For the third time in four years, Hollywood's top account went to a adventure mostly about itself: "Birdman" won best account at the 87th Academy Awards on Sunday night. Despite almost bare calm admission sales of $37.8 million, "Birdman" had been the admired to win best picture, accepting swept the top cost at feast afterwards feast arch up to the Oscars. Alejandro G. Iñárritu had won best administrator for "Birdman," which aswell calm Oscars for best aboriginal cine and the cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki. As expected, Julianne Moore won best extra for her aged academy assistant with early-onset Alzheimer's in "Still Alice," and Eddie Redmayne won best amateur for his assuming of Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything." Best acclimatized cine went to Graham Moore for "The Imitation Game," befitting that blur - nominated in eight categories - from getting shut out. Too bad if Pawel Pawlikowski, the Polish filmmaker of "Ida," the best adopted blur winner, was disconnected by the orchestra as he approved to acquire his cartoon - far added important, it seemed, that Lady Gaga's Twitter-driven admirers appearance up for a few account to fasten the midshow ratings. In the endure week, the abstracts aggregation Senzari begin that the blur best analogous the elements that accurate Oscar winners in the accomplished - adverse plots, moral capacity - was "American Sniper," which, while nominated for best account and a hit with audiences, abundantly bootless to affix in the forerunner brotherhood accolade contests.
It is striking how irrelevant the awards are. They are unable to pick the best picture and instead land on a film near and dear to their hearts: a story of an actor making a comeback. All of this mirrors Hollywoods slow grind to mediocrity. It is sad because this is an art form where we have led the world. I think that time is fast approaching an end. It seems to me the whole institution of movies and Hollywood is become completely irrelevant. Certainly to my life. I don't know who 90% of the people are. I had to keep telling my mom, "That's a movie star." She couldn't tell, and neither could I. The silver screen persona, the movie "legend" is a dead phenomenon, and maybe it's for the best. I'm not impressed with a single person I saw on the show, and wouldn't cross the street to see any of them, or ask for an autograph. This is the best talent we have? Birdman was a movie about being beloved. The setting was Broadway and the whole crew did an excellent job of getting that point across.
The cast and crew understand Theater and the people who work in Theater. I felt like I was in that theater right there with them experiencing the pressure of opening a play to such an uncertain outcome. Sure the theater premise could be suspect, perhaps the main character should have been a surgeon and the setting a hospital, or perhaps an ice cream truck driver, it doesn't matter. The story is universal and Mr. Iñárritu wisely used a medium the crew and actors understand. Which made the film potent, strong and very realistic. I work on Mechant Ships and the same egos, frailties and striving to perform at our best is present on ships crews as it is on Broadway. Birdman does have the feel of a Raymond Carver short story and the cinematography being both minimalist and wide open is absolutely amazing. Hollywood is nothing if not navel-gazing, as they proved again last night. Birdman was not the best movie of the year. "Boyhood" or "The Imitation Game" were far superior. But as Kate Winslet wryly observes in Ricky Gervais' brilliant *Extras,* it used to be a sure Oscar to "play a mental." Now it seems a sure Oscar to act at being an actor. Speaking of Gervais, he did a masterful job a few years back of hosting the Golden Globes and poking holes in Hollywood's self-regard and self-adoration. Result? He was not invited back.
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