“We’d better get back, ’cause it’ll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night… mostly.”
Here We Are Now, Entertain Us (When We Were Young, Episode 16)
“He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he don’t know what it means…”
Businesswoman’s Special (When We Were Young, Episode 15)
“Hey, everyone — Sandy Frink just landed in a helicopter!”
I’m Not Bad, I’m Just Drawn That Way (When We Were Young, Episode 14)
“Is there nothing that can permeate that impervious puss?”
In An MMMBop, They’re Gone (When We Were Young, Episode 13)
“Life in plastic, it’s fantastic…”
She Saved The World A Lot (When We Were Young, Episode 12)
We Won Best Picture.
What a night!
Leave it to a telecast celebrating the films of 2016 to have a shocking surprise in store at the end. Last year, the modest Spotlight bested the bombastic The Revenant in the Best Picture race, even after Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won Best Director. This wasn’t a total shocker, because The Revenant was a more divisive film than Spotlight, which everyone pretty much agreed was at least good. But I predicted The Revenant in my Oscar pool because I was being a realist — and also because I convinced myself that predicting the movie I wanted to win would mean it wasn’t going to.
This year, like most prognosticators, I predicted La La Land, taking the same strategy. Again, the film I actually wanted and hoped would win did.
Apparently, there is something to my theory after all.
You’re welcome, Moonlight.
The Not-Oscars 2016
It’s just about Oscar time again — though for once, the Best Picture race isn’t exactly the most disappointing contest I’ll witness over the past year.
At times like these, the Academy Awards feel somewhat frivolous. It’s possible that some likely winners — The Salesman, Mahershala Ali, The White Helmets, OJ: Made In America, and even Zootopia — will have a political charge. We can certainly expect at least a few winners at the podium to speak out against the GOP’s onslaught of intolerance. Still, the main narrative of this Sunday’s Oscars telecast is shaping up to be about escaping these horrors rather than confronting them. I’m finding it difficult to celebrate that.
Now I’ll Never Be A Teen Model! (When We Were Young, Episode 11)
“Think I’ll go for a walk outside now,
The summer sun’s calling my name…”
