instead.
9:10 PM: Anyone but Rooney Mara in this category. Please. Anyone.
9:10 PM: So each Best Picture gets about as much time as the bits during the screenplay award presentations?
9:06 PM: Over 35 minutes in. 2 awards presented.
9:04 PM One of the worst ever James Bond movies has as many Oscar nominations as Straight Outta Compton.
8:57 PM: I feel like the Kohl's ad is a fail. It doesn't have any association with the product it's advertising. Would have fit in with all the bad ads during the Super Bowl telecast.
8:56 PM: The Samsung Galaxy 7 ad was better filmmaking than some of the Best Picture nominees. So was the Diet Coke ad.
8:52 PM And the three-way Best Picture race lives on, with The Big Short staking its claim.
8:50 PM Another tough category in Adopted Screenplay. Martian, Big Short, Room -- all three, I could make a case for.
8:48 PM: It's now official. One of the year's best pictures will not win an Oscar. And one of the year's best pictures is guaranteed at least one. Keeps Best Picture race alive; if Compton had pulled an upset here, highly unlikely Spotlight would have still been in running for the top prize.
8:46 PM: Tough category. I want Straight Outta Compton to win an Oscar. And of course, I loved Ex Machina. And Spotlight.
8:40 PM "Sorority Racist" -- I detect a hash tag.
8:35 PM I worry about wearing white clothes because they'll get stained so easily. I hope no one plans on giving Chris Rock a newspaper to read during the commercial breaks, and that he ate beforehand. Newspaper ink is deadly.
8:33 PM I don't understand this montage.
8:31 PM And we're off!
8:26 PM I'd be happy to see either Spotlight or The Big Short win for Best Picture, of the three movies considered to be in a three-picture race. Last year I was totally bummed when Boyhood lost to the overrated Oscar Bait that was Birdman, and if Alejandro Inarritu, the director of that film can do it again this year with The Revenant, I will not be happy. You can reference my "#OscarsSoTrite" post for further details on my reaction to The Revenant. In fairness, a reaction that is based on only the first 30 minutes, because I couldn't tolerate longer. Also this year, #OscarsSoWhite, best exemplified by the failure of Straight Outta Compton to be nominated for Best Picture.
8:25 PM In a year full of over two dozen nominations for movies I didn't see or didn't like very much, I have lots of opinions this year.
7:58 PM Coming soon, my annual live blog!