Top Five Pet Peeves of the 2016-17 Awards Season

Alright, the time has come to move on from this craziness. A new year in cinema is upon us, with its own horrors and treasures to discover. But first, one final look back at the horrors and treasures from the recently concluded Oscar derby:

Top Five Pet Peeves of the 2016-17 Awards Season:

5. Back-ended release calendar

This gets me every year, but why are distributers so bent on waiting until the last minute? Nearly all of my essential viewing for the year had to be crammed into December, January and February, which is no way to consume movies. Spread them out, for God's sake! At least Moonlight had the good sense to begin its roll-out in October, and look how that turned out for them. Compare that with another marvelous little movie, 20th Century Women, that held off until freakin' January. You do the math.

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victory last Sunday night is the Oscars telecast itself, which -- besides that historic blunder which seems to have superseded all that came before it -- was mostly a breezy and passable affair as far as awards shows go.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.

Oscars Post-mortem, Part 2: Ranking the Numbers

I love me some musical numbers at the Oscars. I know not everybody does, but I've always considered it a vital part of the show. Even though three consecutive years of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron wore me down a bit (and ABC too, given how reigned in the musical moments have been these last two years), I never say 'no' to some song and dance on Hollywood's holy night. I even welcome time for the orchestra to perform the Best Original Score nominees, which used to occasionally earn a 3-4 minute spotlight, but have been largely relegated to 10-second soundbites lately.

While Sunday night's warbling was limited to a mere five performances, I treasure them all, and do soever much enjoy celebrating them through a quick (and mostly arbitrary) ranking:

No Words -- Should've Sent A Poet

March is the month to decompress, go enjoy some bad movies, and stop thinking about Oscar for a spell. It does even the hungriest awards enthusiast good to take one's mind off the madness. But none of this sabbatical comes before extensive analyses and rundowns of the season that was, so I'll be rolling out my thoughts sporadically as we creep out of winter and into a new movie year.

I normally devote an entire piece to dissecting my predictions, but why even bother this year? With so many categories defying the patterns on which most pundits have come to rely (especially in the crafts), I wound up with an unexpected and historic low of 13 (uck), and in what I foolishly assumed would be a bounceback from last year's lacklustre 16/24.

I can deliver my thoughts on how I reacted to those losses -- some of which provided me with the most satisfying moments of the night, the year, and possibly the decade so far -- at a later date. First I have to go out of order and address the elephant in the room.

You know what I'm talking about.

It's a Wonderful Night for Oscar

Is La La Land set to be the biggest winner since Lord of the Rings? Even if it falls short of the current record of eleven, I imagine it will surpass Slumdog Millionaire's eight, so yes. I'll be chirping along with the other cheerleaders and boo-birds on Twitter, so you can follow that if you've honestly got nothing better to do. Post-mortems will be rolled out over the weeks to follow. Enjoy the show!

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.

Oscar Telecast Retrospective Part 3: The Big Shock, and Failing Gags

Let's set the stage: Mad Max had just gone six for seven in the crafts, and Andy Serkis arrives to announce the outcome of its 8th nomination, Best Visual Effects.

First of all, having Serkis presenting this category is kinda inspired (though not as inspired as giving him an actual Oscar nomination would be), but I take umbrage with his introductory clip reel featuring only two of his various performance-capture characters he's played, Gollum and Caesar. Where's King Kong? Captain Haddock? Jeez, even Supreme Ruler Snoke? Talk about a diversity problem!

But I barely had time to tweet my nagging quibble, because moments later the collective jaw of Oscar watchers hit the floor when he announced Ex Machina as the winner. I was so gobsmacked that I didn't even realize the orchestra was playing “Get Down Saturday Night” from Oscar Isaac's much gif'ed sexy dance interlude from the film. Too much fun!

Oscar Telecast Retrospective Part 2: Mad Max's Golden Hour

With Rock laying waste to the elephant in the room through that biting monologue, it was time to get on with the show...

