Oscar Thoughts

Overall, this was a good awards show. Chris Rock did a good job hosting but at times I think he went a bit too far when it came to confronting the issue of a lack of diversity.

Even though DiCaprio didn't give the best leading performance of 2015 in my opinion (Jacob Tremblay in Room takes this), he was the best of the nominees which I have seen, so I'm very pleased with him winning.

Brie Larson's win was also deserved, although I think her complete sweep of the awards season was a bit too much regarding the competitiveness of her category (see Ronan and Rampling) and how her co-star Tremblay, I thought was better in Room, won very little in comparison.

The biggest shocks of the evening for me were:
- Ex Machina winning for Visual Effects, which was a fine result. It's believed vote-splitting was the root cause of this.

- Mark Rylance beating Stallone. Of many occasions, a veteran is set to win but is beaten on Oscar night by an outsider, arguably because he is disliked by the industry. Despite not having watched Creed, Rylance is far from a bad winner (Hardy is my pick), not like Sly's brother suggests - "The Academy should be ashamed of themselves. It's as clear as the nose on your face that Sly won. Mark who?"

- Spotlight winning BP. After Inarritu won again for directing (well done to you too, AGI!), I thought The Revenant was set to win, so Morgan Freeman's announcement from the envelope made my jaw drop. Spotlight, while still a very good film, lacks the cinematic spectacle of Inarritu's historical epic, but it's in no way a poor choice (*cough* Slumdog Millionaire *cough*) by AMPAS.