The Oscars -- 2019  "Everything Wrong With Our Country, And The Fixins...uh, Fixes"

You watch the Oscars, but your social feed is chock-full of "no interest...f@#$ them...in my 52nd year of not watching and not caring and my life is just fine" posts.  I understand.  There's a lot to dislike:

• Studio Executives so craven and cruel, they don't just try to use their power to sleep with women, they have to humiliate them
• An Academy that makes movies that preach to us about racism, but still has only 16% non-white members (and that's after a 4-year-push to increase membership diversity!)
• Gazillionaires who get so little satisfaction from making another gazill, they have to go into journalism, politics or space travel (hey, Sir Richard: you want to impress me? Launch your own hairy ass into space!  Elon: you space-littered.Clean that shit up, please.  What?  Sorry?  Oh, right...fuck-all this has to do with the Oscars.  Focus, boy.
• Movies that carry a nice message, but...sorry...didn't go far enough?!?  What did you pukes need to see?  Freddie Mercury vomiting on some random dude's genitals?  Tony Lip's family abusing moulinyans for another couple of decades?  You people need to cool it.  
• An entire industry that believes we should have strict gun control laws while living in gated mansions with armed security personnel and making movies where the guns are not only central to the plot, but they never, ever, run out of bullets (I'm looking at you, John McClane!)
• An elitism that allows an actress to become a huckster of over-priced junk that would surely cause The Donald to blush (or maybe make him jealous...choose your version).  Seriously, why on earth are people buying Vampire Repellent from Gwyeentwshc Paw-toes' site, Goop (and, no, I'm not providing a link to it.  I realize it's just a Google search away, but we both know you're too lazy to find it on your own.  #knowyouraudience

Even if it's just a joke gift, you're giving more money to someone already so bored with Bitcoin Baths that she started a website called Goop.  They sell a Jellyfish tank.  This is an actual product (linkless again...sorry, lazy pukes):

Aren't jellyfish amazing creatures?  They were born to live in an ocean.  Do you realize how big those things are?  We're talking Kanye's ego multiplied by the circumference of Chris Christie's waist.  These are big numbers, people.  I'm going to take my technical skills and my ample free time (hey: I was able to carve out hours to write this slop...uh, prosaic movie-related-material...) and steal her idea.  I'm going to co-opt Goop.  Co-go-op.  Launch-day product right on the landing page: a celebrity fish tank.  No, not that bullshit  that Ochocinco has over his bed.  I'm talking real celebs.  You have to feed them regularly -- a steady diet of hair products and excessive, undeserved compliments -- but keep your fingers out of the tank.  Bale bites like a summabitch.

There are solutions abundant in this year's...uh...interesting crop of nominees:

• Black Panther shows us that Africans aren't inferior because they're African. Colonialism rained on (or, chained on, more aptly) their parade.  All we need to do now is a little time-travel and a little education.
• BlackkKlansman demonstrates how difficult it can be to overcome hard-core racism, but that it can be done (and that Spike Lee can be forgiven for She Hate Me).
• Bohemian Rhapsody reminds us that freedom in expression makes our world better (and that you really should listen to your mother about the dentist appointments you've been skipping)
• The Favourite: a case study in knowing your history (and sounding smarter by adding in superfluous 'u's here and there)
• Green Book is a reverse Driving Miss Daisy with some tasty strong-man action thrown in to remind us that violence doesn't settle anything...except, apparently, racism
• Roma is a beautiful and simple portrait of real life, featuring complex, hard-working, flawed Mexicans with normal-sized calves, and
• Vice reminds us that we have no choice to continue to put up with Christian Bale, no matter how big a dick he is, because he can be such a big Dick.

The Awards

Actor in a Leading Role

This is the best category this year, far surpassing Best Picture (since that's such a cluster).

• Christian Bale, Vice
• God I hate this guy, but he has serious chops.  I was convinced it was the Heartless-One the entire movie, and it twern't just makeup, people.  He was The Dick.  Wait...has anyone seen them together?  Wouldn't surprise me a bit if that Old Neocon had the other Satan gin him up a new body, white Get-Out style.
• Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
• Hard to root for a guy this good-looking, this successful and, seemingly, nice.  So I won't.  No offense, BC -- Gaga overshadowed a great performance, even though you seemed to just be mimicking Sam Elliot (of endless meme-fame) and you're going to get shut out.
• Willem Dafoe, At Eternity's Gate
• Still bummed about you and Tom Berenger splitting the Supporting Actor vote from Platoon and letting that smug Brit, Michael Caine, win for Hannah.  I loved that movie, but he got to make out with Barbara Hershey -- that just doesn't happen in real-life, people. Sorry, we can't make it up to you this year, either. More people saw Juliet, Naked than At Eternity's Gate (and, come to think of it, more people saw Juliet naked, too). Sorry, brah.
• Viggo Mortenson, The Green Book
• Hey, thanks for the reminder that it's not really all that easy to do a NY gumbah accent.  Really well done.  But you're going to lose to:
• Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
• Ok, we all love Freddie.  And I enjoyed every minute of B.R. (see below), but I really would've preferred seeing Sasha Baron Cohen in the role.  Brian May takes the rap for sanitizing the film for the sake of Queen's history and you gave a stellar, if mumbly performance.  Still, I would've preferred to see the Ass-Bale win. 

