12:05 AM - And we'll call this a wrap for the Live Blog. I may have more to say about some of my favorite movies of 2018, but for the Oscars, it's a night. I know I've done better jobs on the live blog than this year, but since they eliminated around a half hour of Stuff, they eliminated a lot of the down time when I could pay less attention to what was on the screen, and more to my typing. I'll take that trade-off any day.
12:03 AM -- Best Actress. Prior to going for a repeat viewing of The Wife a couple of weeks ago, I don't believe I've ever gone back twice to a movie just to see a brilliant performance by an actress. I am deeply disappointed for Glenn Close. I might have a hard time separating out Olivia Colman's performance from my overall dislike for the movie she was in. But even allowing for that, I can't see Colman's performance as better than the third or fourth best in the category, because Melissa McCarthy is a knockout in Can You Ever Forgive Me, and as up and down as A Star Is Born is, it would almost certainly be down-er with anyone else in the lead role.
11:58 PM - Talking more about the Adapted Screenplay category. I didn't see Beale Street, but there are arguments to be made for all four of the nominees that I did see, while the Original category is full of weak links in stronger movies. Can You Ever Forgive Me takes an assortment of unlikeable characters -- even Jane Curtin as the literary agent isn't the most likable literary agent, which is scandalous, and makes us love their faults and imperfections. A Star is Born gets progressively weaker as it goes along, but at its best it takes a story that's decades old and makes it feel utterly contemporary, and it tackles issues of class differences that aren't required from the original movies. But the Screenplay category, both for awards and nominations, is often where the consolation prize is given, and it's a great place to give Spike Lee his first competitive Oscar. I'd put Spike Lee's career against that of Martin Scorsese. Neither has many Oscar statuettes. Both have done films that are highly variable in quality. I'm glad to see him with an Oscar to put on his shelf.
11:45 PM - I'm more upset with Green Book winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay than I am about its winning Best Picture. The Oscars will be the Oscars, and if anything they've gotten better and less Oscar-y over the course of my lifetime. Last night I saw Goodfellas at the Loews Jersey, with around 300 people in attendance to see a film that's some thirty years old. It lost Best Picture to Dances With Wolves. I doubt the Loews Jersey would program Dances With Wolves. If it did, I doubt 300 people would show up to see it. But the most notable thing about that year's Oscars isn't that Dances With Wolves beat Goodfellas for Best Picture. The more enduring film loses often, and if you take a look at the Amazon rankings, it ain't like there aren't people still interested to buy a copy of the movie. What's noticeable is how Dances With Wolves swept so many of the smaller award, and once upon a time the Best Picture always racked up Oscar after Oscar. Now, it's much more common to see the spreading around of the statuettes as we saw this year with Roma, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book and Black Panther all taking home multiples. But for Screenplay? The remake of Driving Miss Daisy wins for Screenplay? And yet, even there, my disappointment is tempered. This year's Adopted Screenplay category was full of contenders. The Original Screenplay category? Well, The Favourite wasn't winning. Vice? First Reformed and Roma are both better movies than they are screenplays. Roma's strengths weren't in its underwritten screenplay; I don't know that even the movie's fans would say the screenplay was its strength. And First Reformed is similarly flawed to Roma. There's just too much in both screenplays that we don't see on the screen. Without Ethan Hawke and the passion that the screenwriter also brought to his direction, First Reformed is a clumsy mess that flips its lid as it goes over the top in the ending, and Roma is full of contrivances and the under-explained in its screenplay. But. Still. Green Book, for Screenplay?
