Oscars Live Blog 2023

11:39 pm - only three hours and thirty nine minutes, about how long it takes to read a Bookstore Care or Aurora Teagarden or Ground Rules mystery.  And about half as long as sitting thru All Quiet. 

11:32 pm - Everything Everywhere All at Oscar.

11:23 pm -  Encino Man and George of the Jungle are the big winners tonight.  I’m very happy for Brendan Fraser.  I would have first seen Fraser in Nancy Savoca’s Dogfight in 1991. As a hunk in School Ties. Over thirty years later…

11:16 pm - The ads have been disappointing.  I’m yearning for Ellen DeGeneris ads for regular low pricing at J C Penney. Ads for a plan that was a great and also utterly ruinous idea simultaneously. For something, though, that feels fresh and distinct and creative.  Not Rolex ads that are like Rolex ads in the Wimbledon final.

11:12 pm - Two more prizes, editing and Director, for Everything Everywhere All at Once.  This seems like a good occasion to post a link to an LA Times article about the laundromat where the movie was filmed. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-03-09/oscars-2023-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-laundromat

11:10 pm - Thoughts on the in memoriam: Kirstie Alley and Robert Coltrane, sharing a card. Both appeared in franchises that we sf/f people owe a lot to, and in Kirstie Alley’s case, Star Trek 2 was her first film role. And I think it’s impossible for anyone who’s seen a Harry Potter movie not to see Coltrane’s Hagrid when you read the books.  Owen Roizman was a great cinematographer, including for Network.  The sleekness’s of the network’s corporate headquarters in Network, something that lives on in the imagery of cinema. Nichelle Nichols.  Need I say anything more.  Edward Pressman and Walter Mirisch were two of the great producers of the 20th Century.  Angela Lansbury - forget everything you know about her and go see her performance in The Manchurian Candidate.  I saw the revival of Sweeney Todd last week, and her originating the role of Mrs. Lovett hangs over everything Mrs. Lovett does in this new production. Vangelis; Chariots of Fire and BladeRunner are two of the indelible scores in motion picture history, and those are just two of them.  The runners going along the beach, the elevator running up the side of the Tyrell Building, all indelible images that became more than that because of Vangelis’ music.  James Caan.

10:57 pm - You had me at Naatu.  I went in wanting this for Top Gun: Maverick, but seeing the number live earlier this evening I was ready to switch my vote. 

10:53 pm - Top Gun: Maverick. Oscar winner.  I saw the movie yesterday.  It sounds great.  

10:47 pm - not going to be out of here by 11, but things are going at a decent enough pace.

10:43 pm - Phew!  Never thought I’d be so glad to see Women Talking win an Academy Award.  And it’s not damning with faint praise but actual accomplishment that I enjoyed this movie a lot more than other of the “not my type” movies that I saw anyway, like The Quiet Girl.  Women Talking is one of the rare movies that I’d say is worth seeing just for the photography.  A category in which the movie wasn’t even nominated.

10:39 pm - but at least there’s another joyful win for Everything Everywhere All at Once before a possible 5th award for All Quiet.

10:38 pm - and All Quiet is considered a strong favorite in adopted screenplay.

10:11 pm - UGH!  John Williams does great work in Fabelmans.  Justin Hurwitz does great work in Babylon.  And the Best Score award goes to this turgid boring movie that adds nothing new to anything abou war movies.  Paths. Of. Glory. 66 years old, forever and for always a classic.  And the Academy wants to give four Oscars and counting to All Quiet.  I’ve said before, I’ll say again, I wish every book that I represented could be published with the effort and energy that Netflix has to spend and does spend getting Oscars for its award bait boring blahs. UGH UGH UGH.

10:09 pm - I can think of three other nominees for Production Design that have better production design. I was sooooo not a fan of All Quiet, and I said in my preview post that I didn’t see this as a year for hate-watching, but three wins for this turgid thing.  Just watch Paths of Glory.  It’s the same movie, only shorter and better in any and every way.

10:01 pm - How does she do it?  Lady Gaga does the “cab just pulled up to the stage door” version of performing an Oscar-nominated song, and nails it. 

9:43 pm - Doesn’t this movie sound great?  Read Owen Gleiberman’s Variety review during the last commercial break.  https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/bottoms-review-rachel-sennott-1235550522/ An SXSW premiere, as was the documentary film companion to the book A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE that I sold, about the Star Wars Holiday Special.

9:35 pm - The Naatu Naatu number was amazing good, got a round of applause in my apartment. Now I’m torn between this and Hold My Hand.  And I bet if they were turning in ballots after the performances Naatu Naatu would win in a landslide.  Lively, colorful, energetic, great choreography - a great performance on every level.

