The Town (2010)

Nominated for:  Best Supporting Actor

  This movie wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't think it was great, but it was okay. I think this is the sophmore directorial contribution by Ben Affleck. I didn't see Gone Baby Gone so I don't know if this is better or worse. I thought it was well-acted so maybe that's the sign of a good director? 

The story is about a crew of bank/armored truck robbers in Charlestown, a suburb of Boston.  The leader of the crew becomes involved with a woman they once held hostage which foments discord between him and the hotshot second-in-command.

Poor Jeremy Renner.  If he doesn't watch out, he's going to get typecast as the "broody violent crazy guy".  I guess as long as that keeps getting him Oscar nominations it's really not so bad. 

This was also one of Pete Postlethwaite's final roles.  He plays an Irish florist, who is about the antithesis of any florist you've ever seen.  My favorite part he ever played was as the Old Man in James and the Giant Peach. 

This was another movie I downloaded on my iPod but I ended up watching it on the plane's system instead.  It was one of those films that uses the whole screen and my little-ass iPod was not handling it right.  Besides, it was free so it's not like I paid a rental fee twice.  It wasn't that good.

But if you're in the mood for a heist movie that isn't Soderbergh-slick, picking this one up won't do you any harm.

Manchester by the Sea (2016)

  It's the French poster but I don't care.  It doesn't make a difference.

Remember last year when people couldn't shut up about this movie?  How they praised Casey Affleck for his moving performance?  He won a goddamn Oscar for it.  It was nominated for six, including Best Picture, and won a second one for Best Original Screenplay.

And it's not good.

It might as well have been named "White Men Not Dealing with Their Feelings" because that's all that happens in it.

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) drops everything to rush back to his hometown after his brother (Kyle Chandler) succumbs to congestive heart disease.  This brings back a host of bad memories that Lee has never confronted on top of the current situation of having to care for his teenage nephew (Lucas Hedges), a mouthy brat and aspiring hockey goon.

Watching the older generation of toxic masculinity mentor the younger, slightly more well-adjusted generation is about as heartening as you'd imagine.  And before somebody chimes in with the "everyone grieves differently" adage, ten years of dead-end jobs and bar fights does not count as grieving.  Lee does the absolute bare minimum for his nephew because he's terrified of his personal demons.  Instead of using it as an opportunity for healing old wounds, he runs.  A+ parenting right there.

And let's not pretend that this is brave, new ground for Affleck as an actor either.  It's essentially the same character he has played in Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jesse James except even less nuanced.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

  Remember when everyone was talking about this movie?  It was Ben Affleck's first turn behind the camera and people lost their minds raving about how good it was.  Maybe a bunch of you saw it then.  I didn't so I appreciate that no one spoiled it and I could watch it unbiased.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) are Boston Private Investigators.  They mostly handle missing persons in the form of drug-addicts and other people who just slip through the cracks.  But when they have the opportunity to augment police presence on the abduction of four-year-old Amanda MacReady (Madeline O'Brien), Patrick jumps at the chance.  Angie doesn't want to run the risk of finding a dead or abused toddler but can't say no to the impassioned plea of the girl's aunt (Amy Madigan).  The mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), is a known drug-user and party girl, and it's not long before her version of events that night starts to unravel.  Patrick and Angie team up with Detectives Poole (John Ashton) and Bressant (Ed Harris) in order to pull the story apart and find out what really happened to Amanda. 

It's not really a high-octane thriller, despite the number of shoot-outs.  It just sort of creeps along, slowly gathering dread and grime.  The ending drags on a bit, once you get past the big reveal.  Personally, I would have cut it there but I get why Affleck wanted to show more.  **POTENTIAL SPOILERS in white.  Mouse over to see**  Christy came in about twenty minutes before the credits and asked me if I would have called the cops and returned the girl to her birth mother.  I didn't even have to hesitate.  Absolutely not.  I would have shook his hand, said "Have a good trip, sir," and been on my merry way, because I don't value being right as much as I value being happy.  Blood isn't the only thing that makes a family.  **END SPOILERS**  Overall, I thought it was a very well-done movie that raised a lot of questions about morality and how far people will go to do the "right" thing. 

The Great Lie (1941)

  This is from my Bette Davis collection.  It's a straightforward melodrama and not one of my favorites, though it does give Bette a chance to play sweet and (kinda) innocent.

