Oscars Post-mortem, Part 4: Favourite Nuggets

You can't catch everything there is to catch at the Oscars in one viewing. Half the joy is going back and putting the telecast under a microscope, looking for all the tiny bemusing details. These are my favourite such nuggets from the show:

Someone from Alessandro Bertolazzi's cheering section records his Oscar speech on a phone with a Suicide Squad Joker skin. How apropos.

Oscars Post-mortem, Part 3: Kimmel & the Show

Somewhat forgotten amidst the flurry of reactions regarding Moonlight's unprecedented victory last Sunday night is the Oscars telecast itself, which -- besides that historic blunder which seems to have superseded all that came before it -- was mostly a breezy and passable affair as far as awards shows go.

Justin Timberlake's interactive crowd-pleaser "Can't Stop the Feeling" (already discussed along with the other musical numbers) was a smart, engaging way kick things off, segueing into Jimmy Kimmel's opening monologue. The routine, while not the most memorable stand-up we've seen open the show in recent years, was probably the most successful. Besides leaning a bit too often on easy pickings about movies having not been seen, Kimmel batted a pretty high percentage with his jokes, most of them landing well and earning deserved laughs on cue.

One Category at a Time: Leading Actor

After several years of stacked competition, we find ourselves in the rare situation of Best Actor being the most lackluster of the four acting categories. All the better for the current frontrunner, who's been hungering for an Oscar for some time, and now has virtually no competition to bar him from claiming it.

Best Performance by a Grunter in a Leading Role

Review - Elysium

Neil Blomkamp follows up his auspicious debut District 9 with Elysium, a science-fiction that's just as violent and icky as his first feature but without the deftness of story or subtext to justify it.

150 years in the future, Earth has deteriorated into a cesspool of disease and poverty. The wealthy 1% jumped ship long ago by inhabiting a glorious space station – Elysium – with all the pristine comforts money can buy; including magic medicare machines that can instantly cure any ailment. Just like that! Desperate immigrants from Earth are eager to jump aboard illegal shuttle flights to the orbiting utopia, much to the chagrin of its steely defense secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster), who would sooner eschew the rulebook and blast everything within 100 miles of her precious paradise than allow one disease-riddled earthling to set foot on it.

Review - True Grit

If it weren't for the end credits, one would never have guessed that True Grit had been made by the Coen brothers, for it has less of their cinematic idiosyncrasies than any film they've ever done. And maybe that was the best way to go about it.

Young Mattie Ross (wonderfully played by Hailee Steinfeld) has a blood vendetta against one Tom Chaney for gunning down her father. As determined as she is foolhardy, Mattie hires an acerbic U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to help her track down the felon and bring him to justice, with the aid of a Texas ranger named LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) who also wants to see Chaney hanged, but with more fiscal motivations in mind.

While I do bemoan the film's overall lack of personality (surprising for the famously quirky Coens), I'd be lying if I denied that I had a great time watching it. This is an old-fashioned Western from top to bottom, and depending on how much you enjoy the genre, that may suit you just fine. The tradition of a group of lovable characters (if somewhat rough around the edges) on a rollicking adventure always brought a smile to my face in the films of Budd Boedecker and John Ford, and the Coens' adaptation of the Charles Portis novel is similarly delightful, even if artistically unremarkable.

It is a lovingly made picture, with detailed period sets and costumes from Jess Gonchar and Mary Zophres, a fine score from Carter Burwell, and elegant photography from the one-and-only Roger Deakins.

Nominations are probably coming for some of the craftspeople mentioned above, and also one for Haille Steinfeld, but I don't buy that Supporting Actress bullshit the studio is plugging. The role is a leading role, plain and simple. If she does indeed earn a Supporting Actress nomination (as some of us have been predicting since spring), it'll be a simultaneous triumph and embarrassment. I'm also hesitant on the Best Picture nomination so many see coming. Maybe I'm wrong, but somehow I don't quite see the Academy going for this.

*** out of ****