Oscar Night

 
So the Oscars are today! There's been a lot of (totally justified) complaints about the lack of diversity in this year's nominees, with movies like Straight Outta Compton, Creed, Tangerine, and Carol getting some major snubs because of a voting block that always prefers to err on the side of Driving Miss Daisy.

But what this narrative completely overlooks is that the 2016 list of nominees is perhaps the strongest group of Oscar movies since the best picture list was expanded in 2010. In other words, there's absolutely no Blind Side, no Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in the bunch! And that, my friends, is definite room for celebration. All of these movies are good, and some of them are great.

This is honestly the first year in my memory where I won't be disappointed if any of the nominated films wins Best Picture. Of course, in a perfect world, Mad Max would win everything it's nominated for, or (barring that) at least Spotlight (the second best movie of the bunch).

I have a creeping suspicion that The Revenant will have a very good run tonight, which is only disappointing in comparison to all the other, slightly worthier movies in the running. Either way, I'd be perfectly happy to live in a world where the Oscar for best picture goes to a movie about a guy who crawls inside a dead horse so he won't freeze to death. Why not?

So I'll be satisfied with whatever happens tonight... Unless, of course, Inside Out loses the best cartoon award, in which case I'll never forgive myself for this blind optimism. But that won't happen.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the awards, too. And in the meantime, you can check out some of my latest movie reviews over at Slickster Magazine. We have:

Kung Fu Panda 3: The Repetition
"if you're a fan of the first film, just watch that instead"

The Visit
"at least as good as Signs or The Village"

Hail, Caesar!
"a disappointing Coen Brothers movie that happens to have some of the best scenes they've ever done"

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
"the idea is better than the execution"

None of these movies are horrible, so check them out if you're at all interested. But whatever you do, don't watch this movie:

Ugh.