Pete Van Allen (George Brent) married concert pianist Sandra (Mary Astor) after a drunken party but discovers that her previous divorce hadn't gone through.  This gives him a second chance, of sorts, and he rushes back to his on-again-off-again true love, Maggie (Bette Davis).  She encourages him to quit drinking and put his navigational skills to good use, flying reconnaissance for the government after their wedding.  Unfortunately, Pete's plane goes down in the Amazon and he is presumed killed. Desperate, Maggie reaches out to Sandra, who has claimed to be pregnant with Pete's child, and makes her an offer.  If Sandra gives Maggie the baby, Maggie will ensure Sandra's financial security for the rest of her life.  Sandra agrees and gives up the child.  But then Pete comes back.

All the characters in this are very one-dimensional, but none more so than Sandra.  She is every bad trait a woman can have:  spiteful, snide, selfish, and jealous.  By contrast, Maggie comes across as a saint, bravely putting up with Sandra's moods so she can care for her husband's baby.  It culminates in a showdown where Pete is asked to choose between the woman he married and the woman who bore his child and then sold it to the woman he married.  There's a contest.

I'm going to chalk this up to being a product of its time so I can't hate on it too much, but there aren't really any redeeming features.

Pieces of a Woman (2020)

Nominated for Best Actress      Well, I've now seen Shia LaBeouf's penis more than I have ever wanted or needed.  This is definitely one of those "I watched this so you don't have to" movies.

Content Warning:  dead baby

After a home birth gone wrong, Martha (Vanessa Kirby) struggles to cope.  Her partner (Shia LaBeouf) and mother (Ellen Burstyn) want her to prosecute the midwife (Molly Parker) in criminal and civil court.  Nobody cares what Martha wants, even if she were capable of articulating it.  

So I get what the movie is trying to say.  I understand on an intellectual level that grief affects everyone and what a crushing blow it would be to lose a child you wanted only to then have people turn around and blame you for surviving that loss and tell you you're doing it wrong.  But all I felt watching this was disgust at every single one of these characters.  I just hated these people and I didn't care what happened to them.  I was actively rooting against them succeeding.  And it reminded me of the (only) psych class I took in college, which was Psychology of Good and Evil.  On the nose, I know, but how am I not gonna take a class called that?  

Anyway, the salient point is that you can actually push too many emotional buttons and people will refuse to empathize.  The example my professor gave was the Sarah McLachlan dog rescue commercial.  The combination of that sad fucking song with images of brutally abused pets caused the opposite intended effect.  People didn't donate, they turned it off.  It literally made them feel too bad to be helpful.  That's what this movie does for me.  Your mileage may vary.  It's currently streaming on Netflix.  Hope you have a strong stomach.

Total Recall (2012)

This was supposed to have gone up yesterday but we hadn't gotten the internet set up at the new place yet.  Don't ever move.  I'm just sayin'.    I started out kind of hopeful when I heard they were remaking Total Recall.  Especially after I finally got around to seeing the original.  Holy shit, was that misplaced optimism.  Yikes. 

They kept the exact same plot but took everything smart about the first movie and threw it out of the window.  Sure, they updated the effects (which was much-needed) but everything else kind of sucked.  I'm just going to go ahead and declare this whole post **SPOILERY** because I plan on getting into the details of where it went wrong.

1)  They completely tossed out the whole Mars angle in favor of setting the two warring factions on different sides of the Earth.  You have UFB (which is kind of United Kingdom plus a bunch of Europe) and the Colony (Australia).  All the rest of the Earth has been rendered uninhabitable because of chemical weapons.  But people have still got to get from one set-piece to another.  Solution:  a tunnel throgh the Earth's core.  I shit you not.  The minute I heard that, I knew it was all downhill from there. 

2)  Jessica Biel.  Call me crazy, but that bitch can't act.  She has zero chemistry with Colin Farrell and can not for the life of her pull off the love interest role.  She couldn't do it in The A-Team and she can't do it here.  Plus, in the original, Rachel Ticotin's Milena is a badass chick who is more than capable of taking care of herself.  Biel's Milena gets hit in the head a lot and has to be rescued by Farrell constantly.  Waste. Of. Space.

3)  The villain's plan is completely idiotic.  Since they threw out the Mars terraforming angle, Bryan Cranston's Cohaagan has a plan to frame Colin Farrell's old identity as a terrorist responsible for a number of bombings so he can invade the Colony and ...replace their workforce with Synthetics (robot soldiers).  What?  How does that solve your overpopulation issue in any way?  All you've done is make all your people unemployed. 

