Folks know I don't give a shyt about a damn award or not, but some thoughts:
Good to see Mel get the recognition he deserves for Hacksaw Ridge. I like to emphasize here that I spit on everybody who doubted him or the film beforehand, which was almost everybody (don't even lie, you know you were doing it too). Regardless of what you think of the man, you are all plebians and fukking fools for doubting his raw talent behind the camera.
Amy Adams being snubbed is probably the biggest surprise here. My guess is since she was up for both Arrival and Nocturnal Animals, her chances got split and since there were a ton of strong contenders, it made her miss the boat.
I think both The Founder and Silence got struck out because they came out too late in the season and as a result failed to gain traction. Hidden Figures had the luck of becoming a notable box office success, which helped raise its profile immensely in the past few weeks, plus Fox started pushing it hard since with The Birth Of A Nation falling apart under the Nate Parker controversy and Jackie failing to pick up any steam outside of Portman's performance, Fox Searchlight had no serious Best Picture contenders so the mother company had to take up the reigns.
Side-note: I talk about Amy Adams being snubbed is the biggest surprise but to me the biggest surprise I see are all the so-called "professionals" out there talking about how Deadpool was snubbed. I mean, its lack of technical nominations, okay. But anyone talking about how it should/could have been a Best Picture contender is a fukking populist moron trying way too hard to be "cool" with the mainstream kids. I enjoyed the movie but it's a fukking insult to cinema itself to suggest this.
So who has seen Lion and Elle? Anyone?
I just so happened to see Lion yesterday. It's an alright movie, starts out great but eventually devolves into a flat uneventful adoption/soul searching drama. It's only getting awards love because Harvey Weinstein buys his way into the Oscars every year, although Kidman definitely deserves the love because she was as great as she always is.
Saw Elle a while back, it's a very Paul Verhoeven film. Isabelle Huppert deserves the love too though, great role.
anyone see The Salesman?
Yup, in fact, with the exception of A Man Called Ove I've seen all of the other foreign film nominees which might be a record for me.
It's a solid drama, much in line with the other work of director Farhadi. I'm not entirely fond of his style but he's one of the few directors to present a intriguing look into the everyday life of Arab/muslim culture so I always check it out.
and Viola Davis
