Oscars 2017

I "live-blog" during figure skating all the time, so I figured... why not try to do that with the Oscars this year?
[I'm keeping the politics out of it- I started to but changed my mind... everyone else can worry about that]

So far for best dressed... I always gotta have a couple favorites...

Nicole Kidman- love how she's classic Hollywood elegance. Loved her being interviewed with Keith Urban and so gracious and supportive to one another. They're so cute together- I cannot stand it :P



And Emma Stone, omg, gorgeous! From the waist down, she looks like a chandelier and that's an absolute compliment.



And Viola Davis- such a gracious interviewee, amazing red dress. Being a three-time Oscar nominee (and loving her so much in "How to get away with murder"), I REALLY hope she wins this year.




As for picking the winners and such... I really haven't gone through the list and done that for myself... I just might pick who I want as the names are being read off.

I hope "La La Land" wins Best Picture because I went and saw the damn thing (loved that damn thing...). But something in my gut tells me "Moonlight" might pull out an upset. Reading briefly about it, it sounds like a powerful movie whose story deserves to be shared. I also want to see "Hidden Figures," "Fences" and "Lion" at one point.

Justin Timberlake opened the show with "Can't Stop the Feeling" in an AMAZING performance. I'm so sick of that song, but he made it fresh again. Got it off to a really positive joyous start.

Jimmy Kimmel gave a great monologue that teetered from hilarious to "oh god no" back to hilarious. They teetered on political a few times, I held my breath, the joke was usually in good taste, but managed to rein it back in each time.

Okay, Best Supporting Actor... I dunno who I pick to win this one...
I want Dev Petal, but it'll probably go to the guy from "Moonlight."
It's the guy from "Moonlight"- Mahershala Ali.
He looked like he was on the edge of getting emotional, so kudos to him for keeping it together and giving a nice solid speech.
I guess that's 1 for me.
I planned, before running out of time, to go through all the nominees on the Wikipedia page and do my picks. I found his name and clicked it. I'd previously seen him in "Mockingjay" as Katniss's boyguard.

Best Makeup and Costume is up next.
Kate McKinnon looks amazing as a presenter. With the right amount of her brand of awkward.
Best Makeup- Suicide Squad (cuz we just saw the movie :P... and we got it! we had a quick celebratory moment about that)- I love that these guys are European and I pick out their accents.
Best Costume Design- La La Land (just because... even though they weren't anything spectacular)... nope, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find"... Colleen Atwood- so great to see her win cuz she'd worked on a bunch of Tim Burton movies. Amazing designer. She'd been nominated a bunch of times, but I don't remember her winning before. (She had won three times- "Chicago," "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Alice in Wonderland").

Best Documentary- presented by the tri-form of "Hidden Figures" actresses- and they actually have one of the actual Hidden Figures women on stage- wow!
Feature- OJ: Made in America (boo! I would've given it to "Life, Animated" or "I am Not Your Negro"... can we just stop talking about OJ and glorifying his story?)

Dwayne Johnson gave a great speech and segue way to the performance of the "Moana" song "How Far I'll Go"
Lin Manuel Miranda rapped his intro to it, really done well.
The actress who played Moana sung it so beautifully with some great visuals behind her. A golden sculpted sun and people waving large blue plumes to resemble waves. It was so sweeping and beautiful- I wanted the song to win instead of both of La La Land's songs :P never doubt a good Disney ballad, even if it's not "Let it Go."

Jimmy Kimmel just had this whole Ellen Oscar moment- but instead of ordering pizza, he just had all this candy rain from the ceiling- junior mints and red vines in parachutes ;)

Sound Editing- La La Land (wouldn't it be crazy if with all this hype it was ZERO...)...
Nope, Arrival... (I really hope this isn't "American Hustle" all over again- I picked it to win all its awards and it won ZERO of, I think, 8 nominations).
Sound Mixing- (trying this again) La La Land...nope, Hacksaw Ridge (good for them, I didn't think they'd win any).

Okay, so that's three awards La La Land hasn't won... is it too early to be concerned?

Great speech- Kevin O'Connell said his mom got his first job in sound and when asked how he could thank her, she said work hard and win an Oscar so you can thank me in first of 10 million people... that's me paraphrasing, of course.

