The issue hanging over the Academy Awards this year was the lack of ethnic diversity among the acting nominees for the second year in a row. It was to be expected that host Chris Rock would tear the Academy (and Hollywood in general) a new one over that. He was as merciless as I expected (and I really liked his explanation of why African-Americans didn't protest all-white lists of nominees in years past). I also liked when he inserted black actors and actresses into the nominated movies, and when he went to Compton to ask the people there about the nominees (and got some, ahem, unusual answers).
Anyway, of all the nominated movies in all categories, I have so far seen only "The Revenant", "Mad Max: Fury Road", "Carol", "The Hateful Eight", "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", "Ex Machina", "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" and "Cinderella". I can't understand why they nominated "Mad Max: Fury Road" for Best Picture. It was impressive as an action movie, but not as anything that one would treat as a high-quality story. It sounds as though "Spotlight" did tell one of the most important stories (and the producers used their win to condemn the Catholic Church's cover-up). It was especially great that Ennio Morricone won for "The Hateful Eight", since he's deserved an Oscar for a long time.
Sam Smith erroneously called himself the first openly gay person to win an Oscar. Previous openly LGBT winners include Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, Pedro Almodóvar and Dustin Lance Black. As for Smith's win, it sounds as though the documentaries "The Hunting Ground" and "Racing Extinction" were the more important productions, so one of the songs from those should have won. It was a surprise to see Joe Biden introduce Lady Gaga's performance. The performance itself was great, especially when she brought the survivors of sexual assault - male and female - onto the stage. A controversy in that category was that the singer of the song from "Racing Extinction" didn't even get invited to the ceremony.
And then there was Leonardo DiCaprio's win. As with his Golden Globe win, he used his platform to draw attention to global warming and the plight of indigenous peoples. And then when Alejandro González Iñárritu won Best Director for the second year in a row, he again used his platform to condemn racism. Well said.
In the end, I liked the show.