There are so many other little stupid things that just make it an unenjoyable experience but there was one other point I wanted to make.  In the 1990 version, when Arnold finally confronts his evil fake-wife and shoots her in the face, his big line is "Considah dis a divorce!"  Which would be a snappy comeback if his accent weren't adorably incomprehensible.  In the new one, however, whenever evil-wife Lori is about to kill Hauser/Quaid, she says "Til death do us part, baby."  Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I found that to be a much more politically charged line, especially in the context of the "good girl" being all helpless and breathy.  No me gusta.

Kate Beckinsale totally rocked that shit as the evil wife, though.  It actually made up for two of the Underworld movies.  Not all of them, but at least two.

Reaching for the Moon (1930)/Royal Wedding (1951)/The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1958)

  So most of you realize by now that I watch a lot of old movies.  What you may not know (but could probably guess) is that I also read about old movies.

For instance, I had read about Douglas Fairbanks in his role as one of the founders of United Artists alongside his wife, Mary Pickford.  (They were the original Hollywood power couple.)  I knew he was renowned as a stuntman, performing a variety of amazing feats in several iconic roles (The Thief of Baghdad, The Three Musketeers, and Robin Hood).  I know he's been referenced in tons of other movies, including Blazing Saddles.  I had, however, never actually seen one of his movies.

This is not a very good movie.  The plot is thin, it relies a great deal on stupid coincidences, and the two main characters have zero chemistry.  As a romance and as a music, this is a total fail.  I'm also not sure anybody told Douglas that this was supposed to be a romantic musical.  He certainly treated it like it was an action film, putting in stunts where none were actually called for.  I'm sure conversations with the director must have gone like this:

"You want to slide down a fireman's pole?  But the scene is on a cruise ship...No, I'm not saying it wouldn't look cool, Douglas, just why the fuck would there be a fireman's pole on a cruise...You know what, fuck it.  You want to pull some Olympic gymnast shit on a pole, we'll put in a fucking pole, you big baby.  Yeah, go on, while you're at it.  Might as well jump over a couple of balconies too, show-off bastard."

So, some rich dude with no time for love gets made fun of by a female aviator and decides that he must drop everything he's doing to pursue her, even if it means booking a transatlantic ship voyage (thankfully not on the Lusitania this time) in order to woo her.  Meanwhile, he loses every penny in the Great Depression, stocks plummet, and all his Wall Street friends kill themselves.  But who gives a shit about human tragedy?  You gotta win that girl who laughed at you away from her limp-dick English fiance.  He ends up getting the girl only after he falls into a deep depression and she feels sorry for him.  She gives him a pep talk about not giving up, and she's sure he'll make another fortune.  Then it cuts to their wedding day, and sure enough, he has completely bounced back by investing in steel...right before WWII.

  I guess this is continuing the trend of old movies with people whose names you'd actually recognize.  I mean, if you've seen a musical from before 1981 then you've probably seen Fred Astaire.  And Peter Lawford was part of the Rat Pack so most dudes will have heard of him.  Jane Powell and Keenan Wynn, maybe not so much. 

The movie is about a brother/sister dance team that gets the opportunity to play in London during the week of then Princess Elizabeth's wedding to Prince Philip.  On the boat ride,  the sister (Jane Powell) meets Peter Lawford, playing a member of minor nobility.  They bond over the fact that they're both kind of slutty and begin seeing each other.  Meanwhile, Fred starts dating one of the dancers in the show (Sarah Churchill).

It's a very typical musical of the time (everyone gets married) but that's not really a reason to watch it.  It's Fred Astaire dancing.  The man could make inanimate objects look good when he danced with them.  And I have not seen a single male dancer to rival him since those days.  Maybe Gregory Hines.

To be clear here, I'm talking about movie entertainers not hardcore professional ballet dancers.  I don't follow that world closely enough to make judgments regarding their charisma.

  I was a little surprised to learn that this was made into a musical.  The story of the Pied Piper is one of the darker fairy tales out there.  There are a couple dozen different endings, depending on the source but basically the town of Hamelin has a rat infestation.  A piper dressed in mismatched, motley clothes shows up and offers to rid the town of its problem in return for gold.  A bargain is struck and the piper lures all the rats to the river and drowns them.  Then the townspeople tell him to fuck off when he asks for his money, so in retaliation, he lures all of their children away.  The nice stories say that he hid them somewhere until the townspeople relented and paid him.  The less nice ones claim that he tripled the price.  The worst ones claim that he drowned them in the river like rats, killed them himself, or worse.