11:32 PM - Returning to earlier items... So I joked about Ludwig Goransson's ago, but quite well-meaningly. He's 34 years old. And winning an Oscar for Best Score at the age of 34 -- well, that takes some work. You don't get to score very many motion pictures fresh out of college. You've got to become known, apprentice, gain trust, have reputation enough that the music branch of the Academy will think of you as a possible Oscar winner. If we looked back over 90 years of Academy Awards, how many winners will we find who were younger? It's also a tribute to Ryan Coogler, to spot the talent in someone he meets at college, and have the confidence to give that person work. It's easy enough in to do in his debut movie Fruitvale Station, but then you have to be willing to stick with your man when the studio starts to say "Superhero movie, we need to have the score by the guy who does the loud obnoxious Superhero Movie music." Also worth noticing is the delicacy with which Goransson's scored the quite different Creed and Creed II, where the score requires a different touch, including playing the obligatory homage to Bill Conti's original and enduring themes from the first Rocky movie, which Goransson always does with skill and grace. Now, if Goransson would be willing to study just a little bit more at the knee of a John Williams and get even better, because Williams is getting on, Michael Giacchino isn't doing as much as he could be doing to assume the mantle, and we need people for that role.
11:15 PM - Green Book. Well!
11:03: We don’t always get what we want in life. Green Book won an Oscar for its screenplay, and Glenn Close did not win for The Wife. I shall have more to say on these things.
10:50 PM - Rami! I believe Bohemian Rhapsody is currently in the lead with four Oscars. Very good Nike ad. Roma is the only movie with a shot at overtaking Rhapsody.
10:45 PM - Already at Best Actor?!?!?
10:36 PM - after a few minutes of music from E.T., the bulk came from Superman: The Movie, the music over the funeral of Jonathan Kent, which brings tears to my eyes as an adult when I am lucky enough to see the film on the big screen. Fitting selection in a year when Margot Kidder is amongst thise whose lives were commemorated.
10:25 PM - Ludwig Goransson said “twelve years ago” in his acceptance speech. He doesn’t look old enough! Since I didn’t like any of the score nominees, I opted to root for Black Panther in this category, and am glad to have another win for the movie.
10:20: The Good. The Bad. And The Ugly. And having Green Book win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay is definitely in the Bad column.
10:09 PM - I quite liked how they non-introduced Shallow, just had Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper come on up and sing. Would have been better if theybalso used the occasion to reenact that famous piano number from The Fabulous Baker Boys, but, OK. And how have so many people been doing the “Star Was Robbed” thing. It’s a great first third of a movie that gets worse with each trimester. Really! It isn’t a great whole movie.
10:05 PM - quoting @kylebuchanan “Only 3 black women have won Oscars for anything other than acting. 2 of them just happened tonight.”
9:57 PM - First Man. Won an Oscar.
9:53 PM - American Idol ad is the first standout in a while. The cell service providers are dragging the whole thing down.
9:50 PM - Whatever happens with Roma as Best Picture, Netflix has three Oscars in hand tonight.
9:48 PM - “I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar.”
9:47PM -first time presenters have done two awards?
9:38 PM - Not so happy about Supporting Actor category. The winning performance could have been in the Best Actor category, and I just have a lot harder a time seeing Richard Grant or Adam Driver being swapped out for actors as good or better, while with Mahershala Ali, I can easily plug in three or five. Richard E. Grant first came to attention in the late 1980s with Withnail and I, which I didn’t see, and How To Get Ahead in Advertising, which sadly I did, an overpraised art film but Grant made an impression. He resonated more positively in Steve Martin’s LA Story, and over the past thirty years he’s been in everything and anything, genre-wise, that you could be in, a lesser known actor from the Mchael Caine school choice philosophy. But there’s nothing in that thirty years to hint at the offbeat power and brilliance of his performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me,, which is a tone perfect tone poem about a deeply imperfect man playing off an ewually imperfect character played by Melissa McCarthy. I reckon being nominated and getting to play the award circuit is for a Richard E. Grant somewhat its own reward, but an Oscar would be a bigger one. And Adam Driver is an actor of deep subtlety as seen also in movies like Paterson. So, here, two performances I much preferred to the one that won.
9:26 PM - from David Itzkoff in the New York Times — Trevor Noah reflects on his own life as “a young boy growing up in Wakanda,” and recounts the many people in his life who approach him by saying “Wakanda Forever.” “Even backstage, Mel Gibson came up to me like, ‘Wakanda forever.’ He said another word after that but the Wakanda part was nice.”
