And La La Land Wins 7, No, 6, No, Wait....

By Steve Evans

So I predicted La La Land would take nine out of 14 Oscars and it won seven. Then dropped to six. Do whut now?

It was the most bizarre event I’ve seen in a lifelong love affair with the cinema. If it had happened in a movie, I would have shouted in disbelief. I’m certainly glad that Moonlight was the rightful winner – it’s a beautiful and worthy film – though La La Land is more my style.

Last night’s climactic events were surreal. As it all unraveled, Warren Beatty, who turns 80 next month, had an expression like he’d just farted loudly in church. Faye Dunaway, almost unrecognizable from her indulgence in plastic surgery, refused to discuss the matter with entertainment media during the Governor’s Ball afterparty. The accounting firm Price Waterhouse Cooper, which has been handling the voting results for 83 of Oscar’s 89 years, issued an apology and accepted responsibility, though it remains unclear how this happened. You don’t hand the presenting talent the wrong envelope as they’re headed to the podium. You just don’t. You verify what the hell you’re doing.

There wouldn’t be all this secret envelope stuff in the first place if the LA Times hadn’t violated a 1940 embargo by publishing the winners in an early edition of the paper before the ceremony had begun. Now, this was an Oscars ceremony for films released in 1939, widely considered the greatest year for motion pictures during the Golden Age of Hollywood. The stars (and anyone with a telephone or radio) already knew who won before the first award was announced. Some suspense.

But back to last night. Host Jimmy Kimmel looked like he was ready to die. Half a dozen production and accounting people with headsets scrambling around the stage like cockroaches with the lights coming on. And how awful I feel for everyone involved with La La Land and Moonlight. Imagine going onstage thinking you’ve won the most significant film award in the world only to be told, no, whoopsie, there’s been a mistake. An epic fuckup, as it turns out. Imagine thinking you haven’t won, then you have – and feeling that whipsaw of emotion that cuts into what should fairly be one of the greatest moments of your life.

We live in strange times.

In watching the 11th hour fiasco unfold early this morning, it struck me that Americans have now won a dubious Triple Crown of weirdness. Until last night, not in my lifetime has the presidency, a Super Bowl and the Academy Awards all in the same year been decided by sudden-death overtime with disappointing results.

Expect La La Land to Win 9

By Steve Evans

My inevitable Oscar breakdown...

I’m going with La La Land to win 9 Oscars this evening -- including Best Picture -- out of a record-tying 14 nominations (equaled only by All About Eve and Titanic, both of which won Best Picture -- for 1950 and 1997).

Also tossing off the bold prediction that La La Land will be the first film since Silence of the Lambs (1991) to win the top 5 – picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. It's a charming and ridiculously romantic throwback to the Hollywood musicals of yesteryear, though the unsentimental ending is probably essential for it to be a serious Best Picture contender in this dark and cynical year of 2017.

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) and Denzel Washington (Fences) are seen as frontrunners for Best Actor, but Denzel's won twice already and his latest work is essentially a filmed play with non-stop exposition. It's nothing terribly impressive. Affleck is trying to live down sexual harassment allegations, which don't play well with image-conscious Academy voters. That leaves Ryan Gossling for La La Land.

The only other serious Best Picture contender is Moonlight; not your customary Hollywood fare. A beautiful little film, but well outside the experience of most Academy voters, who adore a flick like La La Land because it reflects their obsessive love of the movie business. Moonlight will have to settle for the nomination. Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge was thrilling and inspirational, though probably too old-fashioned to gain any traction for a win. Arrival is science fiction, and you can count on your thumb the number of times a sci-fi flick won Best Picture. Hidden Figures sanitizes the civl rights struggle behind the story of African American women scientists who led NASA to glory. If it had more bite, it might be a real contender. Hell or High Water is fantastic, but it's a cops-n-robbers genre picture that hasn't found a huge audience, even though it should. I didn't see Lion and don't know anyone who wants to.

So if any film could stage a Best Picture upset -- and really startle the hell out of me this year -- it would be Manchester by the Sea. But god a'mighty, that was an overlong, depressing slog through misery and grief with unlikable characters, especially Affleck's. I'm betting voters have enough of that to endure in real life right now. So sorry, Sullen Casey by the Sea, but you're down and out, and so's your film.

That will delight Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel. Expect him to indulge tonight in his entertaining pseudo-feud with Matt Damon, a producer on Manchester.

My own cross to bear will involve toggling back and forth between The Walking Dead and the Oscars. Both are can't-miss shows for me, though TWD will at least be available for streaming on-demand tomorrow.

Due to the interminable length of the awards ceremony, people may not realize that only 24 Oscars are handed out each year. Yep, we’re talking 30 minutes of intrigue stretched over a four-hour period. You know you’re gonna watch, anyway. Below is a complete list of all nominees by category with my picks marked ***** (((For the last 30 years I’ve averaged an 88 percent accuracy rate so bet with confidence, film fans.))) If you want a sure thing, bank on Emma Stone's win for La La Land. It's all but a done deal.