Actress in a Leading Role

• Yalitza Aparicio, Roma
• Wonderful job. We all get to learn how to say "it's an honor just to be nominated" in Spanish this year.
• Glenn Close, The Wife
• 7 nominations without a win.  This has to stop...but not this year.  Apologies, namesake (what?  You didn't know my middle name was Close?)
• Olivia Colman, The Favourite
• Really the best performance in this category, but no shot at a statue. 
• Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me
• The 2nd best performance here (or maybe tops -- see below).  Do yourselves a favor and see this movie. But she can't win because...
• Gaga, A Star Is Born
• I loved the movie and her performance, but I genuinely think she's getting a statue because we all expected so little of her. So was this a grand conspiracy: become known for wearing meat-suits and calling fans 'little monsters', then do something semi-serious and be viewed as curing cancer?  I'll give that some thought, right after I prove that the Southern Border Wall is really an attempt to get the country to tilt towards the equator. causing all of the water to flow south and finally and totally submerge Florida.

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Adam Driver, BlackkKlansman
• Well done.  Now, we forgive you for irritating us during Star Wars.
• Sam Elliot, A Star is Born
• Do you know how many memes there are with this guy's face?  I know I said it before, but you're thick and need repetition.  He'd have to be quoting shit faster than a Foxconn-fortune-cookie-factory to have said all of these things.  Sorry for the distraction.  
  
• Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me
• Really, rent this movie.  Alright, I'll stop. (I lied...see below)
• Sam Rockwell, Vice
• He really did play a good Dubya, but Josh Brolin got there first.
• Mahershala Ali, The Green Book
• This was a stellar performance in a strong category. I worried about the reverse-Miss Daisy thing and the performances of the two principles completely cured that concern.  I'm now happy I put up with all of those shirtless scenes in House of Cards to get to this. Worth it...mostly.

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
• Split vote (see Platoon)...sorry, ladies.
• Amy Adams, Vice
• Wonderful history lesson. I didn't realize how big a part Lynne Cheney played in Dick's life and, subsequently, our history.  Now I can hate her, too.
• Marina de Tavira, Roma
• Wonderful performance. Hope we get to see her again.
• Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
• Really thought she could've been nominated for Ray, so very glad she'll statue-out tonight.

Documentary

I always think these are underappreciated, given many of the fine moments we've had in education and social commentary.  This year, unfortunately, politics will rule the category and RBG, a well-made but uninspiring film (contrary to the principal) will win. It may be the 4th best movie of the 5 nominated.  Do take some time to watch:

• Minding the Gap, and
• Of Fathers and Sons

at a minimum.  You'll be glad you did.  Meanwhile, somebody better be accepting for Notorious RBG.  I just heard Clarence Thomas is considering retiring soon so that The Donald can replace him. 

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
• DO NOT MISS THIS MOVIE!  Really surprisingly funny and highly entertaining.  No shot at a statue in a very strong category.
• BlackkKlansman
• Loved it and should have a real shot, but see the strong-shit comment above.  Woof (or, is it 'oof' -- sorry, too lazy to search for a .wav file to embed)
• Can You Ever Forgive Me
• DO NOT MISS THIS...ok, you get it
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Could take away the statue, given the hand-wringing and teeth gnashing about The Green Book
• A Star is Born
• We knew the story well already, but still a great job.  In the end, Gaga gets an Oscar for this film, but it's otherwise shut out.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• First Reformed
• A tense but clever story (if an awkward film). Worth a rental if you haven't seen it.
• Green Book
• You liberal pukes need to lighten up. Ok, they simplified evolution of some hard-core racists. Wouldn't it be nice if we could have some straight-forward conversions like this? And, in my experience, the best thing that happens to people with hate for specific groups is to get to know members of said group.  Let's encourage it.  Sometimes they even take bullets for them!  
• Vice
• This was a very clever approach to material many of us know well.  Genuinely funny (who knew we'd be laughing about a guy who wants to do away with 2 of the 3 branches of government and sports wood from war) and innovative approach.  My pick, but it won't win because the Snowflakes think by checking this box that Cheney might be back in the Oval Office again.
• The Favourite
• Beautifully written and acted (and dressed and shot), but it won't win here.  Too familiar, even if the story of Queen Anne is unknown to most Americans.
• Roma
• A ganar, a ganar, pollo para cenar!  You clicked to get here, you know who wrote it, so spare me the groans.  Te amo pero vete a la mierda.

Best Picture

• Black Panther
• BOY, I wish this would win.  Ok, so it was a superhero movie. So what?  It was well written, acted, filmed and innovative.  And we'll be watching and enjoying this decades from now. Sounds like it checks the right boxes to me.
• BlackkKlansman
• I'm pulling for Spike Lee to get Best Director (I really am over She Hate Me -- took a while, my brother...and putting yourself in movies when a real actor would improve the property.  You think we were all happy when Giant got the hell beaten out of him in MBB for no reason?!?) but I think Klansman falls short.
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• Watched this with my wife and oldest daughter while on a college visit tour in Boston and we all enjoyed every minute.  But a sober look (metaphorically, bitch...I wasn't imbibing at normal levels with my teenager there) at this as a film leaves me wanting. The music and the Live Aid sequence carried the day (along with some prosthetic teeth that brought our lost friend back for 2 hours of our lives), but this is not an Oscar-worthy picture. Let the hate begin....
• The Favourite
• Was not this picture...
• Green Book
• much more entertaining than we expected (the racism cured while driving thing lowered the bar for sure) and the true-story nature of it (my feeling stupid aside for not knowing who Don Shirley was) bolster the argument for an Oscar.  But I believe Donald Drumpfth and Stephen Miller will cause the statue to go to
• Roma
• A beautifully filmed and acted piece (Best Cinematography is a lock; Director has a good shot -- Cuaron really has a big range), I think the ridiculous, endless discussions about Mexicans only being, some of them, I assume, good people, will be enough for a foreign language film to take the top prize.  Bueno.