2016 Oscar Awards

Another year, another Oscars.  The awards were a mixed bag for me – some predictable wins and a few upsets, some well-deserved (in my opinion) wins and a few that bugged me – but the ceremony itself had plenty of intriguing moments to keep my interest.

I was thrilled that Mad Max:  Fury Road cleaned up in the design and technical categories, taking home six awards (the most of any film that night.)  Even though it didn’t get any of the “big” stuff, I’m glad the Academy actually recognized how wonderful it is.  The only problem with the sweep was that it got my hopes up that George Miller might beat out Alejandro González Iñárritu for best director.  No luck, sadly.  However, just as I was resigning myself to The Revenant winning best picture, Spotlight swooped in to save the day!  Very happy for Tom McCarthy and everyone behind that movie.  It was a little odd that it only won one other award it was up for (best original screenplay,) but it felt gratifying to me that the film deemed to have the best story was also the film given the top honor.  The Big Short’s win for best adapted screenplay made me happy as well, and as for cinematography, I’m a little bowled over that Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant) got his third Oscar in a row.  When that streak ended, it really ended!

The acting categories went three-for-four as I expected.  Mark Rylance winning best supporting actor for Bridge of Spies shocked me – I’d thought Stallone had it in the bag.  I was most happy for Brie Larson getting the lead actress trophy.  Even though that win was in no way a surprise, it was for very good reason.  Although I anticipated Alicia Vikander taking best supporting actress, I still don’t like the fact that she won for a very obvious co-lead role.  And Leonardo DiCaprio… Good on him for finally nabbing that Oscar, but it’s disappointing to me that it was for The Revenant.  I just didn’t think that film provided him with a good showcase for his talents at all.

I enjoyed Chris Rock as the host, and while I figured he wouldn’t avoid the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, it surprised me how heavily the ceremony centered around it.  It was the focus of the whole monologue (which, for me, veered occasionally into attempts to absolving the Academy on the issue because there are “more important things” to worry about, but which also made some good, cutting points,) and there were numerous bits addressing diversity in Hollywood.  I particularly liked the “Black actors inserted into best picture nominees” clips, an amusing “history lesson” with Angela Bassett, and Rock’s man-on-the-street interviews with theatergoers outside a Compton cinema.  Others onstage, from presenters to winners to the Academy president, also brought up the importance of inclusion, although I don’t recall anyone white taking part in those statements.  One thing that bothered me in the #OscarsSoWhite remarks was how consistently it was framed as #OscarsNotBlack, when no actors of color were recognized.  I realize that most of the specific snubs called out this year were Black actors (or directors, in Ryan Coogler and F. Gary Gray’s cases,) and in general, I think other acting communities of color are at a different stage in their fight for representation in Hollywood, but it still felt weird that hardly anyone recognized it as more than a Black issue.  However, I love that Rock made opportunity a major focus; his rueful comment to Leonardo DiCaprio about Leo being “in a great movie every year” highlighted the imbalance in a pretty striking way.

Also, C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8 were made of win.  I “awwed” when Jacob Tremblay from Room stood up in his seat to get a better view of the droids.

A Few Thoughts on “Listen”

As I’ve observed before, new Who’s series 8 episode “Listen” is several neat ideas wrapped in something of a mess.  It often feels like halves of two completely different episodes jammed inelegantly together, and neither one concludes very satisfactorily. Today, there’s one particular thread of the episode I want to look at (spoilers.)

So here’s the set-up:  the Doctor is entrenched in a fair-to-middling obsession with the shared universal nightmare about creatures under the bed, and he links Clara with the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits to find the point in her timeline when she first had that nightmare.  As the TARDIS sifts through her thoughts, she’s distracted by her ringing phone (thinking it might be Danny,) and they’re taken to Danny’s childhood instead.  Clara at first tries to fess up to getting distracted at the critical moment, but when the Doctor dismisses her efforts, she switches gears and denies any knowledge of why they would have ended up with young Danny instead of her. 

The mystery is still puzzling the Doctor, and he picks Clara back up shortly after he drops her off, having followed the telepathic circuit looking for an explanation and having found (presumably) Danny’s descendent, pioneer time traveler Orson Pink.  “Do you have any connection to him?” he eagerly asks Clara, wondering if Orson could be a distant relative from her future.  He tells her that the telepathic circuit brought him right to Orson, “so, he is something to do with your timeline.”  Since Clara has only just finished her disastrous first date with Danny (twice!), this is a huge possibility to contemplate, and Orson’s remarks to her later in the episode seem to confirm that he can trace his lineage back to both Danny and Clara.

Never mind what comes later in the season – goodness knows the show doesn’t revisit this story to address the contradiction – the crux of the matter here is that meeting Orson, and the Doctor’s insistence that Clara is connected to him, suggests to Clara that she and Danny are meant to be together, which helps her to get passed the failure of their first date and give it another try.  But here’s the thing:  the TARDIS was never aligned with Clara’s timeline.  Because her thoughts her were on Danny while it was locking on, it’s his line the TARDIS followed, meaning Orson is a continuation of Danny’s timeline as well.  He doesn’t have to be connected with Clara because it’s not her timeline the TARDIS is moving along; it’s just that the Doctor doesn’t know that.  Since he’s unaware of the distraction issue, he assumes the TARDIS went where he intended it to go, and he can’t figure out how they wound up with a little Black boy with a London accent instead of a little white girl with a Northern accent.  But he still thinks it must fit somehow, so he goes looking for a connection when, in truth, there doesn’t need to be one at all.