Here's how I predict the 89th Academy Awards will go down:

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BEST PICTURE

Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
*****La La Land*****
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

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ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
*****Ryan Gosling, La La Land*****
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

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ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
*****Emma Stone, La La Land*****
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

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ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

*****Mahershala Ali, Moonlight*****
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

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ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
*****Viola Davis, Fences*****
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

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ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

*****Kubo and the Two Strings*****
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia

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CINEMATOGRAPHY
Arrival
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
*****Silence*****

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COSTUME DESIGN
Allied
*****Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them*****
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land

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DIRECTING
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
*****La La Land*****
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

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DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)

Fire at Sea
*****I Am Not Your Negro*****
Life, Animated
O.J.: Made in America
13th

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DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
Extremis
4.1 Miles
*****Joe’s Violin*****
Watani: My Homeland
The White Helmets

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FILM EDITING
Arrival
*****Hacksaw Ridge*****
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight
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FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Land of Mine
A Man Called Ove
*****The Salesman*****
Tanna
Toni Erdmann

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MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
*****Suicide Squad*****

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MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Jackie
*****La La Land*****
Lion
Moonlight
Passengers

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MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
*****"Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" from La La Land*****
Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

"Can’t Stop The Feeling" from Trolls
Music and Lyric by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster

"City Of Stars" from La La Land
Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

"The Empty Chair" from Jim: The James Foley Story
Music and Lyric by J. Ralph and Sting

"How Far I’ll Go" from Moana
Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda

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PRODUCTION DESIGN

Arrival
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
*****La La Land*****
Passengers

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SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

*****Blind Vaysha*****
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper

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SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Ennemis Intérieurs
La Femme et le TGV
*****Silent Nights*****
Sing
Timecode

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SOUND EDITING
Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
*****La La Land*****
Sully

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SOUND MIXING
Arrival
*****Hacksaw Ridge*****
La La Land
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

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VISUAL EFFECTS
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
*****The Jungle Book*****
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

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WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
*****Moonlight*****

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WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
Hell or High Water
*****La La Land*****
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea
20th Century Women

Umbrellas over La La Land

By Steve Evans

If you've fallen in love with La La Land -- it's a sure bet for a Best Picture Oscar nomination this year -- you might want to check out one of its inspirations.

Jacque Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) is a hopelessly romantic musical with a score by the incomparable Michel Legrand. The lovers sing virtually all of the dialog to each other. Catherine Deneuve is gorgeous. The film was shot in three-strip Technicolor and restored to a 2K resolution (better than Hi-Def) in 2013. It's absolutely eye-popping. For film obssesives like me, The Criterion Collection is finally releasing this wonderful movie in a stand-alone edition on April 11. Previously it was only available in a box of Demy films with a $100 price tag.

You can see and hear the influence on La La Land in the dreamy cinematography, the pensive and often melancholy tone of its songs. Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Cannes 1964 Palme d'Or. This is a great motion picture.

Those Goofy Golden Globes

By Steve Evans

Let's not Monday morning quarterback last night's Golden Globes, beyond the observation that the awards remain the biggest con job in Hollywood. Most everyone knows the Hollywood Foreign Press Association controls the outcome of this lesser event (Oscar is still the gold standard, naturally). Fewer may realize that the Globes are chosen on the votes of less-than-100 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press. They are hardly arbiters of taste or quality in the cinematic and television arts. Yes, but the Globes deliver something the Oscars do not: a looser atmosphere fueled by an open bar. Through the years I've seen celebs stoned as monkeys during this show. Liz Taylor was trashed at the 2001 awards. Jack Nicholson stuck his ass out at the audience three years later during his acceptance speech for About Schmidt.

This is all a jolly lark, of course, and makes for good television (you can still check out Liz and Jack on YouTube), but the idiosyncratic nature of  the HFPA makes the Globes a lousy bellweather for the Academy Awards.

Although La La Land took a record 7 Globes last night, Moonlight will win the Oscar for Best Picture on Feb. 26. This is a political reality as certain as Meryl Streep dissing some asshole who was elected president by a bunch of -- yep -- gullible assholes.

Trump is an easy, though deserving, target. Whether Moonlight deserves to win Best Picture next month is a separate issue from the fact that it's going to win -- because Hollywood will have to deal with the banshee screaming that will result if it doesn't.

Let me be clear: I absolutely agree that Hollywood can do a better job of inclusion by employing people of all creeds, races and persuasions both in front of and behind the camera. I reject the notion that entertainment awards should have a quota system so that X number of minorities or other underrepresented groups are sure to get an Oscar. If films and talent cannot win on merit, then let's abolish awards.

And yet a boorish buffoon has won the presidency in the absence of merit, talent, appeal or even basic human decency. Is it obscene to compare silly awards to the Democratic process? Perhaps not if we drill down to a common motivation between the HFPA and the president-elect. It is this:

The Hollywood Foreign Press, ever-slick as weasel shit, manages to avoid hot-button issues of racism, sexism and quota-based awards by maintaining a ludicrous number of award categories, though especially the top two. They gave Best Drama to Moonlight and Best Comedy or Musical to La La Land. Equal, safe and predictable. Everybody goes home happy after the Globes. By eschewing controversy while allowing celebrities an open mic to blabber drunkenly about whatever comes to mind, the people behind the Globes last night not only solidified their reputation for irrelevance but managed to underline it at least three times, all for the sake of ratings and their own unquenchable thirst for self-aggrandizement. What irks me today is how they reveal themselves to be similar to the scary clown soon to take the oath of office. Whether you're the purveyor of a hokey awards show or a billionaire con artist, it's all about money and attention. Always has been. Dare I say, always will be.