9:16 PM - I could’ve filled out half of a Ten Best list just with documentaries. Bathtubs Over Broadway, Three Identical Strangers. Science Fair. Filmworker. In addition to the the two I placed on.
12:03 AM -- Best Actress. Prior to going for a repeat viewing of The Wife a couple of weeks ago, I don't believe I've ever gone back twice to a movie just to see a brilliant performance by an actress. I am deeply disappointed for Glenn Close. I might have a hard time separating out Olivia Colman's performance from my overall dislike for the movie she was in. But even allowing for that, I can't see Colman's performance as better than the third or fourth best in the category, because Melissa McCarthy is a knockout in Can You Ever Forgive Me, and as up and down as A Star Is Born is, it would almost certainly be down-er with anyone else in the lead role.
11:58 PM - Talking more about the Adapted Screenplay category. I didn't see Beale Street, but there are arguments to be made for all four of the nominees that I did see, while the Original category is full of weak links in stronger movies. Can You Ever Forgive Me takes an assortment of unlikeable characters -- even Jane Curtin as the literary agent isn't the most likable literary agent, which is scandalous, and makes us love their faults and imperfections. A Star is Born gets progressively weaker as it goes along, but at its best it takes a story that's decades old and makes it feel utterly contemporary, and it tackles issues of class differences that aren't required from the original movies. But the Screenplay category, both for awards and nominations, is often where the consolation prize is given, and it's a great place to give Spike Lee his first competitive Oscar. I'd put Spike Lee's career against that of Martin Scorsese. Neither has many Oscar statuettes. Both have done films that are highly variable in quality. I'm glad to see him with an Oscar to put on his shelf.
11:45 PM - I'm more upset with Green Book winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay than I am about its winning Best Picture. The Oscars will be the Oscars, and if anything they've gotten better and less Oscar-y over the course of my lifetime. Last night I saw Goodfellas at the Loews Jersey, with around 300 people in attendance to see a film that's some thirty years old. It lost Best Picture to Dances With Wolves. I doubt the Loews Jersey would program Dances With Wolves. If it did, I doubt 300 people would show up to see it. But the most notable thing about that year's Oscars isn't that Dances With Wolves beat Goodfellas for Best Picture. The more enduring film loses often, and if you take a look at the Amazon rankings, it ain't like there aren't people still interested to buy a copy of the movie. What's noticeable is how Dances With Wolves swept so many of the smaller award, and once upon a time the Best Picture always racked up Oscar after Oscar. Now, it's much more common to see the spreading around of the statuettes as we saw this year with Roma, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book and Black Panther all taking home multiples. But for Screenplay? The remake of Driving Miss Daisy wins for Screenplay? And yet, even there, my disappointment is tempered. This year's Adopted Screenplay category was full of contenders. The Original Screenplay category? Well, The Favourite wasn't winning. Vice? First Reformed and Roma are both better movies than they are screenplays. Roma's strengths weren't in its underwritten screenplay; I don't know that even the movie's fans would say the screenplay was its strength. And First Reformed is similarly flawed to Roma. There's just too much in both screenplays that we don't see on the screen. Without Ethan Hawke and the passion that the screenwriter also brought to his direction, First Reformed is a clumsy mess that flips its lid as it goes over the top in the ending, and Roma is full of contrivances and the under-explained in its screenplay. But. Still. Green Book, for Screenplay?
