Movie On: 88th Academy Awards Winners

Think will be whining every single year, just like I did this year, as with all my whining was able to really lower my expectations to a minimum and yes (!) was able to enjoy the Oscars show! Not only did I enjoy the show but, surprise, was able to stay awake until the end. Why? Why something so unexpected happen?

Producers changed the show!

Yes, the show was VERY different. First decided to present awards as the film process happens and started with the script awards, where is exactly where any film starts, developing an idea into something more tangible. Alright there were some acting awards spread along the process that had nothing to do with it, but imagine that the more visible awards for viewers are the ones they actually are familiar with, the actors. Can't complain about the sequence, the order of presentation as believe allowed show to flow seamless. Take a look how the order came.

Second was VERY fast. Seems producer opted for a very fast flowing show, sometimes it felt too fast for me, but in the end that's what also help me to stay awake. But perhaps the biggest change was that show host actually was a host. In previous years host was like a comic relief that appeared more in the beginning of the show with an opening monologue and some dumb jokes along the first hour, then disappeared into oblivion. Sigh. Wish Ellen year would have her doing the host thing like this year, would have been a hilarious show!

Just 2 days before the Oscars was watching France's Academy awards, the Cesar and was wondering why the American show was not similar with a host that actually was a host along the complete show. Also think BAFTA's, the host is the host all the way to the end with frequent appearances. So, SURPRISE, finally the Oscars are doing the effort to have a host that hosts the awards ceremony! Good, hope they keep it for future editions.

Alright I'm one that enjoyed some of Chris Rock interventions, some were funny and some simply dumb or inconsequential to the show. Do not want to confuse anybody but let's be clear, I do approve the new format for show host, but I did wish they had the old format where we see Rock much less than what we did (lol).

So after all 2016 show was not that bad, especially when my favorite began to win awards! (lol). Yes, that also helped a lot. First almost jump when Alicia Vikander won best supporting actress; then couldn't help to notice and approve that Mad Max: Fury Road started and went all the way to win almost all tech awards (congratulations!), in the middle of tech awards El Chivo (sorry but it's true, he really looks like a goat!) won Cinematography for the third time in a row and Mexico went to twitter to let the world know how proud they are of their cinematographer, now a true cinema legend.

What followed was an extraordinary surprise when a small budget film won the Oscar for Visual Effects, an achievement that grows exponentially when you consider that was competing with very high budget studio films! Everyone lost their office pool bet as no one was expecting outstanding Ex Machina to win an Oscar! Another big surprise, when Chile won their first Oscar and yes, Chileans exploded twitter with their happiness. Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala animation short film took Latin America incipient animation to a different level. Great.

By now started to notice that not many Americans had won Oscars as most winners are from South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Chile, UK ... (after winners came from Pakistan, Hungary, more UK, Canada, Italy, etc -you see my point). Then we arrive to where the Academy members redeemed themselves to me, Mark Rylance won Best Supporting Actor! (lol) Yes, was a great surprise for many that were expecting a "sentimental" winner, but as someone said, quality prevailed above emotions. Great.

In brief, most glad Amy won as well as Saul Fia and most of all, Ennio Morricone who finally won a well-deserving Oscar for an Original Score after so many nominations, he already has an Honorary Oscar, but this one is really his first. Yay!!! After Morricone's win everything went amok (LOL).

Is true, had a great time Sunday night even when great movies were not honored with a nomination or an award, but you can't have it all in an industry that right now has many questioning issues about equal pay, race, gender, minorities, etc. I wish we could go back to filmmakers making GREAT (non-commercial) movies and have organizations honoring their efforts as we know, audiences do not have wide access to them. Sigh.

The BIG winner of the night was Mad Max: Fury Road with 6 Oscars making it the most successful Australian film ever -as many press headlines read. Some regret that film didn't win the awards that "matter" but I say that craft/tech awards are as important to filmmaking as any other category that Oscars honors. Yeah!

Then we have a HUGE surprise winner; the most surprising winner is Thierry Fremaux!!! Yes he definitively has a fantastic eye for films as four Cannes Selection films: Saul Fia, Inside Out, Mad Max: Fury Road and Amy won 9 Oscars in total. Can't wait for this year Cannes! (LOL).

To check winners at official site go here. Winners are in *BLUE.

Best Picture
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
*Spotlight

Best Animated Feature
Anomalisa
O Menino e o Mundo (Boy and the World)
*Inside Out
Shaun the Sheep Movie
Omoide no Mânî (When Marnie Was There)

Best Documentary Feature
*Amy
Cartel Land
Look of Silence
What Happened Miss Simone
Winter on Fire

Best Foreign Language Film
El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent), Ciro Guerra, Colombia
Krigen (A War), Tobias Lindholm, Denmark
Mustang, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, France
*Saul Fia (Son of Saul), László Nemes, Hungary
ذيب‎ Theeb (Wolf), Naji Abu Nowar, Jordan

Achievement in Directing
Lenny Abrahamson for Room
*Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant
Tom McCarthy for Spotlight
Adam McCay for The Big Short
George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett in Carol
*Brie Larson in Room
Jennifer Lawrence in Joy
Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara in Carol
Rachel McAdams in Spotlight
*Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet in Steve Jobs

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Bryan Cranston in Trumbo
Matt Damon in The Martian
*Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant
Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale in The Big Short
Tom Hardy in The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight
*Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone in Creed

