Oscars Post-mortem, Part 1: Fashions

Nothing snaps me out of an Oscar hangover quite like gawking at red carpet eye-candy, and there was lots of it going around on Sunday night. I'm no style a-fashion-iado, but I know what I like, so humour me while I drool over the hottest looks one last time before digging into the telecast itself...

One Category at a Time: Best Supporting Actor

Strangely enough, before the critics started announcing their winners back in December, this seemed like the most nebulous category. Now it's one of the most galvanized, with one name dominating the conversation (give or take an odd Golden Globes loss).

SAG Winners

The SAG Awards added their say to the season last night, as I'm sure you saw.
I didn't so much watch the show as listen to it from the discomfort of my bathroom, while an underdone chicken & rice dish from Korean Grill House pulled a U-turn in my digestive tract.

Most of the guild's decisions require little commentary, more or less confirming front-runner status for Mahershala Ali, Viola Davis and Emma Stone.

It wasn't until the final two film categories of the night we got some fat to chew. While I wouldn't have called the wins for Denzel Washington and the cast of Hidden Figures full shockers, they do add enough of a wrinkle to keep things interesting, or at least raise some questions:

My Award Nominations: Supporting Actor

While the ranks of leading men were a bit thin this year (though not really as bad as some are declaring), there were many supporting players to choose from, and that's not even including lead performers who were campaigned in this category. These five true Supporting Actors were tops for me, and on any given day the list could change.

'Moonlight' Gains Foothold by Being Out the Gate (Relatively) Early

The biggest Supermoon in 70 years may have astronomers flocking to their telecscopes this weekend, but a far more luminous object has cinephiles flocking to their arthouses as Moonlight continue its expansion in its 3rd week of release.

Barry Jenkins' soulful sophomore feature is every bit as exquisite as you've read, but I can understand its cautious release strategy; A triptych character study about a young gay black man struggling with his singular and fluid sense of self is, admittedly, a tough sell. But those willing to believe that crises of identity are universal to all people -- as Jenkins clearly does ("In the moonlight, all boys look blue...") -- will find themselves hard pressed not to be moved by the poignant and painful discoveries of Chiron's childhood, youth and adulthood.