11:32 PM - Returning to earlier items... So I joked about Ludwig Goransson's ago, but quite well-meaningly. He's 34 years old. And winning an Oscar for Best Score at the age of 34 -- well, that takes some work. You don't get to score very many motion pictures fresh out of college. You've got to become known, apprentice, gain trust, have reputation enough that the music branch of the Academy will think of you as a possible Oscar winner. If we looked back over 90 years of Academy Awards, how many winners will we find who were younger? It's also a tribute to Ryan Coogler, to spot the talent in someone he meets at college, and have the confidence to give that person work. It's easy enough in to do in his debut movie Fruitvale Station, but then you have to be willing to stick with your man when the studio starts to say "Superhero movie, we need to have the score by the guy who does the loud obnoxious Superhero Movie music." Also worth noticing is the delicacy with which Goransson's scored the quite different Creed and Creed II, where the score requires a different touch, including playing the obligatory homage to Bill Conti's original and enduring themes from the first Rocky movie, which Goransson always does with skill and grace. Now, if Goransson would be willing to study just a little bit more at the knee of a John Williams and get even better, because Williams is getting on, Michael Giacchino isn't doing as much as he could be doing to assume the mantle, and we need people for that role.
11:15 PM - Green Book. Well!
11:03: We don’t always get what we want in life. Green Book won an Oscar for its screenplay, and Glenn Close did not win for The Wife. I shall have more to say on these things.
10:50 PM - Rami! I believe Bohemian Rhapsody is currently in the lead with four Oscars. Very good Nike ad. Roma is the only movie with a shot at overtaking Rhapsody.
10:45 PM - Already at Best Actor?!?!?
10:36 PM - after a few minutes of music from E.T., the bulk came from Superman: The Movie, the music over the funeral of Jonathan Kent, which brings tears to my eyes as an adult when I am lucky enough to see the film on the big screen. Fitting selection in a year when Margot Kidder is amongst thise whose lives were commemorated.
10:25 PM - Ludwig Goransson said “twelve years ago” in his acceptance speech. He doesn’t look old enough! Since I didn’t like any of the score nominees, I opted to root for Black Panther in this category, and am glad to have another win for the movie.
10:20: The Good. The Bad. And The Ugly. And having Green Book win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay is definitely in the Bad column.
10:09 PM - I quite liked how they non-introduced Shallow, just had Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper come on up and sing. Would have been better if theybalso used the occasion to reenact that famous piano number from The Fabulous Baker Boys, but, OK. And how have so many people been doing the “Star Was Robbed” thing. It’s a great first third of a movie that gets worse with each trimester. Really! It isn’t a great whole movie.
10:05 PM - quoting @kylebuchanan “Only 3 black women have won Oscars for anything other than acting. 2 of them just happened tonight.”
9:57 PM - First Man. Won an Oscar.
9:53 PM - American Idol ad is the first standout in a while. The cell service providers are dragging the whole thing down.
9:50 PM - Whatever happens with Roma as Best Picture, Netflix has three Oscars in hand tonight.
9:48 PM - “I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar.”
9:47PM -first time presenters have done two awards?
9:38 PM - Not so happy about Supporting Actor category. The winning performance could have been in the Best Actor category, and I just have a lot harder a time seeing Richard Grant or Adam Driver being swapped out for actors as good or better, while with Mahershala Ali, I can easily plug in three or five. Richard E. Grant first came to attention in the late 1980s with Withnail and I, which I didn’t see, and How To Get Ahead in Advertising, which sadly I did, an overpraised art film but Grant made an impression. He resonated more positively in Steve Martin’s LA Story, and over the past thirty years he’s been in everything and anything, genre-wise, that you could be in, a lesser known actor from the Mchael Caine school choice philosophy. But there’s nothing in that thirty years to hint at the offbeat power and brilliance of his performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me,, which is a tone perfect tone poem about a deeply imperfect man playing off an ewually imperfect character played by Melissa McCarthy. I reckon being nominated and getting to play the award circuit is for a Richard E. Grant somewhat its own reward, but an Oscar would be a bigger one. And Adam Driver is an actor of deep subtlety as seen also in movies like Paterson. So, here, two performances I much preferred to the one that won.
9:26 PM - from David Itzkoff in the New York Times — Trevor Noah reflects on his own life as “a young boy growing up in Wakanda,” and recounts the many people in his life who approach him by saying “Wakanda Forever.” “Even backstage, Mel Gibson came up to me like, ‘Wakanda forever.’ He said another word after that but the Wakanda part was nice.”