Best Adapted Screenplay
*Charles Randolph and Adam McKay for The Big Short
Nick Hornby for Brooklyn
Phyllis Nagy for Carol
Drew Goddard for The Martian
Emma Donoghue for Room

Best Original Screenplay
Matt Charmanm Ethan Coen and Joel Coen for Bridge of Spies
Alex Garland for Ex Machina
Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen, for Inside Out
*Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy for Spotlight
Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff, for Straight Outta Compton

Best Cinematography
Ed Lachman for Carol
Robert Richardson for The Hateful Eight
John Seale for Mad Max: Fury Road
*Emmanuel Lubezki The Revenant
Roger Deakins for Sicario

Best Film Editing
Hank Corwin for The Big Short
*Margaret Sixel for Mad Max: Fury Road
Stephen Mirrione for The Revenant
Tom McArdle for Spotlight
Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Production Design
Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich (Set Decoration), for Bridge of Spies
Eve Stewart (Production Design); Michael Standish (Set Decoration), for The Danish Girl
*Colin Gibson (Production Design); Lisa Thompson (Set Decoration), for Mad Max: Fury Road
Arthur Max (Production Design); Celia Bobak (Set Decoration), for The Martian
Jack Fisk (Production Design); Hamish Purdy (Set Decoration), for The Revenant

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
*Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin for Mad Max: Fury Road
Love Larson and Eva von Bahr for Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann (The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared)
Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman and Robert Pandini for The Revenant

Best Costume Design
Sandy Powell for Carol
Sandy Powell for Cinderella
Paco Delgado for The Danish Girl
*Jenny Beavan for Mad Max: Fury Road
Jacqueline West for The Revenant

Best Visual Effects
*Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett for Ex Machina
Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams for Mad Max: Fury Road
Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner for The Martian
Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer for The Revenant
Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Sound Editing
*Mark Mangini and David White for Mad Max: Fury Road
Oliver Tarney for The Martian
Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender for The Revenant
Alan Robert Murray for Sicario
Matthew Wood and David Acord for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Sound Mixing
Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin for Bridge of Spies
*Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo for Mad Max: Fury Road
Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth for The Martian
Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek for The Revenant
Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Original Score
Thomas Newman for Bridge of Spies
Carter Burwell for Carol
*Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight
Jóhann Jóhannsson for Sicario
John Williams for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Original Song
“Earned It” from Fifty Shades of Grey (Music and Lyric by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio)
“Manta Ray” from Racing Extinction (Music by J. Ralph and Lyric by Antony Hegarty)
“Simple Song #3” from Youth (Music and Lyric by David Lang)
“Til it Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground (Music and Lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga)
*“Writing’s on the Wall” from Spectre (Music and Lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith)

Short Films

Best Animated Short
*Bear Story
Prologue
Sanjay’s Super Team
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow

Best Documentary Short
Body Team 12
Chau, Beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
*A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Last Day of Freedom

Best Live Action Short
Ave Maria
Day One
Alles Wird Gut (Everything Will Be Okay)
Shok
*Stutterer

Official screenings of all motion pictures with one or more nominations will begin for members on Saturday, January 23, at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Screenings also will be held at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood and in London, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Active members of the Academy are eligible to vote for the winners in all 24 categories. The 88th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscar® presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

The nominations video

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1/14/16

Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Guillermo del Toro, John Krasinski and Ang Lee announced the 88th Academy Awards nominations today (January 14).

Del Toro and Lee announced the nominees in 11 categories at 5:30 a.m. PT, followed by Boone Isaacs and Krasinski for the remaining 13 categories at 5:38 a.m. PT, at the live news conference attended by more than 400 international media representatives.

Academy members from each of the 17 branches vote to determine the nominees in their respective categories – actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, etc. In the Animated Feature Film and Foreign Language Film categories, nominees are selected by a vote of multi-branch screening committees. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees.

So that's enough of official blah, blah; truth is I was, I am and I will be in next days very disappointed with the nominations. Can't understand, can't accept, can't believe Academy members dared to snub a female-centered movie with a lesbian story. On second thought, now that I read what I wrote think that is easy to speculate why they left out Carol, as obviously it has to do with women (straight, lesbian or whatever); is not about the same sex story as would be extremely ironic when Academy members accepted and widely honored a two men gay story (Brokeback Mountain) that got 8 nominations and won 3, including one to the director Ang Lee, whom by-the-way was reading the nominations this morning! Grrr... No Best Picture and/or Best Director is a MAJOR snub for an outstanding film that is clearly better than at least four or five of the eight nominated for Best Picture and Todd Haynes work is better than at least three of the five nominees in the Directing category. Upsetting.

Alright there were other snubs but no other omission is as big as Carol left out of two major categories. Period. There were no positive surprises and perhaps the best so-so surprise is Tom Hardy's nomination in Best Supporting Actor category for insufferable The Revenant.

As the nominations were coming, early, very-early noticed that The Revenant had a nomination in most tech categories and dared to speculate that will be the film with most noms. I was right.The Revenant leads the pack with twelve (12) nominations followed by Mad Max: Fury Road with 10, The Martian with 7, and with 6 each Bridge of Spies, Spotlight and Carol.

Will do another post with more interesting data about the nominations, so will keep this post cleaner with the list.

Red Carpet Photo Gallery

Director and Cannes 2016 Jury President George Miller and his wife Academy Award Winner Margaret Sixel