Side note:  Hey, Hollywood, I hear you're looking for some gritty reboots to fairy tales.  Here ya go, it's practically gift-wrapped.  It'll be like Se7en meets Cinderella.  You're welcome.

All the music in this is based on the orchestrations of Edvard Grieg, a Norwegian composer who wrote "In the Hall of the Mountain King", one of my favorite creepy classical pieces.  I don't necessarily know that his music is meant to be accompanied by English singing; some of the songs' lyrics seem a bit rushed or tortured to try and fit the bar.  For classic movie fans, you'll know the song as the one being whistled by Peter Lorre in M, another movie that could use a good dust-off.

Seriously, I'm tired of seeing nubile teenagers as the only victims of serial killers.  That's not scary anymore.  It's time to really go for the jugular.  After all, if you want a movie that allegorizes the loss of innocence and the horror of the world, having a victim be a prepubescent kid is a better bet.

Only cinematically, of course!  Please don't go out and murder a toddler and then tell the police I told you to in my blog.  Jesus.  I don't need that kind of publicity.

The Pawnbroker (1964)

  I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.  Quarantine is no place for heavy Holocaust-survivor drama.  And yet, here I am.

Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) is a survivor only in name.  He sleepwalks through his life, filled with bitterness and guilt for living when so many others had died in unimaginable conditions.  Still, his business does well in 1960s Harlem, well enough that he can afford an assistant, the ebullient ambitious Jesus Ortiz (Jaime Sanchez).  Ortiz is trying to climb his way out of poverty but Nazerman's relentless misery wears at him.  Nazerman's destructive spiral increases as more and more of his trauma comes to the surface, leading to a terrible showdown.

I remember adding this to my queue because it features the first appearance of one Morgan Freeman as an unnamed bystander and I wanted to point out what a baby he was.  Readers, I will confess, I fully forgot to be looking for him while I was watching this and totally missed it.  And I'm not watching it again.  It is fully traumatizing.

Content Warning:  concentration camps, the Holocaust, the emotional toll of human misery

The lone silver lining is that this is a rare example of a mainstream film by a prominent director to feature a predominantly POC cast.  In particular, Thelma Oliver (now Krishna Kaur Khalsa) was a breathtaking actress who deserved better than being credited as "Jesus's Girl".  In a just world, she would have been an A-lister, but she's apparently gone on to be a very well-respected yoga instructor so that's good.  Also, Brock Peters doesn't get enough mention as an incredible actor.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

  I remember when this movie first came out.  I had gone to see it in the theaters because I love seeing children in mortal danger.  By the end, I was ready to feed some brats to the Lachrymose Leeches.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the baby in the movie, wasn't subtitled.  I hadn't been expecting that and clearly neither had the dad sitting behind me with a child unable to read.  Every five minutes I heard "WHAT DOES THAT SAY DADDY?!"

Left a bad taste in my mouth.

Years went by, things like Sucker Punch and The Uninvited happened to Emily Browning's career, and everyone kind of forgot about this movie.  Ok, I forgot about this movie.  Then, out of the blue, Christy wanted to watch it. 

Three newly orphaned children:  Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) must try to discover their parents' secrets while trying to avoid their villainous uncle, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) who is after their inheritance.  The executor, Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall), carts them to one weird relative after another from the guy who's really into snakes (Billy Connolly) to the grammar Nazi afraid of everything (Meryl Streep) in the hopes of finding them a permanent home. 

This is one of the most depressing movies featuring orphans that's still billed as a comedy.  It's based on a 13-book series. I hesitate to call them children's books but they're not quite young adult.  I would say if you were a slightly cruel parent or just wanted to remind your kids that everything they have is ephemeral, you might enjoy reading these to them at bedtime.

Willow (1988)

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I continued my mission of educating Bethany and Tyler in the classics by showing them Willow and Labyrinth as a double feature.  Again, this holds up very well for its age and really deserves to be rediscovered by a larger audience.  

Originally posted 12 Jul 2012.

Every once in a while, Christy (she of the Experiment) and I will call each other up, set our blu-rays, and watch a movie together.  Now that our show (So You Think You Can Dance and don't you dare judge us!) has gone from two episodes a week to only one (which I am not happy about) we now have potentially more time to do stuff like this.  But let's face it, it's rare for her and me to agree that a movie is worth watching. 

In this, though, we are of one mind.  We were both too young to see Willow in the theaters but clearly remember watching it multiple times on video.  It will always hold a special place for us.

