Concluding remarks of the Oscars

The 89th Academy Awards ceremony was held on Sunday, and everybody is talking about the huge disaster that happened near the end of the show. Many viewers were upset, some got angry, and yours truly had to shield his eyes from the utter catastrophe befalling the stage.

I am talking, of course, about Leonardo DiCaprio presenting an award as last year’s Best Actor. Just as we thought the utter horror of 2016 was finally over we were reminded of the greatest tragedy of all when an untalented hack won one of the most prestigious acting awards in the world. Oh, and something about a few cards getting mixed up.

For those of you who read the Feb. 16 issue, I made predictions for who would win each of the categories. All in all, it looks like I was about 50 percent accurate, successfully foretelling 12 of the 24 wins – including Best Actor/Actress, Best Director, and Best Picture. Considering the categories average out to about five movies each, that means randomly guessing should net a success rate of around 20 percent. So, I am 2.5 times better at this than a random number generator!

All in all, most of the choices this year were pretty solid, with the exception of one. As of Sunday, “Suicide Squad” is now an Oscar Award-winning film. Just let that sink in for a minute. Suicide Squad, the headache-inducing, badly edited, poorly written mess with more behind the scenes problems than most alligator farms, is now the recipient of an Academy award. Granted, it was for Makeup and Hairstyling, not screenplay or directing, but that title still remains.

As for the show itself, aside from the embarrassing moment at the end, it was extremely entertaining. Jimmy Kimmel went above and beyond to create a relaxed and charming atmosphere with memorable events such as bringing in a tour group for a meet-and-greet, dropping goodie bags from the ceiling, and exacerbating a long-running feud with Matt Damon.

In fact, despite the rather lackluster films that came out in 2016, this ceremony might be my favorite from the past few years. Now, I suppose it is time to finally wrap up this season. As always, good or bad, it was extremely enlightening to sit through all the movies nominated for things. In truth, that is where a strong interest in the Academy Awards is the most beneficial: To help broaden one’s own horizons by seeing some films that you might not have even considered watching before.

I look forward to next time, with the hope that 2017 will provide a lush plethora of amazing works of cinematic genius to be recognized and distinguished by one of the greatest awards ceremonies in the world.

So who’s looking forward to the Kids’ Choice Awards?