I guess none of us bothered with the Oscars this year?

[Paul MacLean]

I didn't watch them, and as no one has begun a thread devoted to this year's ceremony, I assume none of you guys did either?

[AndyDursin]

I was in and out, mostly out, but this was admittedly a great moment and inspiring speech. I would've been more excited if it was from a film I actually liked but it wasn't!

[mkaroly]

I haven't in decades and never will moving forward. Zero interest.

[AndyDursin]

There seemed to be an awful lot of "feel good winners" who won because of "the story" surrounding their careers -- Brendan Fraser gets an Oscar for putting on a fat suit (wouldn't have mattered who was in the suit, they were going to win), and Jamie Lee Curtis...did she actually deserve an AWARD for her "performance" in that movie? She's playing a grotesque monster basically, it's not really an actual person, but a Marvel-like caricature of a human being.

I mean great for her that she's a winner and all -- and everyone loved her speech -- but to me it's just not a performance worthy of winning an award. Of any kind.

[John Johnson]

I didn't watch them, and as no one has begun a thread devoted to this year's ceremony, I assume none of you guys did either?

Paul,
I didn't watch it myself. I don't have regular tv channels, but 'll catch up with it at some point.

[Eric W.]

I haven't watched in years and couldn't care less.

[Paul MacLean]

Over time, I've learned that Oscars ultimately don't mean anything. When you consider that Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick -- both of whom advanced the language of visual storytelling -- never won Oscars, that says something.

The AMPAS is an entity who chose to give the Best Director award to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa over fellow nominee Akira Kurosawa for Ran. An entity who voted to give Best Picture to Gladiator, but not Best Director to Ridley Scott who actually made Gladaitor.

[AndyDursin]

There was certainly a time when the Best Picture winner actually did mean something...but given the current state of movies where something like AVATAR 2 gets a Best Picture nomination, it no longer -- at all -- means what it once did.

[Monterey Jack]

-Overjoyed to see Ke Huy Quan win. His infectious and heartfelt acceptance speech gave me a major case of The Feels (and he got to hug Indy on the stage!).

-Everything Everywhere All At Once winning seven awards delighted me, as that was one of my favorite films of the year. That said, they gave Best Supporting to the wrong actress for that film.

-Crappiest score won, of course (WHOM-WHOM-WHOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM, repeat for 150 minutes)

-Jimmy Kimmel was an entertaining host, and thankfully the show was mostly bereft of leaden, staged "bits" (except for the Cocaine Bear schtick with Elizabeth Banks). Everything moved along as a good clip.

-Only mask I saw all night was on Jessica Chastain, which pleased me immensely. Time to start shucking them off, America...!

-Putting a trailer for the ugly-looking Little Mermaid remake during the broadcast itself was incredibly crass, even for a Disney-owned network.

-Sad to see how many film composers were in the In Memoriam segment. Where was Paul Sorvino, though? Kimmel doing a bit asking for people to vote for whether or not Robert Blake should be included was one of the few really bad-taste cracks of the night.

-Stop playing off the second speaker for the tech awards, already! This might be the only time these technicians and short-film directors and producers will have in the public eye, so let them have their moment.

[jkholm]

If there’s anything the Oscars are especially good at, it’s as a reminder of what the zeitgeist was at the time. That seems particularly true with this year’s winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once, a film I have not seen, nor do I intend to.* It may have swept every major award and have a high rating on Letterboxd, but the people I follow on that site gave it mixed to harshly negative reviews. The primary criticism is the film’s embrace of nihilism. Apparently, the movie isn’t even subtle about its secular worldview that “nothing matters” and “we can do whatever we want.” One review I read even had quotes from the directors who admitted their goal in making the movie was to convince people to accept this view. But given that many people today already embrace nihilism, even in a “soft” form that tries to advocate for niceness in the face of existential doom, the message of the movie seems one that contemporary audiences already agree with. In that sense, it’s no surprise it won Best Picture as it celebrates an idea everyone in Hollywood loves.

* I’m not opposed to watching movies whose message I disagree with, but I just can’t work up any enthusiasm for this one.

[AndyDursin]

We watched 45 minutes of Everything... and Joanne and I both felt that was perfectly sufficient. I scanned through the rest of it -- and since many reviews noted how repetitive it was, it's perfectly fine to do so. The film's entire gist is there in its first "part" as it announces, and it goes on, and on and on, banging the same notes over and over, without offering anything else to say. Redundant fight scenes and FX, etc etc. Needlessly overlong.

It was a divisive "meta" movie in a year bereft of quality, but ticked all the boxes (diverse mostly Asian cast! lesbians! The kid from Temple of Doom!). (On a sidenote, I nearly vomited during the director's acceptance speech when he said there was nothing wrong dressing in drag as a kid! OK man...)

[AndyDursin]

[Chris Shaneyfelt]

I completely forgot about the Oscars! I haven't watched that ceremony for years now. Thank you for posting the video, Andy - Ke Huy Quan's acceptance speech is sweet and moving. I haven't seen "Everything Everywhere All At Once," but of course his terrific work in "The Goonies" and "Indy Jones and the Temple of Doom" recall fond childhood memories for me.

[Paul MacLean]

Out of curiosity I decided to sample some of Volker Bertelmann's score for All Quiet on the Western Front...



Bertelmann says this cue is his favorite moment in the score.

I actually started laughing when I heard that "three-note motif" everyone's talking about.

[Monterey Jack]

BWOM-BWOM-BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM (repeat for 150 minutes).

Somewhere Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman and Bernard Herrmann are proud.