Monday, March 5, 2018

90th Annual Academy Awards - Review: Most Uneventful Oscars in Memory [2018]

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Previous/Otheyears

Perhaps everyone was just scared.  Between the fiasco with which the Oscars ended last year and then reverberations from the spectacular fall from grace of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein after several dozen (!) women came forward with allegations against him of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape, it seemed that everyone just wanted the Academy Awards to be over this year and ... without incident.

So while the moderately fun African American-centric horror movie Get Out [2017] (affluent white suburbanites were the "bad guys" / "monsters" ;-) won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and the more problematic gay-themed coming of age story Call Me by Your Name [2017] won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (it was also a summer of love story between a 17 year old and a 25 year old...), the Mexican Day of the Dead themed Coco [2017] won Best Animated Film and Mexican born Guillermo del Toro's film, the 1950s-set SciFi period piece The Shape of Water [2017] won four Oscars including for Best Director and Best Picture, there really were no great surprises.

There were multiple references to the plight of Dreamers (young undocumented aliens who were brought here by their parents while they were still young children and now don't really know any other country other than ours), and Frances McDormand, winner of this year's Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role did make an impassioned appeal for gender equality in both pay and career opportunity in Hollywood, but nothing really stood out.

Indeed, young Greta Gerwig and her film Lady Bird [2017] nominated for FIVE Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role came away with none.

Well "maybe next year," maybe next year indeed.


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