9:27 pm - I don’t recall seeing that dress in Christmas Vacation, which I saw again just ten weeks ago.

9:26 pm - I love Paul Dano’s tux

9:22 pm - seeing Harley Quinn on the stage prompts me to give a shoutout to Stephanie Phillips, whose excellent run on the Harley Quinn monthly comic book has just concluded.  I read the final issue on my walk home from Tar this evening (and yay, Daylight Savings, that I had daylight to read comics by on the trip home)

9:19 pm - the makeup/hairstyle category was as solid as photograph was weak.  The Whale is a deserving winner, but then go and watch the scene toward the end of Elvis where it switches from Butler to Elvis himself to know why that would’ve been a great winner, too.  All five are winners in this category.

9:15 pm - correction - scrolling thru Variety headlines during this last commercial break and Lady Gaga is said to be appearing after all.  She can hold my hand any time.

9:14 pm - next year, Wolf Pack in the Paramout+ - Showtime ad

9:10 pm - “B” as in Banshees. This year’s Oscar desserts came from Buttercup Bakery and Billy’s Bakery.

9:06 pm - Hoping All Quiet just got its only Oscar.  I can’t complain about it winning here because the other four movies either had no chance or weren’t that good.  

8:55pm - Navalny is everything but a political documentary. It is, obviously, with the subject having escaped an assassination attempt, and being imprisoned for deciding to go back to Russia knowing what would happen.  That ending looms over the movie.  But the movie is sometimes funny; you have to laugh when a prank caller gets someone to confess to their role in an assassination attempt.  It’s suspenseful; because we know what the ending is it sits over the plane ride back to Russia.  The movie isn’t a message; it’s a really good movie and well worth seeing.  Silencing speech is rarely a good idea; you never know who gets to decide which speech gets silenced.

8:48pm - how did they manage to turn Tår into a suspense thriller? (Pro tip - it’s not, maybe emotionally a little, but it’s not)

8:42pm: Nice shot of the two Supporting winners celebrating together.  Also, it’s a shame Lady Gaga isn’t performing tonight.  Her song had better win.

8:40 pm: These are such great stories.  Maybe someday for Lukas Haas.  Jamie Lee Curtis has quietly been working.  Just, working.  Halloween movies, the principle in a sports movie, freaking on a Friday, and this is one of those nice things that’s deserved both in the moment and for the career.  And it’s back in the 1980s that I was seeing Ke Huy Quan in things.  Here he is.  Just great, great, great stories.

8:34 pm “please keep your dreams alive.” You’ve got to be touched by Ke Huy Quan’s win.

8:26 pm - how many years are two sequels nominated for Best Picture, each as good or better as the original?

8:21 pm Next time you see me, ask me about my funny Guillermo and the Conditions Precedent story.  It’s one of those things you do once.

8:19 pm I want this category to go to the Puss, but it doesn’t.  Puss in Boots was a surprisingly good charmer, with great voice work and at least one song that has stuck in my mind for ten weeks.  Still having around in movie theatres, and still recommending.

8:10 pm glad to see a shoutout for Till and Danielle Deadwyler, the best performance not nominated for Best Actress.

8:07 pm: I sometimes can’t believe I’ve sold books in five decades. That Spielberg has been been nominated for Oscars in six…

8:05pm “Two actors from Encino Man are nominated for Oscars.” Yeah, never would’ve predicted that one.

Settling in for the evening.

Saw Tår again earlier today, and it doesn’t hold up well enough for me to see it as the artier Best Picture nominee.  I didn’t dislike the second time, but the meh parts toward the end were still meh, and the better parts weren’t any better upon repeat viewing.

So count me as being on Team Maverick.

Here is an annoying article from Anne Hornaday in the Washington Post, who is clearly not Team Maverick. Or Team Everything Everywhere.  She doubts either movie “will have entered the national bloodstream five years from now, let alone 50.” Which is an odd thing to say when Top Gun: Maverick is a sequel to a movie that came out 37 years ago, and stayed in the bloodstream long enough for the sequel to have been one of the most resonant audience pleasers in Hollywood history. Which feels weird and exaggerating to say, but, isn’t it?  I don’t know if Everything Everywhere will survive the test of time. Ask me in five years.  But the comment about Top Gun: Maverick…

And if you’re wondering why I’m not Team Quiet Girl here is a 4**** review from the Washington Post’s Michael O’Sullivan with phrases like “not terribly much happens” and “speaks most loudly when it is saying nothing” that explain why.