Questioning the Oscars

Lots of questions to answer about this year’s Oscar telecast!

  • How did this year’s Best Pictures do with the Bechdel Test for Women in Movies?
    Not so great.  Most failed, two were marginal passes, and one made it rock solid. You know the Bechdel Test, don’t you?  It’s simple three-part test:
    1) Are there at least two women characters with names in the movie?
    2) Do they talk to each other?
    3) Is their conversation about something other than a man/male?Here’s a great discussion of how this year’s Best Pic nominees do with the test:
  • Which winners got the most social media buzz?
    According to Mashable, Olivia Spencer’s win as best supporting actress generated 31,216 mentions per minute, Meryle Streep merited a total 107,000 mentions, and The Artist merited 125,000 mentions.
  • How can you see The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore?
    You can buy the Oscar winner for best short animated film from iTunes for $1.99.  (Unless you got it for free last night like I did…)  I love the fact that there is actually a way to see the Oscar winning shorts now.  And here’s the story on Fantastic Flying Books.

    NOTE: You can also see it for free on YouTube 

  • Why wasn’t Steven Spielberg’s beautiful The Adventures of Tintin not even nominated for Best Animated Film?
    I can understand why Tintin didn’t win the Best Animated Film, but how it could not even be nominated is beyond me.  It’s a beautiful, creative film that doesn’t look just like a host of sequels out there.  There has been talk that the Academy doesn’t want to vote for motion capture/rotoscoped films, but really folks — this is an innovative, animated film based on classic comic material!  (On the other hand, I’m really pleased Chico & Rita was nominated.  Can’t wait to get a chance to see it.)  I understand that Tintin was a flawed film — not having a real audience to appeal to being chief among them — but it also was not just one more “me too!” pop culture reference Shrek clone.
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