Oscars End With Controversy

My family along with a lot of people look forward to the Oscars (Academy Awards), each year. My Family takes a different view on how to watch the Oscars.

My family is very competitive, so we turned the Oscars into a game. Before each award, everyone says who they think is going to win the award, if you get it right you get a point.

My dad cleaned up this year beating all of us by picking 16 of the 23 categories correct. He really rode “Mad Max: Fury Road” but I guess it worked. I came in third, getting nine out of 23. My sister did horrible, she got four out of 23 categories correct my Dad ended got all the bragging rights, which is not good because he can get very cocky.

This year was a little different because my sister was away at college so we did the picking through Google Docs. When I picked my winners I tried to spread it around because it is not normal for one movie to dominate but this year one did.

Now I have not seen the movie “Mad Max: Fury Road,” so I cannot say whether that movie deserved it or not but what I can say is that the other movies that were nominated for certain categories, I think should have won.

For example, one of the six awards that Mad Max won was sound editing, now I cannot say that “Mad Max” was bad but I saw three of the five movies nominated for that award, “The Martian,” “The Revenant” and “Star Wars” and the sound effects in those movies were amazing. In “The Revenant,” there were times were they had to make it seem like Leonardo DiCaprio was actually burning himself, it sounded so real. Another good example, in “The Martian” when the astronauts are trying to board their spaceship, the wind swirling around them sounded as if it was in the movie theater.

Best actor was the one award that I really felt was a lock. I thought DiCaprio should win but I really enjoyed Matt Damon’s performance in “The Martian.” “The Martian” is about an astronaut who is left by other astronauts on Mars and everything he has to survive on a planet where nothing grows. This movie is based on a book by author Andy Weir. I have not read the book but with that kind of movie where you are just spending two hours with Matt Damon, you have to want to hang out with that actor for two hours. Matt Damon made the movie a fun two hours

“The Revenant” is about an Alaskan hunter who is brutally attacked by a bear and is left for dead by his fellow hunters and is left to fight for his life through a number of different obstacles. I knew that he would win best actor after I saw “The Revenant.” DiCaprio did a great job, he maybe said 20 lines in the entire movie and still got the point of the movie across.

Over the years that I have watched the Oscars, it is rare for one movie to get multiple of the big awards like best actor or actress and best picture. That held true this year.

“The Revenant” got best actor and director, which is impressive but “The Room” got best actress and “Spotlight” got best Picture. Well-spaced out among different movies.

There was a lot of controversy about no black candidates going into the Oscars. Chris Rock’s opening monologue may have been out there or offensive to some but I really found it amusing. He did not dance around any controversial topics like the Oscars being racially unequal, he came right out and said them which I pleasing.

I thought it was a good Oscars, I was really happy, being a newspaper reporter, that the movie that was newspaper reporter centric, The “Spotlight,” won best picture. I have not seen it yet but I really look forward to watching it.