The 96th Oscars: "Oppenheimer" Wins, And Other Things.

 As the doomsday clock approaches midnight and wars are going in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere, a film about "the father of the atomic bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer won seven Academy Awards Sunday night in Los Angeles.  Among those awards:  Best Picture, Christopher Nolan for directing, Cillian Murphy for lead actor, and Robert Downey Jr. for supporting actor.

Besides "Oppenheimer", other major awards went to DaVine Joy Randolph of "The Holdovers" for supporting actress, and to Emma Stone for lead actress in "Poor Things".  Stone was the surprise choice given that Lily Gladstone of "Killers of the Flower Moon", as the first of her Native American heritage to be nominated for lead actress, was considered the overwhelming favorite.

"Barbie" was the box-office champion of 2023, but was doomed at these Oscars by director Greta Gerwig and actress Margot Robbie not getting nominated.  But Billie Eilish did win Best Song for "What Was I Made For?" And Ryan Gosling did wow the audience with his "I'm Just Ken" production number.  So there's that.

Jimmy Kimmel did well as host of these Oscars, even as he saluted the "little people" who made big contributions to keep Hollywood running, and in needling Donald Trump.  He was also instrumental in getting John Cena to come out of his shell and introduce the Costumes category nearly naked.

"In Memorium" had singing and dancing onstage, but the ones being honored were filmed from so far away that you could not figure out who these people were or what they looked like.  Next time, just refer viewers to your website if you're going to treat the deceased like this.

The Oscar telecast began one hour early (6 p.m. Central) and ended three and a half hours later at 9:30 Central.  Long award shows are par for the course, but this one actually ended on time.  This meant ABC could go ahead and show a post-Oscar edition of its hit sitcom "Abbott Elementary"  This, however, will probably not stem the long slide towards ratings oblivion for the Academy.  Even if the football season is over.  And Taylor Swift didn't show up at your party.

The 66th Grammys: All This and Taylor, Too.

 Inside the arena where three of Los Angeles' pro sports teams reside, the Recording Academy was passing out their Grammy trophies for the 66th time Sunday night.  "Music's Biggest Night", they called it.  And for most of those three-and-a-half hours of CBS' prime time, it actually lived up to its billing.  For a change.

But first, we have to address the elephant in the room.  The woman who dominated music in 2023 with her prolific albums, headline-making concert tour and a romance with a football star made history once again.  Taylor Swift became the first person to win four Grammys for Album of the Year, this one for "Midnights".  She won two awards for the evening, one of which was used to plug her new album coming out in April.  She was also accused of ignoring presenter Celine Dion on stage to accept her album Grammy, but that turned out not to be true.  Such is life for a global superstar, and it sounds like there's more to come.

Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus also won two trophies each, one of them being for a major category:

• Eilish's contribution to the "Barbie" movie soundtrack, "What Was I Made For?" in her trademark breathy voice, won for Song of the Year (which, as host Trevor Noah has to explain to CBS viewers, is a songwriting award), which was co-written by her and brother Finneas O'Connell.

• Cyrus' "Flowers", the biggest hit of her career, was named Record of the Year.  I think she's ready for her Las Vegas residency.

Best New Artist went to Victoria Monet.

As for everything else that went on . . . 

• Tracy Chapman, who apparently doesn't get out much, performed her 1988 hit "Fast Car" with the guy who revived it, Luke Combs.  Really an unfair comparison.
• Joni Mitchell, who last received a Grammy more than 50 years ago and is now an 80-year old legend, returned to the stage with"Both Sides Now".
• Olivia Rodrigo, who most music pundits have bequeathed the honor of The Next Taylor, found a way to clean up her language in the made-for TV version of "Vampire".
• Billy Joel closed the show first with an unremarkable song that was his first new one in three decades, but redeemed himself on "You May Be Right".
• Jay-Z, the recipient of the Dr. Dre Global Impact award, used his acceptance speech to rip the Recording Academy for ignoring rap and hip hop, and to ask why his wife Beyonce's album wasn't nominated for a Grammy.  His daughter Blue Ivy was standing next to him on stage.

