11:46 PM - Three Humbugs Outside Queens, New York.
11:37 PM - "We'll be opening this envelope when we come back."
11:22 PM - I melt in Timothee Chalamet's smile.
11:20 PM - John Avildsen for Rocky, Jonathan Demme for Philadelphia, Michael Ballhaus for Fabulous Baker Boys, Roger Moore when all I wanted was a sweet distraction for an hour or two, Sam Shephard for The Right Stuff,
11:14 PM - del Toro not my first choice, but he gave a really nice speech.
10:59 PM - well, multiple great scores had to lose, and no complaints here about what won.
10:56 PM - This Is Me. Best for Last. The only musical number when I closed by iPad to watch the whole number without distraction. What a great number,more at performance, great anthem. Can this please win? And the movie such a word of mouth audience driven hit.
10:51 PM - Deakins!
10:38 PM - Screenplay was an interesting race. A school of thought for Three Billboards, but even people who liked it often didn't like it all the way through. A lot of love in the room for Jordan Peele and Get Out. And his speech was on the long side but had a vivid passion and purpose, as did the movie. It captured a moment without every trying to be important or worthy. Have sometimes told my clients not to worry too much about theme in writing, because theme arises from whom they are, and whom they are provides guide rails which will provide the theme. Tell a good story, the theme takes care of itself. The speech Michael Stuhlberg delivers in Call Me By Yoir Name -- the acting puts it over and it's a really really good speech, but doesn't it also show a lack of confidence in the writing to put across the message without announcing it? I'm not upset or surprised to have a win for Call Me By Your Name, but doesn't make me more of a fan of that style of filmmaking.
10:35 PM - Listening to the long, worthy, stolid acceptance speech from James Ivory encapsulates in a minute or so my general dislike of the Merchant Ivory school.
10:32 PM - Len Wein didn't last long enough to hear his name read on an Oscar telecast.
10:16 PM - There are only nine awards left to go. I actually think they're doing a not bad job moving things along.
10:14 PM - Woth a title like "Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405" how can you not win an Oscar.
10:09 PM - "do not aim the hot dogs at the vegetarians"
9:59 PM - "I'm am editor. I should be able to do this."
9:57 PM - Editing. Another tight category. Dunkirk deserves, but Baby Driver especially, hate to see lose.
9:54 PM - Blade Runner 2049!
9:52 PM - Shouldn't Spider-Man have a Queens accent?
9:49 PM - Verizon ads -- like, isn't there some other ad agency, any other ad agency, that would be better for Verizon than the one it's using?
9:41 PM - Looking over my list of movies seen in 2017 during the animation awards I don't care about. One of two clear snubs for me is in the animation category, I actually saw Captain Underpants, and I really, really enjoyed it, and I can't believe it wasn't better than one or another of the movies that were nominated. Second snub, Jake Gyllenhaal in Stronger. The acting categories are tough, since you've always got to ask who gets the boot to make room for your preferred. But that was such a vivid, memorable performance, and I don't believe in 20 years that anyone will study Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour as a lesson in acting the way they might pore over every frame of Gyllenhaal's performance in Stronger. They don't get better, just don't.
9:35 PM - What a pod. The Hans Zimmer Walmart ad, the AARP ad, and the T Mobile all rocked.
9:28 PM - A consensus that Janney would win, but could you watch Laurie Metcslfe in Lady Bird and not want very very badly for he to take the award? I have this sudden urge to see Lady Bird again after watching that clip. Like, I liked I Tonya and I liked Janney's performance and yet can't feel right now very very clearly that the wrong person won.
9:23 PM - First year I can remember that I've seen not a one of the Foreign Film nominees.
9:20 PM - Rmember Me production number drew my attention to the TV screen over my iPad more than the Mary Blige performance did. The very long Google ad did nothing for me at all.
9:11 PM - Shape of Water wins for Production Design, a category I don't mind having it win in. It is very stylized, very much an artistic vision, and none of the other nominees strike me as being better or more so.
9:10 PM - "I am from Pakistan and Iowa; two places that no one from Hollywood can find on a map."
9:06 PM - And this is a good opportunity to talk about the Best Score category, which has so many amazing and very different scores. At least two of three when I saw the movie I tweeted "this should be an Oscar nominee," amd they were. It's hard to think of watching Dunkirk with a different score. Carter Burwell's for Three Billboards was different and pitch perfect. Johnny Greenwood also different and tonally adroit over the course of the movie. Anything other than a multi-way tie, and multiple deserving scores are going to lose. About as close as Oscar ever comes to the difficulty of knowing every tennis match will have a loser when you really really like both players.
9:00 PM - The Sound categories -- tough this year. Sound so integral to Dunkirk and to Nolan's vision. Saw Blade Runner in IMAX and wow! A Star Wars movie. A movie like Baby Driver with music so integral and action so timed to the music. Can't complain to have Dunkirk win both, but poor Blade Runner. But maybe in Cinematography for Blade Runner moment.
8:50 PM - What do we think of the Twitter ad?
8:46 PM -
Willam Hoke has this comment: "Since when does having a microphone allow you to attack someone? So far Jimmy Kimmel has attacked Mel Gibson and others by name. How is that decent? Let us all remember that Obama's attack on Trump got us where we are today. This is shameful."
A good point, actually -- though we are losing sight of the idea that we hold the President to a higher standard of behavior than we do a talk show host. Part of the damage that may not get undone in my lifetime, the coarseness of discourse.
8:42 PM - Funny story: I went to see Icarus and slept through almost all of it. Abacus the other one I was interested in, but having read extensive coverage of the event it described in New York Times and New Yorker, figured movie wouldn't add anything more to my knowledge of it.
8:37 PM - Really liked not just having Eva Marie Saint present an award, but letting her precede with a really classy, historically minded speech. For all the "rich history of Oscar" claims by Oscar producers, a rare instance of actually doing it.
8:35 PM -
Did not know this: Jordan Peele is the first filmmaker to be nominated for best picture, director and original screenplay for a debut film.
8:31 PM - It would have been weird for Costume Design not to go to a movie about fashion designer, but some thought it might have gone to something more period, or as part of a Shape of Water sweep.
8:29 PM - The big "Costume Design" on the envelope -- why didn't they think of that 89 years ago?
8:27 PM - maybe more of a burgundy tux. The make up award foreordained.
8:26 PM -- will there be better dressed pair of presenters? Love the red tux, and the silver dress goes well with the crystal theme of the set.
8:24 PM -- that was a Rolex ad? I've seen movies that are worse, with lower budgets.
8:18 PM - "Everyome who's ever looked at a billboard." Sam Rockwell's win widely predicted. It is a great performance in a movie I loved, for an actor with a great CV. When I was 8, my parents were taking me to see things like Walking Tall, Godfather, and Deliverance. As Jack,Torrance says in The Shining "perfect for a child."
8:10 PM - love that Timothee Chalamet has the confidence of youth to be doing the white tux.
8:08 PM "if we can't trust agents." Trust me😬
8:07 PM - Kimmel is nailing it. Funny, serious, tonally about perfect.
7:52 PM -- getting ready.
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