#sol remains one of my all time favorite star wars characters to ever exist and it's only getting worse

[shield-and-saber]

[admittedlynotspartacus]

Oscars Post-Mortem: It Was Always “Moonlight”

In 1989, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was one of the most buzzed-about films of the year. Personal, intense, and shot with wild ingenuity, it shed a light on the raw nerve of race relations in America, topping Robert Ebert's, Gene Siskel's, and Rolling Stone's lists of the best of the year. But come Oscar time, it was largely snubbed, receiving only one nomination - Best Supporting Actor for Danny Aiello, the only white principal character.

Flash forward to 2006, when the Academy thumbed its nose at "gay cowboy" film and presumed Best Picture frontrunner Brokeback Mountain in favor of the goopy, movie-of-the-week trappings of Crash. Then came two back-to-back years of #OscarsSoWhite, in 2015 and 2016, with notable snubs for presumed nominees Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo for Selma, Idris Elba for Beasts of No Nation, Benicio del Toro for Sicario, and Straight Outta Compton, among many, many others. Time after time, the Academy seemed to be turning a deaf ear to films about "the other," arguing films should be judged on merit but still rewarding white, male-centered mediocrity like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Imitation Game, and War Horse. There were outliers, sure - Kathryn Bigelow's Directing win, 12 Years a Slave... but usually if your film heavily featured people of color, gays, female leads, or was directed by a woman, you were SOL come Oscar night.

That all came to a head on Sunday night. As we all know, PricewaterhouseCoopers fucked the pooch, and there was a big ol' snafu regarding whether La La Land or Moonlight won Best Picture, before all was set straight and the latter reigned victorious. It really felt like all that Oscars history had all been leading to the beautiful moment of clarity that was the mix-up. In the moment, it was easy to accept that La La Land had taken top prize; all prognostication pointed to that being the outcome, but in truth - it never was the Best Picture. It was Moonlight all along...

... so why didn't we see it coming?

I went to Moonlight on opening day in October and it completely haunted me. I remember how hushed that packed theater was, and I remember feeling like it was something of a miracle that such a film could even exist in today's marketplace. After all, an empathetic window into black queer life, produced for $1.5 million by a relatively-new studio, helmed by a second-time director and starring a mostly-unknown cast, is a far cry from Batman vs. Superman. Upon release, The New York Times review was titled, "Is This the Year's Best Movie?" and it still boasts a 99% score on Rotten Tomatoes. But even despite this, and even despite that it was my favorite movie of the year, my understanding of Academy history didn't allow me to even entertain the notion that the best movie of the year could actually win the Oscar. That prize was reserved for something else, something like La La Land.

From the moment it opened at the Venice Film Festival in August, Damien Chazelle's throwback musical romance was virtually hailed as the Second Coming, with nearly-unanimous praise and claims that it was a "hot miracle" that mixed the joy and exuberance of Old Hollywood classics Singin' in the Rain or An American in Paris with the sumptuous, grand melancholy of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Add to that two charming, attractive, famous leads, a writer-director coming off one of the most pleasant film surprises in recent memory Whiplash, and the subject of Hollywood and a struggling actor, and it felt like it couldn't miss. Until I saw the movie...

There's been a lot of talk about a La La backlash; in the wake of Trump's America, it's been called everything from a "white savior" film to a glorification of "man-splaining." Suddenly, its escapist elements were blowing up in its face. But that's representative of Internet think-piece culture, not the Academy, and if ever we needed a film of glorious escapism, it's now. So truth be told, I never really bought into much of the backlash. I mean, it was certainly irresponsible to make the only black character of substance the one who's holding back jazz, and we needed no further indication that the movie would've been better served by diverse casting of actual singers than John Legend's Oscar performance. But too often I think white people (and I include myself in this) can overly villain-ize whiteness in an attempt to be an ally, thereby demonizing things that are hardly the problem, especially when Donald Trump is president. In all seriousness, my favorite movie of the last 20 years is Boyhood, which is about as diverse as a Trump rally but remains a masterpiece. So I balk at that being the problem.

No, I think the main issue with La La, and something I felt seeing it opening night, is that Damien made a very naive movie. I mean, the guy's clearly not an asshole; his gracious embrace of Mahershala Ali and Barry Jenkins during the mix-up shows that. But there's a simplicity and lack of texture and depth that permeates the film. While it's technically impressive, with a stunning score by Justin Hurwitz and solid work from Emma Stone, it too often feels solely derivative - paying "homage" to the magic of old movie musicals without seeming to understand what made them magic in the first place. Its screenplay is creaky, there's little conflict or tension, and while the final ten minutes pack a punch, they make little sense as the resolution to the story we've been watching (Why do they break up? Why haven't they talked at all in years? Couldn't they at least have tried and made it work?) In short, it was never going to be Best Picture, but for some reason it developed the narrative that it had to be.

A historic 7 wins at the Golden Globes! 9 of 11 Guild wins! And then, to top it all off, a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations on par only with All About Eve and Titanic. And that was the moment when we all should've pinched ourselves, taken a step back, and realized that this was never going to happen. I mean, even if you LOVE La La Land with all your being, I think you'd be hard pressed to make the argument that it's better than either of those films, or that it deserves a spot in a pantheon above films like Citizen Kane... or Casablanca... or The Godfather. It's just not that great. It's just not Best Picture.

Moonlight is. It manages somehow to take characters and scenarios that could feel cliche and hackneyed, turn them inside out, and reveal to the viewer their utter humanity. Its powers of empathy are palpable; it makes a black, gay story universal. On top of that, it unfolds like a dream, a visual tone poem that feels like a symphony more than a film. It's moving and it's hopeful and it leaves you with a better understanding of humanity and with more love in your heart.

Moonlight didn't win because of #OscarsSoWhite, or the Brokeback upset, or the Do the Right Thing snub. It won because it was the Best Picture. It just took all these factors, plus Donald fucking Trump, to give the Academy the kick in the ass it needed to actually pick the most worthy film. I'll leave others to dissect how that reflects on the black or gay experience in America, but I think the implication is clear.

It's possible La La Land will fade into obscurity as far as film history is concerned. It's also possible that it can now take its rightful place as the cute, mildly charming, fluffy rom-com it is rather than the awards juggernaut the Academy and Lionsgate tried to puff it up into. In the end, for once, the right film won. It was Moonlight.

It was always Moonlight.