And finally, In Memorium.  Stevie Wonder "duetted" with Tony Bennett.  Annie Lennox did Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U".  And with Oprah introducing, Fantasia Barrino did a good job in channeling Tina Turner's singing, if not her dancing.

But again, as the performers sang, the images of those in the music business who died in the past year floated by without so much as context.  Some of those artists, including Melanie and Gordon Lightfoot, deserved a better tribute.  They both had long careers, but commercially peaked in the 1970s and have since been relegated to the dustbin of music history.  The Grammy's main TV audience these days wasn't born then.  And they wouldn't have known who Melanie, Gordon Lightfoot and the others were unless their elders told them.

The Grammy awards this year were all that.  And Taylor, too.

2023 (Our Version)

 This was the year of Taylor Swift.  She sold out football stadiums with her Eras Tour. sold millions of records whether she made or remade them, became an inspiration to millions, and made headlines for dating an NFL player, creating the most highly-publicized romance since--I don't know--Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt.  And Time magazine bestowed Swift with its "Person of The Year" honors, something which has not happened to an entertainer.  Clearly, the sky's the limit for Taylor Swift.  But life is a blank space.  Someday, she might be writing songs about all this.

Elsewhere, war continues in Ukraine as they hold on for dear life against Putin's Russia and increasingly reluctant support from Europe and Washington.  A new Middle East war between Israel and Hamas is creating divisions around the world of anti-Semitism, and whether one should support the Palestinian people without having to support Hamas.  

Donald Trump has been indicted four times since leaving the White House, yet he's taking advantage of the slow-moving justice system to make another run for President--so he could make all those indictments moot.  No one, it seems, can stop him.  His poll numbers are steamrolling over his Republican opponents, who don't seem to know what to do with him on the way to the nomination.  Meanwhile, Trump continues to rant and rave against immigrants and his enemies, and his fans are just eating it up.  Do we need to ask whether you want this guy in the White House again?

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, has been a steady presence for the past couple of years and has restored much of this country's respect that was squandered by Trump.  So how come he can't seem to convince folks that the economy is doing great despite inflation?  Or that he is now the oldest President in history, and is running again only because the Democrats can't find anyone who's younger and can beat Trump?  Trump is no spring chicken either, but no one wants to talk about that because he thinks he's Superman.

Congress is a mess.  We've known that for years, yet it keeps getting worse in the era of political hyper-partisanship.  The House of Representatives, with its GOP cast of characters, has such ineffective leadership that they went a few weeks between Speakers of the House while the country was on the brink of bankruptcy.  All they seem to be interested in is impeaching President Biden and indicting his son Hunter. They did manage to kick George Santos out for being not all there, but that doesn't explain why the rest are still there.  The Democrats who control the Senate seem to be hamstrung because of the House's shenanigans that they're not getting much done either.

If this wasn't the warmest year ever on the planet, you haven't been paying attention.  Record high temperatures, wildfires, smoke from wildfires, drought, flooding, you name it.  Despite agreements to limit the amount of carbon and other things, we face more of the same because the powers that be don't seem to think it's a real problem, and that we will continue to depend on fossil fuels because that's what it will take to run all the solar panels and electric vehicles in the world.

Elon Musk is the other most important person in the world who screwed up this year.  He bought Twitter, ran it into the ground by reinstating all those right-wing characters who used to be banned from the site and causing normal users to flee, then changed the name to X (or as we call it, The Site Called X).  Actually, all of social media has been called into question for everything including Facebook's alleged shenanigans to banning Tik Tok because of its Chinese connection.

Hollywood actors and writers spent several months on the picket lines, striking for higher wages and assurances that their jobs won't be replaced by the alleged scourge known as Artificial Intelligence.  Production was shut down, TV broadcast networks were forced to put up with reality-laden shows, and viewers started checking out those streaming services they've heard so much about.  Both strikes are over, and one wonders whether AI will really be the scourge everyone fears.

The Women's World Cup was won by Spain, but has long since been overshadowed by a scandal caused by the president of that country's soccer federation who took it upon himself to kiss the lips of one of the team's stars during the trophy presentation..  He was forced to resign.  The Spanish women's team still has to live with it.

