Oscars 2018

 

It has been a tumultuous year for Hollywood, hasn’t it? Between Harvey Weinstein as an ass-grabber extraordinaire, Kevin Spacey turning out to be just as shady as Frank Underwood to say the least, and accusations from James Franco to Steven Seagal, I guess the Academy Awards are a good a time as any for the elite of Tinseltown to try and get away from it all. This year we haven’t had any gaffes with the envelopes (unfortunately), nor boring musicals being obsessed over, nor George Clooney engulfing California with a cloud of smugness, but we have had some genuinely deserving titles put forward for nominees and winners. Here I’ll take a look at some of those who took home new mantelpiece decorations and probably make some lame sarcastic jokes along the way.

Winning best actor and actress respectively, we had Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour and Frances McDormand in Three Billboards. Darkest Hour was one of those films that was a bit too dramatic and exaggerated to take seriously as anything historical, but was made fun enough by the performances. However, I feel the Academy may have overlooked his historical acting in Lost in Space, truly something to match his portrayal of Churchill, especially the part where he transformed into a hammy purple spider-thing. Listening to him go on about a legion of sssssspiders reminds me of how snubbed he’s been for that Oscar. Oh, and he was pretty good in Fifth Element too. 

Mah favahrit.

There was also a makeup and hair award that went to Darkest Hour too. The makeup part I get, since Oldman was almost unrecognizable there, but he didn’t really have a lot of hair going with him in that film.

For best special effects, the Oscar rightfully went to Blade Runner 2049, which took us back to the Los Angeles of that dystopic future, covered in smog, hideous architecture, and all sorts of things making it not very different from the real Los Angeles. Still, it was good to see them bring back great-look miniatures for the project, as well as all the memorable sets, but you know, I do think Transformers 5 should’ve been a serious contender as well. Some might consider it a barely coherent kaleidoscope of CGI vomit, but that just goes to show how much people don’t appreciate Michael Bay’s genius. The part where I lost all sense of what was going on when Optimus Prime either fought or mated with another robot made from random auto parts was merely a metaphor for the confusion and lost causes of life.

Definitely...something happening.

Taking best original screenplay was Get Out, a film with a strikingly important message—that you should be very, very afraid of teacups. In all seriousness, good on Jordan Peele, as Get Out was a refreshing thriller with parts creepy and funny, and you should check it out if you haven’t already.  

And securing the wins for the sound awards and for editing was Dunkirk, which was partially a tense and gripping look at a famous moment of the second world war, and part most probably Christopher Nolan’s excuse to take a holiday to France and play around with life-size toy planes. Indeed, seeing it Imax does appreciate the genuinely powerful sound design from aircraft engines to artillery, and giving you a good listen of whatever the hell accent Tom Hardy was putting on this time.

The animated awards are usually a throwaway for the Academy, and predictably enough, Pixar’s Coco took away the trophy. I haven’t seen it, but I do know that it beat The Boss Baby, so that’s fine by me. It remains to be seen if Pixar can keep trying to return to the heights it once had, with Incredibles 2 coming up as well as an unnecessary fourth instalment for Toy Story. Given that Disney is still trying to find swimming pools to fill up all the money from Cars merch, I’m sure they’ll do fine in the eyes of the Mouse for now.

Best adapted screenplay went to Call me by your Name, which regretfully I haven’t seen, but other contenders included Logan, one of the most satisfying comic book movies in recent years with great and hard-hitting action that didn’t involve confusing computer floatiness, and for having an actual, conclusive ending. A potential missed opportunity was The Disaster Artist, as despite winning other awards, it could’ve allowed Tommy Wiseau to come up on stage before the Academy and let unmitigated hilarity begin. “Oh hai Denzel!”

Can't doubt a beard like that.

And then that takes us to Best Picture, as well as other awards, to The Shape of Water. I was honestly kind of surprised, given that the Academy doesn’t usually go for something like a fanciful monster romance movie, but I guess the throwbacks to classic Hollywood certainly helped. I haven’t liked every movie Del Toro’s made—I wasn’t a big fan of Hellboy 2 for starters—but I’ll sure as hell never knock the guy’s skills with visuals, and this is certainly one way for him to get recognition for it. Just as Peter Jackson started out making greatly grotesque gory masterpieces like Brain Dead and went on to scoop up those shiny figurines a decade later, so did Del Toro start out making films about killer cockroaches. It just goes to show that even if you start out making weird shit about kung fu priests and big ugly bugs, you can still get to look smug before the elite of filmmaking years later if you try hard enough and insert enough references to 1940s musicals.

So that was the Oscars this year—may the next one be interesting, and if not, may Hollywood and the Academy make enough bizarre decisions for schmucks like me to laugh at.