9:16 PM - I could’ve filled out half of a Ten Best list just with documentaries. Bathtubs Over Broadway, Three Identical Strangers. Science Fair. Filmworker. In addition to the the two I placed on.
9:12 PM - When Justin Chang says it for you, quote Justin: Foreign-language film winner Alfonso Cuarón, making the second of likely three appearances on stage tonight, has a lot of cinephilia to go around: This time he tips his hat to CITIZEN KANE, JAWS, THE GODFATHER and BREATHLESS and quotes Claude Chabrol.
9:09 PM - Black Panther didn’t make my Ten Best, but I find myself pulling for it because the films I liked more are often not contending. And it is the work of an actual filmmaker in Ryan Coogler who tried jard to bend the superhero movie to his vision, and crafted a film that wears the influence of other great films on jts sleeve, rather than other superhero movies. I am pretty much dead to the world of superhero movies at this point in time, but this has more staying power with me.
9:05 PM - Geek note, Ruth Carter was the Costume Designer for Joss Whedon’s Serenity.
8:53. Serena!
8:44 PM - Moving along so briskly, not a lot of dead time for blogging!
8:37 PM - Walmart ain’t my favorite place. McDonalds neither. But they step up to the plate with their Oscar ads.
8:27 PM - the guys are killing it with the tuxes this year😀👍😊😁👍😊
8:26 PM - Vice is not a good movie.
8:25 PM - and a great Rolex ad. Google did someg soecialir the Oscars, but seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey abused that way. Yikes! Ugggh!!
8:21 PM. That was a great Cadillac ad, and then gets followed by a very prosaic Verizon ad.
8:18 PM - But Free Solo also made my Top Ten, and I wish I had gotten back to see it in IMAX. Missing from the category is Three Identical Strangers.
8:16PM - What a great category. Minding The Gap, Free Solo, RBG all good. Me go for Minding the Gap.
8:10 PM - Regina King is favored to win, and Beale Street is the one film all over the awards season that I took a pass on. No dog in this hunt. I couldn’t have done worse seeing Beale Street over The Favourite, which I loathed.
8:08 PM Sparkly! Love the tux Chadwick Boseman is wearing.
8:04 PM An Oscar buffet fit fir a Queen
9:09 PM - Black Panther didn’t make my Ten Best, but I find myself pulling for it because the films I liked more are often not contending. And it is the work of an actual filmmaker in Ryan Coogler who tried jard to bend the superhero movie to his vision, and crafted a film that wears the influence of other great films on jts sleeve, rather than other superhero movies. I am pretty much dead to the world of superhero movies at this point in time, but this has more staying power with me.
9:05 PM - Geek note, Ruth Carter was the Costume Designer for Joss Whedon’s Serenity.
8:53. Serena!
8:44 PM - Moving along so briskly, not a lot of dead time for blogging!
8:37 PM - Walmart ain’t my favorite place. McDonalds neither. But they step up to the plate with their Oscar ads.
8:27 PM - the guys are killing it with the tuxes this year😀👍😊😁👍😊
8:26 PM - Vice is not a good movie.
8:25 PM - and a great Rolex ad. Google did someg soecialir the Oscars, but seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey abused that way. Yikes! Ugggh!!
8:21 PM. That was a great Cadillac ad, and then gets followed by a very prosaic Verizon ad.
8:18 PM - But Free Solo also made my Top Ten, and I wish I had gotten back to see it in IMAX. Missing from the category is Three Identical Strangers.
8:16PM - What a great category. Minding The Gap, Free Solo, RBG all good. Me go for Minding the Gap.
8:10 PM - Regina King is favored to win, and Beale Street is the one film all over the awards season that I took a pass on. No dog in this hunt. I couldn’t have done worse seeing Beale Street over The Favourite, which I loathed.
8:08 PM Sparkly! Love the tux Chadwick Boseman is wearing.
8:04 PM An Oscar buffet fit fir a Queen
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