Those who left us in 2023:  Bob Knight, Frank Howard, Richard Moll, Richard Roundtree, Tina Turner, Gordon Lightfoot, Jimmy Buffett, Bud Grant, Jeff Beck, Lisa Marie Presley, David Crosby, Barrett Strong, Burt Bacharach, Bobby Caldwell, April Stevens, Astrud Gilberto, Harry Belafonte, Ed Ames, Tony Bennett, Sinead O'Connor, Randy Meisner, Robbie Robertson, Dwight Twilley, Jean Knight, Denny Laine, Jim Ladd, Burt Young, Andy Bean, Piper Laurie, Suzanne Somers, Phyllis Coates, Brooks Robinson, David McCallum, Roger Whittaker, Henry Boucha, Herb Kohl, Tom Smothers, Dianne Feinstein, Matthew Perry, Rosalynn Carter, Andre Braugher, Ryan O'Neal, Norman Lear, Chad Allan, Sandra Day O'Connor, Frances Sternhagen, Henry Kissinger, Betty Rollin, Marty Krofft, Ken Squier, Frank Borman, Jerry Springer, Paul Reubens, Bob Barker, Bill Richardson, Albert Quie, Raquel Welch, Alan Arkin, Cormac McCarthy, Robbie Bachman, Treat Williams, William Friedkin, Rudolph Isley, Tom Sizemore, Al Jaffee, Cindy Williams, Glenda Jackson, George Maharis, Melinda Dillon, Robert Blake, Stella Stevens

2024 is coming. Prepare yourselves.

The 95th Oscars: "Everything" Wins All at Once

 The Motion Picture Academy doesn't usually reward science fiction fare with its Best Picture.  Unless it happens to feature actors of Asian descent, a category Oscar usually consigned to the margins,  For the 95th annual Academy Awards ceremony, however, such a film and its cast were honored.  "Everything Everywhere All at Once" took home seven Oscars in a sweep of most of the major categories .

Besides Best Picture, Michelle Yeoh made history as the first Asian-born woman to win for Best Actress. Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan won for their supporting roles.  The Two Daniels (Scheinert and Kwan) shared the Best Director trophy. EEAO also received Oscars for original screenplay and film editing.

In the only major category in which EEAO did not have any nominations, the award for Best Actor went to Brendan Fraser for "The Whale".

And now, a few bullet points.

• Not everyone was happy with Curtis' win for Best Supporting Actress.  They all wanted to know why Angela Bassett was overlooked for the umpteenth time.  Or Viola Davis, whose film "The Woman King" was not nominated.
• Finishing a distant second in the Oscar race was "All Quiet On The Western Front", which is currently streaming on Netflix.  It won four awards including Best International Film.
• "Top Gun Maverick", the box-office smash credited with bringing people back to the post-pandemic multiplex, won an Oscar for Best Sound.  But its star Tom Cruise was a no-show  Lady Gaga almost was one until, at the last minute, she showed up onstage in casual attire to perform "Hold My Hand".
• Jimmy Kimmel once again hosted the festivities on ABC, helping the briskly-run (for 3 1/2 hours) show along with his so-so jokes, interacting with a burro and Cocaine Bear, and getting shot down on a stupid question for Malala.
• No fighting or slapping was involved.
  

The Grammys: All Hail Queen Bey

 At the 65th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles Sunday, things seemed to be in a holding pattern two hours into the CBS telecast.  Beyonce, who these days is considered the Queen of Pop Music by her subjects, was stuck in traffic on her way to the arena currently named for a cryptocurrency outfit. It seems even on Sunday there's a need for traffic reports.

When Beyonce finally arrived at her table, host Trevor Noah presented her with her 31st Grammy, which was announced at an earlier ceremony.  That one tied the record for most Grammys won by an individual artist.  She broke it later with a win in the dance/electronica category for her album "Renaissance".  That was her 32nd.