It is a time of magic and prophecy.  A babe is born who is destined to defeat the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh).  Spirited out of the queen's realm, the baby winds up in the care of Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis), a poor Nelwin farmer.  His village wise man (Billy Barty) decrees that the child must be taken to the crossroads, in the hopes that one of her own kind will care for her.  However, all Willow finds is the reprobate Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) imprisoned in a cage.  Against his better judgment and at the urging of his travelling companions, Willow frees Madmartigan and turns the child over to him.  This turns out to be a poor decision as the child is stolen almost immediately by Brownies, forcing Willow to rescue her and make sure that she survives long enough to fulfill her destiny.  To this end, two Brownie guides (Kevin Pollack and Rick Overton) lead Willow and the reluctant Madmartigan to rescue the sorceress Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes) without getting caught by Bavmorda's daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) or her right-hand man General Kael (Pat Roach).

As a sword and sorcery epic, the effects hold up pretty well.  They used blue screen for the Brownies, which is not terribly great, but the practical effects for some of the sorcery is awesome.  The trolls on the bridge gave me goosebumps as a kid, though Christy said she found General Kael's skull mask to be more frightening. 

I always forget that this was brought to us by the combined might of George Lucas and Ron Howard, probably because neither one of them ever did anything like it again.  But for all those blissful hours of repeated video viewings, I thank them.

Oscar Recap for 89th Academy Awards

I know, this is so far removed from the ceremony I might as well not even bother.  Under the old posting schedule, it would have gone out the next day after broadcast.  But since I stopped posting on Mondays because I just can't balance work, school, homework, and blogging, it's now almost a week late.  I am sorry if this is something you look forward to reading (Christy) because you don't watch the telecast (Christy) because you can't stay up past seven o'clock (Christy).  Right now, the new posting schedule of Friday, Saturday, Sunday is better for me.  Maybe next year, I'll get brave and try to live blog the Oscars as they happen.

Let's get to the ceremony!

The opening number with Justin Timberlake got things off to a great start.  It helps that "Can't Stop the Feeling" is ridiculously happy.  It also put me in mind of the Golden Globes, which I took to be a good sign.  Maybe the Academy is trying to shed some of that self-important "prom" image and do something entertaining.  Because, yes, it's about movie stars being awarded for their performances, but it's also a freaking 3 hour and 40 minute TV show with about a billion people watching worldwide.  We can't all be paraded in front of the A-listers from a tour bus.  More on that later.

Jimmy Kimmel was the host of this year's telecast.  I have never really liked Kimmel ever since The Man Show days but I examined that feeling a little more and realized I don't like any late-night TV hosts.  I don't watch late-night TV.  I spent too many years watching Jon Stewart's (canonization pending) uncensored rants to feel anything for these pale, network milquetoasts.  That being said, Kimmel was a great host.  He could do the Oscars every year and I would be okay.  The only joke he had that truly didn't land with the audience was "the only happy ending this year came halfway through Moonlight" and he was able to recover almost immediately.

Best Supporting Actor went to Mahershala Ali for Moonlight and it was well-deserved.
Best Costumes went to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Best Hair and Makeup went to Suicide Squad and was the only category this year I think where I saw every film nominated.

Kimmel introduced Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Hensen, and Octavia Spencer to present the award for Best Documentary Feature by calling them "Algebra's Angels" and I thought that was the most underrated joke of the night.  The Hidden Figures stars wheeled out the actual Katherine Johnson (the character Hensen played in the movie) so the audience could applaud her.  I don't want to imply that she is not a national goddamn hero, because she is, or that she wasn't unfairly overlooked her entire life, because she was, but Jesus Christ on a cracker, what is it with the Academy hauling out old people just to stare at them?  That's so rude!  Is it because they've forgotten what old age looks like?  Is it a cautionary tale?  "If you don't slather on La Mer every night and keep all of your Botox appointments, this could happen to you!"

Anyway, Best Documentary went to O.J.:  Made in America.  At this point, I was really excited because I had seen all of the winners.  I should have known better.

The next nominee for Best Original song was performed from Moana by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Auli'i Cravalho.  Everything that man touches turns to gold.  Obviously, this was my favorite performance of the night.

Best Sound Editing went to Arrival.
Best Sound Mixing went to Hacksaw Ridge.
Best Supporting Actress went to Viola Davis for Fences.
Best Foreign Film went to The Salesman from Iran.  The director, Oscar Farhadi, boycotted this year's ceremony to protest the Muslim, excuse me, travel ban.
Best Animated Short went to Piper, another win for Pixar.
Best Animated Feature went to the overrated Zootopia.  Not that I'm bitter.