Best Supporting Actress- oh yeah, I wanted Viola Davis to win this one... but my gut is saying Naomi Harris from "Moonlight"... looking at all the clips, I don't think you can go wrong with anyone here...
three times the charm, baby! :D
oh man, it was almost surreal to see her finally win and give this great speech. I almost got choked up a couple times because you knew she believed and breathed every word of it. Definitely have to see this movie now.

They had this cute bit where talking about the theme being inspiration- then they had a clip of Charlize Theoren watching "The Apartment" and saying how Shirley Maclaine inspired her with that performance. And the two of them presented the next award together and had some funny banter.

Best Foreign Language Film- Elle (because it won the Golden Globe... oh shoot, it's not even nominated... I guess The Salesman...)

They had Sting sing "Empty Room" which was from the James Foley story- a journalist that was beheaded by ISIS.
Best Short Animated Film- Piper (cuz it's the only one we've heard of)... I guess it being Pixar helped a lot :P when he went to thank people, I totally knew he'd say John Lassester first. One of the biggest people at Disney and Pixar films (also the world's biggest Miyazaki fanboy).

Best Animated Film- I wish it was "Kubo & The Two Strings" but it most likely will be Moana... just because Disney always seems to win. [and of course one of the presenters had to speak out against the wall... damn it...]
Zootopia (boo! we didn't see that one...)

Production Design- LA LA LAND... please! finally won one! Geesh... what a pain...
nice quick speech

a bunch of tourists on a tour bus were brought into the Oscars as a surprise and they'd been leading up to it for the past half hour. They just walked in and they're filming it on their phones, lol
I think Denzel just married a couple, lol and one of them got Jennifer Aniston's sunglasses. Too many great moments to list all of them right now :P And Guillermo is there to usher them through. Definitely going to remember this for years to come.

Visual Effects- tough call between two... or three... oh man, I don't know... Jungle Book... gotta see that one... I thought it'd be Doctor Strange, but then I saw Jungle Book listed and it was kinda hard to say no after that.

Best Film Editing- uhh... La La Land?... I dunno... this is a hard category to call...
wow, two for Hacksaw Ridge... I'm really happy for them, then, getting the acknowledgement for their efforts. And this makes Mel Gibson look even better for Best Director.

They had a cool "inspiration" bit before that with Seth Rogen watching "Back to the Future" and talking about how Michael J. Fox inspired people to skateboard off the backs of cars. Then the two of them came out of a DeLorean on the stage.

Jimmy Kimmel is looking really good as an Oscar host. He had another great moment- this time with the kid from "Lion"- did a quick Q&A with him and they reenacted the "Lion King" moment in the opening of the movie and Mike & Ike parachuted from the ceiling.

They had a Google commercial with the story "Lion" was based on... and it was amazing... almost got teary-eyed on it.

Documentary Short Subject- (I blanked out... I had no idea which one to pick)... The White Helmets... Wikipedia says it's about volunteers helping the civilians in Syria...
Live-Action Short Film- uh... Sing, because it's about music? I dunno... I got that win by luck. According to Wikipedia, it's a Hungarian film that's the "story of a girl who moves to a new elementary school and becomes a member of the award-winning school choir."

Short Films and Documentaries are always so hard for me to pick winners for.

Yikes... there's still 9 awards left to give out and it's almost 11. Bleck... this is gonna be over at midnight, isn't it? I get up at 5:30am for work- this isn't good for me...
On the plus side, the mood of the night overall has alleviated. It kinda picked up after La La Land won its only award of the night so far.

Best Cinematography- La La Land... I'm gonna keep saying it all night, I swear...
okay, that's two so far for this movie... its cinematography really was amazing- the whole glitz and glam and heart of it. I didn't expect it to sweep, but it seems like it's getting the awards it really deserves.

Time for their Mean Tweets segment... hopefully this isn't too bad...
Oh, actually those were pretty great... some were really mean, like the Emma Stone one... but some like the Miles Teller one were great, he even acknowledged that...