Beyonce did not, however, win Grammys in any of the major categories.  Neither did Adele or Taylor Swift, both of whom were also heavily favored to do so.  But Harry Styles did.  The former boy-band heartthrob (remember One Direction?) , won Album of the Year for "Harry's Place".  It introduced us to the single "As It Was", which ran for 15 weeks at the top of Billboard's pop chart during 2022.

Record of the Year went to Lizzo for "About Damn Time".  Yes, we in Minnesota are constantly reminded that Lizzo used to spend some time here before she became famous.  She dedicated her award to Prince, who stayed in Minnesota even after becoming famous.

Song of the Year (which, it has to be explained, is a songwriters' award) was "Just Like That" by Bonnie Raitt, an ode to organ transplants that also served as a tribute to John Prine.  Raitt, a longtime Grammy veteran, seemed to be just as shocked as you were that she won out over heavyweight competition before accepting her award from First Lady Dr. Jill Biden.

In Beyonce's absence, the Grammy telecast made do with their by-now-trademarked "Only At The Grammys" performances that people tend to talk about the next day.  Here's a couple:

--In a salute to Smokey Robinson and Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, Jr. for winning an industry award, Stevie Wonder and guests rolled through a few Motown classics.

--There was a celebration of 50 years of Hip Hop, featuring every artist the Academy could find who didn't have an alleged criminal record (that we know of), or who had long since gone into acting.  It was a reminder to the rest of us that rap had its beginnings during Richard Nixon's presidency.

--The annual "In Memorium" segment was enlivened this year by live tributes from Kacey Musgraves channeling Loretta Lynn with "Coal Miner's Daughter", and Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt and Mick Fleetwood performing "Songbird" in honor of Christine McVie.  Otherwise, the names and faces of those who have died in the past year just flew by, barely giving us time to know who they were.

A couple of other things:  

Viola Davis reached EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) status for her win in the spoken-word category.

Best New Artist went to singer Samara Joy.

The Grammy TV extravaganza ran almost four hours, once again leaving the announcement of the major awards to the final half-hour where CBS usually has its local news.  We don't need to rehash why awards show ratings have been dropping, but this is one reason why.

2022: The Year That Ended

 Another year, another recap of the year that's ending.  Let's go!

Two years removed from his Presidency and still believing he won the 2020 election, Donald Trump is still making headlines whether we want him to or not. The House committee examining the events of January 6, 2021 trotted out witness after witness before handing its findings to the Justice Department, pointing the finger at Trump for encouraging the mob scene at the U.S. Capitol that day and recommending that Trump never again holds office.  The FBI unearths evidence of classified documents scattered all over Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that he wasn't supposed to possess now that he isn't President.  Lawsuits involving him are clogging up the courts.  And we are about to see the tax returns that Trump has been hiding for a long time.  So what does he do?  Why, announce his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, of course.  You really think they're gonna convict the once and future(?) President of the United States?

Russia invades Ukraine, insisting that the land is theirs and has been since the Soviet Union was in existence.  Even though the country is being bombed to hell, Ukrainans and their plucky leader Volodymyr Zelensky have surprised the world by hanging in there and going toe to toe against an obviously superior opponent.  Worldwide sanctions aimed at Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin have so far resulted in Putin being hurt less than his own people.  The next year will decide whether Ukraine emerges from the rubble victorious, or go under Russia's boot.  So long as nobody gets nuked in the process.

The Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, to the surprise and shock of abortion rights supporters who had been covered by the law for nearly 50 years.  Now, if you are a woman living in a state that restricts abortion, you are running scared, looking at options to get to the nearest state that still allows the procedure to be performed.  Congress may or may not want to revisit that law so they could codify it.  But they sure didn't waste time in the lame duck session making same-sex and interracial marriage legal, unless the Court finds a way around it.

The Court, now having a 6-3 conservative advantage, did throw a bone to the liberal/moderate minority with the addition of associate justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the bench.  She replaced the retiring Stephen Breyer. It won't stop the complaints that the Court has been running amuck with unpopular rulings and less-than-civil behavior among some of the justices.  But it's a start.

