The Best & Worst Of The Oscars 2016
Last night, comedian Chris Rock hosted Hollywood's biggest night which crowned Spotlight as its Best Picture and gave Leonardo DiCaprio his first golden statuette, much to the internet's delight. But what were the best and the worst moments from the lengthy ceremony?
THE BEST
There was certainly a lot of pressure on Chris Rock to address The Oscars' surprising lack of African-American nominees this year and, seconds into his monologue, he proved he was the right man for the job delivering a flawless satirical rant which both denounced the subtle racism in Hollywood and balanced out the key arguments.
In a comedy montage taking some of the year's biggest films and calling them out by adding in an African-American character, Kristen Wiig and Jeff Daniels decide to leave Chris Rock, who replaces Matt Damon in The Martian, stranded in space. Before that, Tracy Morgan, who survived a traumatic car crash very recently, makes a comeback appearance taking on The Danish Girl wearing a dress and eating a danish pastry. The other bits unfortunately fell pretty flat.
For a while there it looked as if Mad Max: Fury Road was about to win just about everything and, in a year with frankly not that many amazing films, I'm sure everyone would have probably been fine with that. The film did not win the main awards but it swept basically everything else from costume and production design to sound, make-up and editing. All deserved, for sure.
The best presenters who did not take themselves too seriously and actually made the audience laugh included Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling with their pretend bickering, Tina Fey and Steve Carell, the former pretending to be drunk and speaking gibberish. Comedians Louis C.K. and Kevin Hart also did not disappoint and, although some viewers felt their speeches were awkward, Sarah Silverman's raunchy introduction to Sam Smith's performance and Sacha Baron Cohen's surprise appearance as Ali G were fun.
The musical performances were mostly a hit with Lady Gaga delivering an emotional piano rendition of "Till It Happens to You", The Weeknd doing a great job with his Fifty Shades Of Grey song "Earned It" and Dave Grohl going acoustic for the In Memoriam tribute section.
The Oscar wins this year were mostly predictable from Leonardo DiCaprio getting Best Actor to Alejandro G. Iñarritu getting Best Director for The Revenant. That said, there were a few welcome surprises as Mark Rylance snapped up Best Supporting Actor for the underrated Bridge Of Spies, Ex Machina won Best Visual Effects over Star Wars and film music legend Ennio Morricone picked up a very deserved Oscar for the criminally under-appreciated The Hateful Eight which frankly deserved Best Picture and Best Director nominations and a Best Supporting Actor nod (perhaps even a win) for the brilliant Samuel L. Jackson.
THE WORST
As spot-on as Chris Rock's monologue was, you could tell the comedian was getting increasingly nervous as the night went on and, as a result, some of his later bits went down like a pile of bricks including a confusing appearance by Clueless' Stacey Dash, a girl scout cookies bit which, though cute, went on for far too long, an odd poke at Asians and a couple of uneven montages.
What does a James Bond song have to do these days to be snubbed from The Oscars? Despite "The Writing's On The Wall" being the most universally disliked element from the latest Bond outing SPECTRE, it still received a full performance by Sam Smith and the Best Original Song award. It doesn't help that Smith's rendition of the track was impressively flat and sounded like something which would lose at The Eurovision Song Contest before incorrectly calling himself the first openly gay Oscar-winner at his acceptance speech.
This was, without a doubt, the preachiest Oscar ceremony I've ever witnessed. EVERY. SINGLE. CAUSE. OUT THERE. Received a shout-out from race discrimination (Chris Rock, Alejandro G. Iñarritu) to the environment (Leonardo DiCaprio), the banks (Adam McKay), the LGBT movement (Sam Smith) and sexual abuse (Joe Biden, Lady Gaga). You think that's enough? Important causes, to be sure, but also much too important and serious for a simple lightweight show about movies which could have frankly done with being more fun.
Speaking of being more fun, some of the presenters this year were about as entertaining as a funeral. Emily Blunt and Charlize Theron looked like they were in mourning, The Joker and Harley Quinn themselves Jared Leto and Margot Robbie delivered a shockingly unfunny presentation, Patricia Arquette looked uncomfortable with the rubbish camera movements accompanying her announcement of the nominees and The Minions were about as annoying as ever.
The In Memoriam section, you'd think, would be the easiest thing to get right and yet, once again, The Oscars fail to mention some notable film industry people who sadly passed away last year including The Godfather's Abe Vigoda, Rocky's Tony Burton, Police Academy's George Gaynes, Seinfeld's Taylor Negron, High Sierra's Joan Leslie and Maverick's Geoffrey Lewis. Even Uggie The Dog from The Artist didn't get a mention! It's not rocket science, people: get it right.
THE VERDICT
All in all, this was pretty much what you'd expect from an Oscars ceremony: Millionaires making fools of themselves, tonal shifts aplenty, a titanic running time extended through countless advertisements, the obligatory red carpet nonsense, some welcome surprise wins, some shameful snubs and blunders.
Can't wait for next year!