The Huntsman sisters, beautiful bad-asses Emily Blunt and Charlize Theron, flirt with writers everywhere while introducing Best Original Screenplay, which went to Spotlight's Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer (not “John”, Charlize!).

The victory was not only richly deserved, but also immediately exposed the Thank-You Ticker for the disastrous experiment that it was, as Singer began his speech by repeating “We've gotta thank...” four times over with numerous names in between.

Oscar Telecast Retrospective Part 1: Rock's Monologue

Time being the heartless thief that it is, you'll have to bear with me as blog my way through this year's Oscar telecast one bit at a time, as opposed to one massive post which just takes too long to write.

The show opened with the obligatory stirring montage of the year in film.
I counted no less than sixteen films that received zero nominations, with multiple shots of 2015's highest grossing non-nominees Jurassic World, Age of Ultron and Minions (but no screen time for Anomalisa, Boy and the World or When Marnie Was There -- shocking). Were they trying to dupe the casual viewer into sticking around past Chris Rock's opening monologue?

Speaking of which...

March is for postmortems

My usual week of Oscar night cataloging will have to stretch out into more of a post-mortem month.

We'll start by examining the winners as soon as possible (within the week). Lots to discuss here. Some good, some bad, and one bona fide craft category shocker that I still can't wrap my head around. But for the moment, let me just keep a positive footing by saying I can't remember the last time I was this excited about the outcome of Best Picture.

The right choice.

Top Five Pet Peeves of the 2014-15 Oscar Season

The Oscar season is always draining – emotionally and physically, given the length of the broadcast – but there's still one last drop of blogging to be drained from my fingertips before officially calling it a year: My annual rundown of personal highs and lows from the season that was. I find it the perfect way to purge any lingering feelings before psyching myself up for the coming cinematic calendar, which is sure to have its own slate of travesties and triumphs.

I'll be posting my top ten in the form of two top fives. We'll get the ball rolling with the five things that bugged me most during the 2014-15 film awards circuit:

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 4: Telecast Highlights

I always record the Oscars so I can go back and rewatch it later the same week.

It's practically a necessity since I'm often so distracted with my prediction lists and my agony and ecstasy over the winners and losers and whatnot, that I miss some of the little moments that make this whole meat parade worthwhile!

There are still glimmers of fun left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as awards season. So allow me to parse through the 3+hour telecast and highlight the diamonds in the rough. And believe me, it was rough.

Things didn't start off so bad, though. Rather than force host Neil Patrick Harris to struggle through an opening monologue, they fed him one solid joke and then he was off to the races with his song-and-dance routine, "Moving Pictures".

This show got 99 problems, but graphic design ain't one!

Lovely sets and animated title cards.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 3: John Travolta must be stopped

This is about as silly a microcosm of last Sunday's Academy Awards broadcast there is, but I feel like this level of snarkiness merits its own post.

You'd think John Travolta would have learned to tread more carefully when the whole world is watching him on camera. Last year's infamous "Adele Dazeem" flub -- the hilarious mispronunciation of Idina Menzel's name -- seems destined to be one of those celebrity bloopers that stands the test of time, admittedly dogging Travolta far more than the sporting Menzel.

Banking on the longevity of this much Twitter-ized and parodied moment, producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron had the wherewithal to have Menzel and Travolta present an award together, with Menzel introducing him as "Glom Gazingo".

Cute banter ensued (in fact, the only funny presenter shtick of the night), but so did this...

[Menzel whispers:] "send help..."

... and social media exploded once again with a fresh wave of mockery to last us until next year.

When Aliens see a human being. pic.twitter.com/qVUBq5HNPG
— Sam Kalidi (@samkalidi) February 24, 2015

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 2: The Host, the Ratings, and the Real Problems

Every time the host is announced for the upcoming Oscars several months in advance, I traditionally write an opinion of the selection and what I hope it means for the show. But this past year, when word came that three-peat producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron had chosen ubiquitous awards show MC Neil Patrick Harris, I just couldn't be bothered. I've seen NPH absolutely crush it on the Tonys multiple times, 'cause the dude's got mad talent, but nothing about this decision excited me.