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan came out to present Best Production Design.  She looked terrible. Nice dress but her hair and makeup were too severe.  She made a joke about having seen Dornan somewhere before and you could tell it was an ad-lib because he had no idea how to respond.  It raised my estimation of her as a person.

Best Production Design went to La La Land.

At this point, Kimmel decided to parade a bunch of random people (but I'm sure they were carefully screened beforehand) through the auditorium in what I felt to be the most tone-deaf portion of the night.  I talked to my mom about it and she had a totally different take, so I will include both views in the interest of fairness.

According to my mom, she felt bad for the tour bus people.  Imagine riding around the top of a tour bus in LA all day and then being told you're going to see a new museum exhibit on Oscar gowns and fashion, only to have the doors open and there you are on live TV in front of a huge room containing every celebrity ever and all you can think is "My God, I smell like hot dogs and exhaust fumes and holy shit, there's Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington."

My take was, here you are a Hollywood celebrity.  You haven't eaten all day so you can fit into your dress, you're wearing uncomfortable shoes, and you know you're not going to be able to pee for the next five hours because you'll be on live TV.  Then the doors open and in come a handful of random strangers to stare and film you on their phones like you're a zoo exhibit and all you can think is "My God, I just inhaled an entire box of Junior Mints that fell from the sky.  I hope I don't have chocolate in my teeth.  These people probably waited hours and I am not going to be the one who ruins everything because of stupid Junior Mints."

Then, of course, there's option three:  "Look, peasants, upon our majesty and riches!  Stare at everything you will never possess!"  /maniacal laughter

And can we talk about the parachuting candy, like we are in the fucking Hunger Games?  Was that a political statement?  A warning?

Best Visual Effects went to The Jungle Book.
Best Film Editing went to Hacksaw Ridge.
Best Documentary Short went to The White Helmets.  One of the actual White Helmets was supposed to attend, but he actually was prevented by the totally-not-a-Muslim travel ban.
Best Live Action Short went to Sing, which is not the same as the American Idol for animals animated movie.
Best Cinematography went to La La Land.
Best Original Score went to La La Land.
Best Original Song went to "City of Stars" from La La Land.
Best Original Screenplay went to Manchester by the Sea.
Best Adapted Screenplay went to Moonlight, which might have been the only prediction I made that actually happened.
Best Director went to Damien Chazelle for La La Land.
Best Actor went to Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea.  The presenter was Brie Larson, who very noticeably did not clap for Affleck's win.  Affleck just settled two sexual assault suits out of court because he is rich and white and can do things like that.  Larson is an advocate for sexual assault and rape survivors.  She had to give him a trophy but she didn't have to like it.  My money says she bathed in Purell afterwards.
Best Actress went to Emma Stone for La La Land.  I didn't have a dog in that fight, but I will say that the stand-in photo they used of nominee Natalie Portman (who didn't attend because she could drop a baby at any point, and was the funniest person in the Mean Tweets Oscar Edition segment) was absolutely gorgeous.

Then came the Best Picture award and the biggest fuckup in Oscar history.  If you've somehow been living under a rock, here's what happened:  Warren Beatty was accidentally handed a backup Best Actress envelope instead of Best Picture because some PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant was tweeting and not paying attention.  So, Beatty opens the envelope and just kind of freezes because he can see that it's wrong, but everybody thinks he's just drawing out the moment to be funny.  He hands the card to Faye Dunaway and she says the winner is La La Land, which was the expected winner.

All the producers of La La Land crowd onto the stage to give their speeches and take their Oscars and some poor schmuck of a stagehand has to be the one to say "there was a mix-up."  Jordon Horowitz, the executive producer of La La Land, stopped everything to make the correction that Moonlight had actually won.  And the world lost its collective mind for a hot minute.  According to Jimmy Kimmel, there was supposed to be a final skit with him and long-running enemy Matt Damon to close out the show but it had to be scrapped because of the mistake.  Frankly, at that point, the show was 40 minutes over schedule so they probably should have cut the skit anyway, but for sure, no one would have paid attention after that bombshell.

I honestly felt bad for Jimmy Kimmel.  He had made a joke when he was announced as host about how honored he was to host "the 89th and final Oscars."  It was supposed to be a Trump joke, implying that the President would abolish the Academy Awards because they make fun of him, but I'm betting Kimmel felt an icy cold rush of prescience when that Best Picture thing happened and people were running around backstage in total chaos after just seeing their careers go up in flames like the Hindenburg.  He handled it as best as he could, and I wouldn't mind seeing him host again.