Top Five Highlights of the 2015-16 Oscar Season

Twelve days removed from the Oscars, and I'm more than ready to leave it in the rear view. The overall season felt a bit fatiguing and lacklustre this year, which I can owe that to my own pessimistic misreading of the Best Picture race. But the big night itself had a few positively thrilling outcomes, and the preceding months were not completely without their pleasures. Herewith are my top 5 highlights.

5. Leo's Red Carpet Rampage and other fun stuff
Leo winning what many would call his overdue Oscar for such an uninteresting performance (Hoo-Ah!) would normally bother me a lot more, but a couple of things allowed me to enjoy it. A) I don't weep for his competition. B) There was just so much glee to be had on the Internet! The Red Carpet Rampage video game is an obvious highlight, but there were plenty of other good guffaws.

@ladygaga verdade pic.twitter.com/mvmi2RJFb6

— luscas (@luscas) February 28, 2016

Oscar Telecast Retrospective Part 4: Home Stretch

With six categories still to go the time crunch was clearly being felt by the producers, as they sped through the two music categories and onto the final four.

This is where I sounded my loudest cheer and my most prolonged groan of the night, in rapid succession.

Firstly, despite the fact that it was largely foreseeable for weeks in advance, hearing Quincey Jones announce Ennio Morricone (followed by “My brother, congratulino!”) was a tremendous thrill, as was watching him embrace fellow legend John Williams while the house rose to its feet. Bar none, the most special moment of the night.

Oscars Post-Mortem: The Winners

The movies have been gilded and I've had my say – in concentrated tweets of rage or elation, at least. But now with the clearer eyes of a 4-hours night's sleep, I can start poring over the minutia of the now expired Oscar season.

I'll begin my post-mortem purge with a basic rundown of the winners, uncoloured by my yo-yo-ing feelings on the show itself (more on that in time). I need to allow the heat of the moment to subside before truly evaluating my thoughts on who was victorious and who should have been.

On the whole, I'd have to call it a fairly satisfying night, though not from a predictive standpoint. I was steeling myself for a face-plant this year, and with so much divergence among the major guilds, you could hardly blame my uncertainty. It bore itself out with a rather dismal 16/24; My poorest showing since 2011.

But I can hardly complain about such poor fortune when it's delivered in the form of Spotlight's nail-biting triumph in Best Picture, its refinement and intelligence ultimately besting the ostentatious hollowness of The Revenant and the misjudged gimmickry of The Big Short. For much of the season (ever since the PGA) I had never felt so disengaged in the outcome of the Academy's top category, but now I can't recall ever being this excited by it.

One Category at a Time: Original Score

Another tricky call this year presents itself in Best Original Score. It's a category that almost always goes to a Best Picture nominee, of which there's only a single one in play. And yet... it doesn't really sound like a winner.

My Award Nominations: Original Score

I'm checking off the music categories today, starting with Best Original Score. Read on to see (and hear) which soundtracks I dug the most from 2015's cinematic drop.