For years it had been thinly veiled, at best, how desperately Harris wanted to break away from the Emmy/Tony gigs and take on Hollywood's holy night.
He even got to do a random musical intro at the beginning of Adam Shankman's disastrous Oscar telecast in 2010. It stuck out like the sorest of many sore thumbs from that show, making it clear that despite his song-and-dance aptitude, he just isn't enough of a movie personality to fit in with this particular West coast crowd.

NPH at the Oscars in 2010: A bad omen of things to come.

Y'all ready for this?

I can't bring myself to put in the energy it would take to live-blog the Oscars, but I may take to Twitter every now and then.

You don't need me posting winners here in real time anyway, because surely you're watching the Oscars and keeping score on all your own lists, ballots, and various documents. I will be back, however, with full reactions throughout the week (the Oscars can never be summed up in only one postmortem).

Enjoy the show!

Sunday Top Ten: Pet peeves and highlights of the 2013-14 Oscar season

The big show is coming up on being only a week old, but it feels like ages ago, so I think it's high time for me to finally put the season to bed. 2014 is now here, with its own slate of hotly anticipated Oscar hopefuls in the pipeline, and it's time to get to work on scoping out those, but not before capping off the awards derby that was with my annual list of highs and lows.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 3: The show

Properly reviewing an Oscar ceremony can be tedious business, so I'm not gonna do it. Not properly, at least. The whole never quite amounts to the sum of its parts (although the Condon/Mark production from 2009 comes awfully close), so it's easiest just to look back and assess those parts at face value. Let's take a look at some moments that stood out (for me anyway) at the 86th Academy Awards

After last year's show hosted by Seth McFarlane came under such harsh critical fire, the pressure was on returning producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to atone. They made all the safest possible choices, and it started with the selection of Ellen Degeneres to return as host after her first kick at the can seven years ago.

Ellen assures viewers around the world, "We're fine. Thank you for your prayers" in regards to the rain.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 2: Sweet closure

My full review of the Oscar telecast will be up sometime in the next few days, but there's one microcosm of the show I wanted to address while it's still fresh in my mind.

Far and away the most heartbreaking part of Sunday's ceremony, for me at least, was seeing Adele Dazeem (aka: Idina Menzel) struggle through her performance of the Oscar-winning power ballad "Let It Go" from Frozen. To say I was psyched for this moment would be an understatement. I fully hoped and expected it to be the musical highlight of the night. But much as I love Menzel -- and Lord knows she doesn't have to prove her talent to anybody at this point in her celebrated career -- I couldn't close my ears and pretend not to notice how nervous she sounded; A rushed half-beat ahead, voice quivering (not in commanding vibrato either), and you can definitely hear it cracking on that last high note. Her disappointed facial expression afterwards says it all. Was she distracted by John Travolta's dyslexic mispronunciation of her name? Was it the damp air from all that rain (maybe the cold DOES bother her anyway)? Whatever the cause, it was more than a little saddening.

But whatever. She's a stunning talent even on her off days, and there was never any question that she'd take the bitter with the better and rebound in no time. She, and fans of the song, can finally see her nail it live courtesy of Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, who accompanied her in this uber-cute rendition of the song played on classroom instruments. Watch it below:

Ellen returns as Oscar host

Ellen's dancing her way back onto the Oscar stage for a second go. You may remember that she hosted the show in 2007. Or you may not. She was very warm and genial and did a fairly agreeable job, but it wasn't a gig I would exactly describe as memorable.

After taking a lot of flack for Seth MacFarlane's provocative stint last March, one can't help but feel that AMPAS is retreating to the safest choice they could possibly make to atone. I'm not complaining. I liked Ellen fine enough the first time she emceed the ceremony, but I can't even come close to pretending that this has me the least bit excited. Her style of cheery, inoffensive comedy is safe, but the lower the risk, the lower the reward.

Whatever. I'm sure she'll be fine.