Democracy survived another round when voters went to the polls in November, voting out many of the charlatans who thought Trump should be President and losing the election would result in recounts and lawsuits.  But some of those same folks were re-elected, thanks to gerrymandered districts.  So the 118th Congress will be divided for the next two years, both by slim margins:  Republicans controlling the House and Democrats hanging on to the Senate.  This will result in President Joe Biden's policies getting less traction in Congress than they did when Democrats ran the show, and that seems to suit the GOP fine..

In Minnesota, Democratic Governor Tim Walz won a second term over Republican Scott Jensen.  The DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) party had a great night, retaining all of the state offices and both houses of the Legislature.

COVID-19 remains a threat to the health and safety of the world, though it seems we've gotten a better handle on it than we used to with vaccines and prevention.  It's vax deniers and others who don't think they should be wearing masks in public that's keeping the disease front and center with their lies and misinformation, resulting in millions of lives lost around the world. So it's still a good idea to be careful out there.

Queen Elizabeth II, who had been ruling Great Britain and its commonwealth for most of our lives (actually since 1952), died in September at age 96.  She left behind King Charles III, who had been waiting for most of his life to assume the throne until he finally did at 73, and a bickering family that's the source of many a tabloid headline or gossipy TV special.  Oh, and England has had three Prime Ministers in the span of a few weeks.  Seems the new King isn't the only thing that needs saving in England.

Brittney Griner is back in the United States after spending several months in a Russian prison, traded to the U.S. government for an arms dealer.  The pro basketball player made the mistake of trying to get her marijuana-based oil supplement past customs, for which she was accused of violating Russia's drug laws.  The fact that this incident just happened to coincide with Putin's invasion of Ukraine was no coincidence.  Griner might return to playing for the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury this summer--if she's up to it, but she and other players will certainly think twice before going abroad to play basketball, even if the countries they play in pay much better than the WNBA ever could.  That goes double if, like Griner, you're young, Black and LGTBQ.

Elon Musk is no longer the richest man in the world.  He spent some of his cash on Twitter, the social media giant he's currently running into the ground by making it less friendly to those who don't espouse his right ring views or believe in anything but facts.  Maybe Musk would be better off running an electric car company or giving rides in space to billionaires--which is what he had done before.  He's probably thinking that over right now.

We all learned about the term sportswashing during the past year.  It's when repressive governments with questionable human rights records host major sporting events aimed to make themselves look good in front of the world, while its propaganda guilts everyone watching on TV.  We've already had the Winter Olympics in China, soccer's World Cup in Qatar, and the Saudi Arabia -funded LIV pro golf tour.  There's been a backlash over sportswashing, but who's gonna argue with the billions of dollars these countries spend on state-of-the-art facilities to impress organizations--possibly done on the backs of immigrant labor?  Or the countries who try to get in the good political and economic graces of those who supply the oil or have nuclear weapons?  It's a slippery slope.

Besides all the victims of mass shootings, natural disasters and wars around the world, here's a not-so-complete list of those you may have heard of who died this year..  Cue Sarah McLaughlin's "I Will Remember You":