This is where it gets messy for me.  The Doctor may not know what happened, but Clara does.  She knows she got distracted, she knows the boy they met was Danny, and she knows the Orson looks just like him.  So why does she get drawn into the idea that she and Orson (and, by extension, Danny) must be connected when the Doctor, who doesn’t have the necessary facts, tells her so?  I could buy her feelings for Danny clouding the issue a bit and then having her snap out of it and remind herself whose timeline they’re in, even as she might hope it’s true anyway, but why does she seem to conclude that it must be true when, no, it really doesn’t have to be?  That’s weird, sloppy writing that feels like it’s trying to make a big point even as it’s forgotten where it’s coming from.  Tsk, tsk, show.

Original: Last Thoughts of a Lost Cosmonaut (2012)

Posting this month's poem a few days early.  Tomorrow will be the Sunday Who Review as usual, but Buster Monday will be pushed back a day so I can talk about the Oscars.

*          *          *

Last Thoughts of a Lost Cosmonaut

Some would say a death in space

Is the worst kind of death

To be had.

Not that they mean, however,

That it’s the most painful.

No, the annals of horror

Have shown there are grimmer,

Grislier ways to go.

A death in space is instead

Deemed the worst in terms of distance,

In terms of the knowledge

That an atmosphere

Separates you from the rest of your kind.

A sort of inhumanity

Clings to the thought of dying

Out of reach of your planet.

For the loved ones losing you,

Nothing stands

To anchor their grief.

A death at sea at least leaves

A body of water,

A somewhere they can point at,

Journey over, or wade into,

And say, “Here’s where you ended.”

The forever of space

Leaves no such ground

For them to go to.

But as for me,

I don’t bemoan this death in space;

I’ll take my stardust burial.

Mourn me

Through a telescope lens

And leave flowers

Under any night sky.

As I unceasingly float

From all the solid ground I’ll ever know,

My thoughts rest on what my end

Says of my life.

To this irretrievable, drifting cosmonaut,

A death in space simply means

Mine was a life that stepped

Beyond the common orbit.

News Satire Roundup: February 21st-February 25th

Sunday, February 21 – The usual suspects in the opening – the South Carolina Republican primary (guess Trump can check off “fight with the Pope” on his list of things he can do without losing votes) and some more obvious hypocrisy on Congress’s refusal to approve any nominee Obama puts forth for the Supreme Court.  I adored the “How is This Still a Thing?” segment on Hollywood whitewashing, especially the show’s continued disdain for Aloha.  The main story was on abortion and the restrictions different states place on it.  A very divisive subject, of course, but it’s pretty sobering how, even though the Supreme Court has upheld it as a right, it’s still so vastly undercut.  Interesting how driving five hours and having to stay there three days due to mandatory waiting periods isn’t considered an “undue burden” to abortion access.  It seems like opponents in government are aiming to “hoop-jump” it into oblivion.

Monday, February 22 – The show picked a rough week to be off.  In playing catch-up, Trevor barely had time to touch on Scalia’s death, “Apple joining ISIS” (who knew, right?), and Trump fighting with the Pope/spewing even more Islamaphobic insanity.  That said, the stories they did cover were well-done.  The South Carolina story hit all the right notes:  the sobering knowledge that Trump might really be the Republican nominee, a farewell to Bush, and, my favorite, “Trump’s wife speaks immigrant??”  Really glad the show talked about the Uganda election and all the shady stuff that went down there; as crazy as this US election is, at least I can actually exercise my right to vote without government obstruction.  Also, campaigning from a couch on top of a car is fabulous.  The interview with Senator Cory Booker was great – Booker was thoughtful, personable, and non-inflammatory.  Is such a thing still possible?

Tuesday, February 23 – Now we got to talk about the Supreme Court.  After a quick rundown of Scalia’s legacy (from weakening the Voting Rights Act to making it harder to regulate gun laws – standup guy,) Trevor addressed the nominating stalemate and inconsistent stances taken by both sides of the aisle in years past.  This was capped by the superb ad for the fake board game “Congress,” which hilariously captured partisan gridlock as played out by children.  Jessica’s field piece, interviewing licensed homophobe/alarmist Rev. Manning, was uncomfortable but insane, and I love the poetic justice of his building potentially being turned into a shelter for LGBTQ youth once the bank forecloses on it.  I like Anthony Mackie in the Marvel movies, but while his interview was amusing, it was also pretty awkward. It seemed like he and Trevor were having separate conversations throughout much of the interview.

Wednesday, February 24 – Great show tonight.  The footage of the new Google robot being bullied by its engineers was bizarre but amusing.  Another caucus, another win for Trump – highlights here included the Pacman Trump graphic and Cruz’s spin to turn two losses into a victory.  Segment of the night goes to Trevor’s brilliant skewering of Carson’s assertion that Obama was “raised white.”  After side-eying the way Carson equated Blackness with poverty, Trevor challenged the doctor to pass his own stereotypical “Black test.”  The story about Hitler having a micropenis (it's a thing) was mostly interesting to me for how “standup” it felt.  No clips, no graphics, no titles – just Trevor standing in front of an audience riffing on a particular topic.  I wonder if this is a style he’d like to incorporate more often on the show.  Nothing much to say about the interview with AIRBNB CEO Brian Chesky.  Fine, but unremarkable.

Thursday, February 25 – Bit of a lackluster show for me.  The story on Apple’s standoff with the FBI was fine and had some good lines, but for my money, it just didn’t pop the way great segments of the show often do.  Roy and Jordan’s piece about which Democratic candidate is more popular with Black voters seemed like a wasted opportunity.  They really didn’t have anything substantial to say about why Black voters would support either one, and they also didn’t talk about the ways both campaigns have tried to pander to that community since they left New Hampshire.  What I did like was the interview with former CIA director Michael Hayden.  Trevor did incredibly well, not backing off from questions about civilians killed in drone strikes and the possibility that U.S actions have contributed to increased radicalization.  So, strong finish, anyway!