John Legend sung the two songs nominated for "La La Land" with Mandy Moore choreography around him... and there was a couple floating in the air like Ryan and Emma did in the movie...
I'm still mad at him for his character did to ruin the movie for me... if there's anything I'm good at, it's holding grudges against actors for what their characters do in movies... (ask James Spader)Best Original Score- La La Land.... seriously, it helped save the movie when we couldn't hear what anyone was saying in the film in that theater... great job, Justin Hurwitz! nice speech too- he summed everything up really well to save time ;)
Best Original Song- uh... I loved "Audition" but it'll probably be "City of Stars" for La La Land. [yeah, I'm getting the movie on DVD as soon as it comes out... and I'll probably watch it by myself dozens of times].
The speech of the last guy who thanked his mom for letting him quit the soccer team to be in the school movie... that's just great

"a musical Prince leading The Revolution on stage"- what Jennifer Aniston said as part of her summation of the In Memoriam section intro. And she got a quick mention of Bill Paxton.
They mentioned Anton Yelchin and Gene Wilder and Prince was maybe just before the halfway point. They showed the scene where he says "I'd like to dedicate this to my father"... by the end of it, where they had Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds... and the lights went dark... I finally started tearing up.

When I go back to Purple Rain in a month or so, I'll probably do a post here and on my regular blog (same exact post) to touch on what it's like to watch that movie again for the first time since he died. It's going to be hard.
For the most part, I trick my mind into believing he's still alive by listening to his music (where he's very much alive). But there are times like these it's hard to keep those walls up.

Anyway... Jimmy Kimmel is watching "We Bought a Zoo" with Matt Damon and making all kinds of comments said so seriously, but he means them as a joke.

He let Matt Damon on the stage to give the award for screenplay, but called him guest in the voiceover. He's being played off whenever he's talking in the presenting alongside Ben Affleck. Cuz Jimmy Kimmel is leading the orchestra.

Best Original Screenplay- La La Land... [my dad's laughing at "The Lobster" like he did "My Life as a Zucchini"]... nope, it's "Manchester By The Sea"... that's good for them- they finally got one. I heard the movie's depressing, but also well done.
Best Adapted Screenplay- Fences (but this is another TOUGH category- Hidden Figures or Moonlight could win)... okay, another for "Moonlight"- great job, guys.

Parachutes with cookies and donuts just came down :P and Taraji B. Henson was freaking out (cuz she gave away cookies at the Golden Globes the year she won for "Empire")

Okay, now down to the final big awards... phew...

Here are my guesses:

Best Actress- Emma Stone
Best Actor- Denzel (but right now my gut says Casey Affleck)
Best Director- Damien Chazelle (or it could be Mel Gibson, who knows at this point?)
Best Movie- La La Land (but my gut says Moonlight has a really good shot)

Just end this as soon as you can, guys... I have to get up for work in less than 6 hours.

Everyone kept saying how great Damian was, so I had to go with him (but wouldn't be surprised if Mel Gibson won at all). The youngest ever director to win an Oscar- he was born in 1985, a year older than me. I'm amazed he was so composed about it.

I just had this gut feeling about Casey Affleck- the way they were talking about how good he was... and he gave a good speech as any dumbfounded winner could... but it makes him human, which is a great. I just wish he didn't have to look so scruffy because he's busy filming another movie... or doing a play or something.

OMG- I'm almost crying right now :P I never thought this would happen for her and it did.
A really great speech- she kept it together so well.
Wow, I just can't believe I'd been following her since "Easy A"- maybe not seeing all of her movies, but a bunch of them. And it's led to this point. And I really hope that she continues to get great roles and do well- because not all best actress Oscar winners rebound from that high.
Bonnie and Clyde- Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty are presenting the final award... amazing, that they're still alive 50 years after the movie was done... and they actually look good for whatever ages they are.
(Sorry, so many people have died in Hollywood over the past year... it's hard to keep track of who's still alive anymore, especially among the older members).

So far I have 13 correct guesses... can we make it 14? I think my best grand total was 13 correct guesses... I'll have to double-check...
14!!