Peter Bogdanovich, Sidney Poitier, Bob Saget, Meat Loaf, Louie Anderson, William Hurt, Taylor Hawkins, Estelle Harris, Bobby Rydell, Gilbert Gottfried, Naomi Judd, Mickey Gilley, Vangelis, Ray Liotta, Mark Shields, James Caan, Claes Oldenburg, Paul Sorvino, Tony Dow, Olivia Newton-John, Anne Heche, Ramsey Lewis, Jean-Luc Godard, Coolio, Sacheen Littlefeather, Loretta Lynn, Angela Lansbury, Leslie Jordan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gallagher, Irene Cara, Christine McVie, Kirstie Alley, Diane McBain, Ian Tyson, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Russell, Madeleine Albright, Ivana Trump, Vin Scully, Kathy Whitworth, Thom Bell, Franco Harris, Stuart Margolin, Curt Simmons, Mike Leach, Paul Silas, Nick Bolliteri, Gaylord Perry, John Y. Brown, Robert Clary, Fred Hickman, Ray Guy, Vince Dooley, Bruce Sutter, Art Laboe, Anita Kerr, Judy Tenuta, Bill Plante, Louise Fletcher, Maury Wills, Ken Starr, Bernard Shaw, Anne Garrels, Moon Landreau, Earnie Shavers, Barbara Ehrenreich, Len Dawson, Tom Weiskopf, Pete Carril, Nicholas Evans, Judith Durham, Lamont Dozier, David McCullough, Clu Gulager, Pat Carroll, Nichelle Nicholas, Mary Alice, Bob Rafelson, Larry Storch, Marlin Briscoe, Hugh McElhenny, Ken Bode, Jim Seals, Marion Barber III, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger Angell, Gino Cappelletti, Bob Lanier, Ron Galella, David Birney, Jim Hartz, Orrin Hatch, Guy Lafluer, Daryle Lamonica, Robert Morse, Liz Sheridan, Mike Bossy, Rayfield Wright, Nehemiah Persoff, Tommy Davis, Gene Shue, John Clayton, Jean Potvin, Timmy Thomas, Johnny Grier, Tim Considine, Alan Ladd Jr., Sally Kellerman, Emile Francis, Ian McDonald, P.J. O'Rourke, Ivan Reitman, Bill Fitch, Yvette Mimieux, Joe B. Hall, Clyde Bellecourt, Ronnie Spector, Don Maynard, Dwayne Hickman, Lani Guinier, Dan Reeves, Stephen Boss. Pele, Barbara Walters, Pope Benedict XVI.

Time to turn the page.  See you in 2023.

The Emmys: The More Things Change . . .

 This year's Primetime Emmys, which were held on Monday night instead of the usual Sunday, was mostly a repeat of the previous year with "Succession" winning for best drama and "Ted Lasso" best comedy.  Same went for some of the main acting awards, including Jason Sudeklis winning best actor in a comedy for "Lasso", and Zendeya getting a second nod for best actress in a drama for "Euphoria".

There were a few Emmys passed out in the prime time telecast for the newbies, however.  "The White Lotus" won for best limited series, as well as its stars Murray Bartlett (supporting actor) and Jennifer Coolidge (supporting actress). Lee Jung-jae became the first Asian man to win an Emmy, taking home a best dramatic actor award for "Squid Games".

Among the familiar faces picking up Emmys:  Michael Keaton (actor, limited series) for "Dopesick", Julie Garner (supporting actress, drama) for "Ozark", Sheryl Lee Ralph (supporting actress, comedy) for "Abbott Elementary", Amanda Seyfried (actress, limited series) for "The Dropout", and Jean Smart (actress, comedy) for "Hacks".

Other winners announced included Matthew Macfayden (supporting actor, drama) for "Succession", and Brett Goldstein (supporting actor, comedy) for "Ted Lasso",  The Governors' Award went to actress and activist Geena Davis.

Among other things:  

• Late night comedy shows "Saturday Night Live" and "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" won Emmys for the umphteenth year in a row.  Maybe they should take a cue from Oprah Winfrey (who opened the show) and Ellen DeGeneres (whose long-running talk show has been replaced by either local news or Kelly Clarkson in most markets).  Both of them pulled their shows from future nominations after winning so many times.
• The award for best reality competition went to "Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Grrrls", which means morbidly obese women have replaced what we used to call drag queens (previous winner "RuPaul's Drag Race") as entertainment.  Quite a trade-off.
• "Abbott Elementary" was this year's Great Network Hope in a sea of cable and streaming offerings.  The ABC sitcom did win twice.  Once for Sheryl Lee Ralph, and a writing award for the show's creator Quinta Brunson.
• Kenan Thompson was just fine as Emmy host.  The producers were kind of overzealous in keeping the winners' speeches to 45 seconds.  And the opening number was the first that I can recall that needed a disclaimer for strobe lights.
• If you're not going to take the "In Memorium" segment seriously, with the pop singers and faraway camera pans, please take the list of those who died since the last awards telecast and show them on your website.
• NBC moved this year's Emmy telecast to Monday because Sunday night belongs to football.  Apparently, they forgot that ABC and ESPN were simulcasting the Broncos-Seahawks game at the same hour.  So much for blockbuster ratings.  Try Tuesday or Wednesday next time.