As I watch the Academy Awards every year, there are always winners and losers that I agree with and do not agree with. This year was pretty obvious as far as some of the mistakes that were made in my opinion. The ending mistake with the wrong card being read for best picture was amazing when you think about how a mistake that bad could happen for the biggest award of the night. Not in 89 years of this award show had anything like this ever happened before.

In my opinion:

Clearly, Denzel Washington should have won for best actor. Casie Affleck was very good in his role but Denzel’s performance was one of a kind. The Academy does not want to give too many awards to one actor and Denzel already had two. Not a good reason for him not to win for Fences. I was happy to see Viola Davis win best supporting actress but her time on screen warranted a win for best actress.

There is no way that Moonlight was the best picture in 2016. Fences, Manchester by The Sea and Hidden Figures were by far better movies.

I was very happy to see Keneth Lonergan win best original screenplay for Manchester By The Sea. This movie was so good I even printed out the screenplay and it is one of the best screenplays I have ever seen.

Overall, the year 2016 was one of the best years for high quality movies in many years.

BEST PICTURE
“Arrival”
“Fences”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Hell or High Water”
“Hidden Figures”
“La La Land”
“Lion”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Moonlight” (WINNER)
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Casey Affleck in “Manchester by the Sea” (WINNER)
Andrew Garfield in “Hacksaw Ridge”
Ryan Gosling in “La La Land”
Viggo Mortensen in “Captain Fantastic”
Denzel Washington in “Fences”
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Jeff Bridges in “Hell or High Water”
Mahershala Ali in “Moonlight” (WINNER)
Lucas Hedges in “Manchester by the Sea”
Dev Patel in “Lion”
Michael Shannon in “Nocturnal Animals”
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Isabelle Huppert in “Elle”
Ruth Negga in “Loving”
Natalie Portman in “Jackie”
Emma Stone in “La La Land” (WINNER)
Meryl Streep in “Florence Foster Jenkins”
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Nicole Kidman in “Lion”
Viola Davis in “Fences” (WINNER)
Naomie Harris in “Moonlight”
Octavia Spencer in “Hidden Figures”
Michelle Williams in “Manchester by the Sea”
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
“Moana”
“My Life as a Zucchini”
“The Red Turtle”
“Zootopia” (WINNER)
CINEMATOGRAPHY
“Arrival”
“La La Land” (WINNER)
“Lion”
“Moonlight”
“Silence”
COSTUME DESIGN
“Allied”
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (WINNER)
“Florence Foster Jenkins”
“Jackie”
“La La Land”
“Fantastic
DIRECTING
“Arrival” – Denis Villeneuve
“Hacksaw Ridge” – Mel Gibson
“La La Land” – Damien Chazelle (WINNER)
“Manchester by the Sea” – Kenneth Lonergan
“Moonlight” – Barry Jenkins
DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
“Fire at Sea”
“I Am Not Your Negro”
“Life, Animated”
“O.J.: Made in America” (WINNER)
“13th”
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“Land of Mine”
“A Man Called Ove”
“The Salesman” (WINNER)
“Tanna”
“Toni Erdmann”
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
“Jackie”
“La La Land” (WINNER)
“Lion”
“Moonlight”
“Passengers”
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” from “La La Land”
“Can’t Stop The Feeling” from “Trolls”
“City Of Stars” from “La La Land” (WINNER)
“The Empty Chair” from “Jim: The James Foley Story”
“How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana”
SOUND MIXING
“Arrival”
“Hacksaw Ridge” (WINNER)
“La La Land”
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”
“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi”
VISUAL EFFECTS
“Deepwater Horizon”
“Doctor Strange”
“The Jungle Book” (WINNER)
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
“Arrival”
“Fences
“Hidden Figures”
“Lion”
“Moonlight” (WINNER)
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
“Hell or High Water”
“La La Land”
“The Lobster”
“Manchester by the Sea” (WINNER)
“20th Century Women”

The reviews the new movie “Get Out” on Rotten Tomatoes is one of the highest ever and right now it’s at 100%. IMDB ratings for this movie are close to 80%. Why? That is the question that had after seeing this mostly average movie. One of the reviews stated very accurately, “this movie mines racism for Thrills and Chills”. That is a true statement and in an effort to be new and different for a type of movie that has been done many hundreds of times before, this new type of horror movie twist for me seemed way too risky and racist for my tastes. The entire idea behind it is very far fetched because the payoff at the end of this film is not possible and because this movie takes place in the present day the ending is not plausible and downright absurd.

The actors Alison Williams in her first movie role and newcomer Daniel Kaluuya were good in their roles within a story that I found more strange than scary or even entertaining. The extremely high scores and great reviews for this movie are a mystery to me. While Get Out is certainly not a bad movie, it is not really that good either, so I give it a very marginal recommendation only because of the high reviews.

One of the things I admired about the new movie “Collide” is the risk the director and producers and stuntmen took in making some of the most dangerous high-speed highway car crashes and stunts I have seen in a long while. What I didn’t admire was the extremely average, run of the mill, something we have seen many times before story. Given the extremely average script, the big question is how the producers of this film were able to get Felicity Jones, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsly to star in this movie. For me, the Hollywood deal-making business, favors, payoffs and leverage that must have been required to get these 3 top actors to be in a movie this average would be a far more interesting documentary than this action movie was. Felicity Jones is an Oscar-nominated actress and both Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley have won best actor Oscars and have been nominated several times each. Given all of this, I was more interested in how this film was cast, more than the story or even the action scenes.

This movie stars newcomer Nicholas Hoult, who does an OK job as a drifter who moves to Germany due to problems he was having in the United States and runs into Felicity Jones who has also moved to Germany to escape her drug abusing family. What follows is a love story, involvement with a criminal drug gang lead by Ben Kingsley and Anthony Hopkins and then a far fetched reason to need a great deal of money quickly which leads to chase scenes that wind up on the highway during the last half of the film.

The problems with this film are obvious, due to the fact that there is nothing new here, and the acting from 3 very good actors and the chase scenes are not enough to rescue this movie from its extreme averageness. For these reasons, I cannot recommend Collide.