Yeah- I've seen and picked three Oscar-winning movies over the past... I dunno... 4-5 years...
La La Land- I think this was their 7th win...
omg, yeah!!! I'm tired, good-night
I'll finish editing in the morning

***

I am SO GLAD I didn't post this last night because this would've been super awkward.
And it's also good that I had all day to let this process in my mind so I could come up with a tactful response.

"La La Land" didn't win best picture... "Moonlight" did... for whatever reason, the presenters were given the wrong card and read off the wrong name.
Halfway through the acceptance speech, the producers came on stage and tell them the truth. It was all kinds of awkward... I thought for sure that one of the guys from "La La Land" had a guilty conscience about winning and said that "Moonlight" deserved it more.

Now- I'll be clear about something- I had a gut feeling after hearing about the Spirit Awards that "Moonlight" might sneak in with a surprise win. And I expressed earlier in this post that I'd be interested in seeing the movie just to see what all the hype is about.

I don't mind that it won- but they should have gotten it right the first time. Not before I celebrated and so many other people did...

Seriously... if the Oscars can't get THIS right... I mean, the whole sanctity of this prestigious awards show is GONE.

People will go on about how this is karma for Hollywood for interfering so much with the election and such.
And several others boycotted because of the Meryl Streep and so many other things.

Truth be told, apart from the "statement" from the Iranian director "The Salesman" (that was a part of the show that really brought it down for me), it was actually done well without too many major political soapbox statements. There wasn't another Meryl Streep moment anyway.

As a host, Jimmy Kimmel was great. I was afraid the whole thing would get overly political and it really didn't. If it did, it was done with a sense of humor and most of the jokes were done with tact. Or the next joke brought the show back up again. And I could appreciate that.
My hope is that he doesn't take this whole Best Picture debacle too hard because up until that point, he was great.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Congratulations "Moonlight"- hopefully I'll see you in the future on HBO or Showtime.

And I got 13 correct guesses on winners-- my record was 14 back in 2014 (hmm... go figure, right?)

Book vs. Movie- Ender's Game

Up front, I'll give my ruling:
Both have good points, but I'm not terribly enthusiastic about either one.

Introduction

We'd [meaning my mom & I] been introduced to a bunch of YA books by my aunt/her sisters.
This is how we got into the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare. Based on the trailer for the upcoming movie and the book jackets of the book, I didn't have a lot of interest in checking them out. But we got suckered in and eventually saw the movie... I still have my misgivings about it and thankfully, we're getting a second chance thanks to the upcoming Family Channel TV series. But I will miss Jamie Campbell Bower as Jace for sure.
I'd also say we got introduced to the Hunger Games and Divergent by them also, but to be fair, the movie trailers sold me on the Hunger Games and the book jacket had me considered "Divergent" for a couple years before the movie came out. It was just a matter of getting that extra push.

"Ender's Game" looked like the Mortal Instruments situation all over again. The aunt that had gone to several movies with us (including Marvel, Star Trek and dozens of book-to-movie adaptations) was uber excited about the Orson Scott Card series (and is still avidly reading him). Even though I shrugged my shoulders at the movie trailers, she thought I'd like the series, so I gave it a shot.

At this given moment, I'm not sure if I want to proceed to another book after this first one.

The Book

Granted, I am a Star Wars fan and I've enjoyed the recent Star Trek movies, but beyond them, I don't know if the sci-fi future in space genre is my cup of tea.

I found the book intriguing and fascinating for the first hundred pages or so. But after a while, I wouldn't say that it got repetitive (although it does), but I just found it harder to stay invested. Particularly after Ender graduates over to Command School.

The story goes that years ago, humans survived the onslaught of an alien race. But in order to win the next war that will end all future wars, a new commander is needed. All of the people being trained for this mission are kids. If the selection committee thinks they are worthy, they are sent to Battle School in a space station.
Ender grew up being bullied simply because he is the Third child in his family and there's a two child limit per household... I believe this is to control the population so it doesn't deplete limited resources. But his family was requested to have him because he could possibly bring together the best qualities of his siblings, Peter and Valentine. One being too violent and the other being too compassionate.
So Ender not only learns to stand up to his bullies, but he learns to command respect from his fellow cadets. But as skilled a killer he becomes, he becomes increasingly displeased with himself- afraid he'll be no better than his psychotic brother.

