Screen capture from Oscar Best Picture winner “Spotlight”
by Sam Juliano
The 2016 Oscars are now in the record books. The winning film in a mild surprise is Spotlight, which previously won the Los Angeles Film Critics, Boston Film Critics Awards for Best Picture and the National Society of Film Critics. To be sure Spotlight is a very fine film, and it is hard to dispute its selection. I prefer some others -like Brooklyn more, but this is a solid work, and one I think will be considered one of the Academy’s best choices in recent years. I was most delighted to see Italian film composing icon Ennio Morricone, now 87, finally win an Oscar and it was a great move to hand over the Best Supporting Actor prize to Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies. I found it amazing that Mad Max: Fury Road came away with six technical Oscars. The foreign language choice – Son of Saul was the right one. As far as host Chris Rock and the overkill of African American satire I have mixed feelings.
Super Tuesday is here, and it should be quite an interesting primary day, though Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appear headed for crushing wins across twelve states casting ballots.
Lucille and I saw one new release in theaters and attending a classical concert of more obscure compositions at Rutgers University in a Saturday evening venue.
Virus of Fear *** 1/2 (Saturday night) Cinema Village
The film concerns charges of inappropriate contact by a coach in youth swimming classes. It is a Spanish language work directed by Ventura Pons, who showed up for a post-film Q & A.
