I LOVE THE OSCARS!

I love them even though I had only seen 3 of the nominees for best picture, 3 Billboards in Epping Missouri, Ladybird and Get Out.Sam Rockwell won best supporting actor for playing a racist cop and Francis McDormand won best actress both were in 3 Billboards.

 Here’s some Random thoughts. Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph stole the show. They were by far the funniest presenters of the night, complaining about painful high heels and complimenting each other’s bathroom-emergency scenes in “Girls Trip” and “Bridesmaids.”

 I like Jimmy Kimbell

He is a tad snarky, but I think he is funny, But we are due for a new host. We should have a 2 term limit, just like the politicians So find a new host for next year, Oscar.

 Francis McDormand rocks. I loved her in Almost Famous and in Fargo. Even with her mention of an inclusion rider. a technical proposal that would make diversity a provision of Hollywood contracts, she delivered a rousing speech, building to the point when she asked every female nominee in the room to stand. They did.

But,I gotta tell you I am getting me tooed to death. No Mas!  I get it the stereotype of a casting couch was the norm for years, but it is not anymore.Powerful men bullied women to perform sexual favors. It has been greatly reduced if not eliminated! Just like we don’t refer to blacks as colored people. In the Elks club one of the questions on the application is “Do you believe in God” that certainly would fly these days. but that organization is a throwback.

Jordan Peele by a nose

He’s written viral sketch comedy and was a co-writer of a movie with a cute cat named Keanu. Next stop, the Oscars? It felt like a long shot that Jordan Peele might end up onstage at the Dolby Theater on Sunday And it felt like a stretch that academy members might recognize a horror film when they usually shy away from honoring them

But there Mr. Peele stood, accepting the original screenplay statue for “Get Out.” He wasn’t sure it was possible to get there, either. “I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible,” he told the audience. “I thought no one would ever make this movie, but I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it.” Boy did they. The film earned more than $255 million worldwide, along with critical raves and industry awards that put it at the center of a cultural moment. —

 I had no clue what this movie was about. If I did I wold not have seen it.I saw it on a lark. I’m not a horror fan. It was disturbing. But it was good.I would say if you like that genre go see it.

In an Academy Awards ceremony centered on an exceptional number of gifted nominees over 40 — many of them women — the standout fashion moment was unquestionably that of Rita Moreno. The 86-year-old actress belongs to a specific elite.

Beyond her gift for collecting statuettes (she is an EGOT —( Better than a Robot!) having earned an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony), Ms. Moreno is sharp-minded and witty, a longtime dancer nimble enough as an octogenarian to skitter across a stage in front of millions and to do it in heels.

Presenting the Academy Award for best foreign-language film — to the Chilean movie “A Fantastic Woman” — Ms. Moreno scored major style points by dressing in a repurposed version of an outfit she wore to collect her own Oscar, for “West Side Story,” in 1962.( I once broke into an impromptu “ I want to leeve in America “ while standing on a bar in Puerto Rico. Thankfully this was before the ubiquitous smart phone camera proliferation. There are no pictures or videos. My friends spirited me out of the bar ASAP For my own health and safety.But, I digress.

 Eva Marie Saint is over 90 years old and she looked great. She won an Oscar for “On the waterfront in 1957 (Marlon Brandon said “I could a a been a contenda) She made a point saying that she is older than the Oscars

Before introducing the award for production design, Lupita Nyong’o and Kumail Nanjiani( whois oneof the stars of silicon valley.made one of the night’s most pointed political statements. The two introduced themselves as immigrants — Ms. Nyong’o was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya; Mr. Nanjiani is from Pakistan — and then made a not-so-subtle appeal on behalf of the so-called Dreamers, who are in the United States under the policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA Their future remains in limbo after President Trump moved to end the program.

Ms. Nyong’o and Mr. Nanjiani, without mentioning the politics of immigration directly, briefly spoke about dreams being the “foundation of Hollywood” and the United States. Mr. Nanjiani, who was nominated for best original screenplay for “The Big Sick,” closed by saying, “To all the dreamers out there, we stand with you.” I did see the Big Sick and it was great. It was a bio pic about how he met his wife and the trials and tribulation of a comedian starting out.

Keala Settle’s commanding performance of “This Is Me,” nominated for best song, should have opened the show. The lyrics (“I’m not scared to be seen/I make no apologies, this is me”) so perfectly sum up what became the themes of the night — diversity, empowerment, inclusion — and it was among the few moments of the nearly four-hour telecast when the audience seemed to come alive

 It was also a song from a movie that was enormously popular with audiences enormously popular with audience (You Gotta love Hugh Jackman, even if he isn’t playing Wolverine) but sneered at by film critics — “The Greatest Showman,” which has collected $165 million, passing “La La Land” to become one of the biggest musicals in Box office history. I haven’t seen that one either.

The Jet Ski thing was cute. Mr. Kimmel had promised a jet ski as a prize to the Oscar winner who gave the shortest speech. And seeing the costume designer Mark Bridges astride the thing at the end, with Helen Mirren at his side, was a silly and charming conclusion   Ridem Cowboy.

Diversity was on display. The Oscar winners came from all over the world. The best picture was the Shape of Water, a romantic fable about a deaf janitor who falls in love with a sea creature, (who looks like the creature from the black lagoon.) Not a movie that really appeals to me, but it must have done something right.

Gary Oldman won best actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill as he rallied Britain to stand up to the Nazis. One of my favorite quotes is when Winston says. "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." Bully to you Winston. He is probably responsible more than any other single individual for rallying the Allies to defeat the Nazis (one man’s opinion)

So go to the movies. Suspend your belief and watch in wonder for a while It will do you good.