As Ender navigates Battle School, I stood behind him and was ready to see what he would do. Like any good protagonist, I celebrated his victories. Perhaps one of the problems was that he barely had any defeats-- if you never see your hero fail, it's hard to stay invested and harder to care about the outcome because it might become too predictable.

The book takes a dip in typical 3rd act fashion: the story stops when Ender becomes disenchanted with his duty and his mission. And within one chapter, he's back in... a little too quick, honestly. But until his former comrades rejoin him for the final mission, his head isn't in it and neither was mine.

The twist at the end of the Command School story arc threw me off a bit, but once the shock wore off and more exposition came along, I was left intrigued just enough to consider another book... but not for a while.

As great as Ender's character arc is where he develops relationships with people, I didn't find it (or the corresponding writing) nearly as enticing as some other books I've read.
Either because the lead is a male protagonist (and I've read so many female narrators lately) or because there's no love story involved or the writing style just has too many working parts going on.


Movie

The movie was as good an adaptation as it could have been. A lot of the plot was streamlined to fit it within the time period. There's a story arc where Peter and Valentine assume fake names and write political articles online- that was taken out for obvious reasons, it had nothing to do with Ender's story. Bits and pieces were changed and moved around so Ender isn't the only cadet we see a lot of.

I liked the casting of Harrison Ford as Graff. He gave the movie a little more weight... meaning it might not have had much without him. Viola Davis as well. Anderson was written as a man, but for whatever reason, I always read him as a woman. Maybe because I vaguely remember seeing a woman in the trailers. And for whatever reason, I kept thinking there'd be a Glenn Close cameo when in fact I was confusing this with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Yeah, oddly enough, Guardians of the Galaxy takes place in space, but I enjoyed it. Maybe it's the Marvel movie magic. Maybe it's the great cast. Or there were a lot of colorful personalities.
I guess that's me saying that there aren't many strong personalities in "Ender's Game" whether it's the movie or the book.

Asa Butterfield as Ender- nobody could have done it better than him. I genuinely do find him a likeable actor, even though I'd only seen him once or twice before.
The first time I saw him in the "Hugo" trailers (why hasn't that aired on TV yet? I still haven't seen it and really want to!), I saw dark hair and pale blue eyes... just like a character I wrote ages ago. I thought to myself that he could have played him in the movie adaptation. But sadly, that story hasn't gotten any close to being published and his eyes aren't even pale blue anymore... they're just blue.

Hailee Steinfeld (who I'm surprised to see... a good surprised... not many young actresses stick around after their first big/Oscar-nominated role... I still liked the original "True Grit" A LOT better and her rendering of that character is a big reason why... but I can blame the Coen brothers for that) was good as Petra and one of the few female characters this story has.
Abigail Breslin as Valentine as well... I almost didn't recognize her at first. She looks like the type that'd be too compassionate to do well in Battle School.

As a movie alone, it was decent. Good cast, good writing and so on. But I didn't feel like there was enough to get really excited about. The Battle Room scenes were the few times where that wasn't the case. I didn't know what to expect after reading the book and that was better than I could imagined it.

The ending (the part with the exposition I mentioned) was handled even better in the movie than the book because we were able to see what was really going on. In the book, it read as a dream sequence that I didn't know whether or not it was a dream.
And in the movie, we had another moment between Ender and Petra. Where we see that she cares for him and wants to look out for him, considering the fragile state he's in after the final battle simulation.

Conclusion

When I was going into writing this, I was thinking I was about to eat my own words.
I used to give other reviewers so much grief (never personally of course, but I'd spew insults at their articles) for not caring enough about the movie they were reviewing to do it any justice.

So to me it is a miracle that I didn't become one of those cynical people. "Ender's Game," if anything, allowed me to compare and contrast writing styles and determine what works for me and what doesn't.

Maybe I'll read the rest of the books, maybe I won't.

I just may get curious enough in the future to return to Oscar Scott Card... but it's not something I'm willing to rush. It's not like I got the books myself and I'm determining if I can make room for them on my shelves.... truth is I don't have any place for the books I enjoyed enough to read again.