The Gold Man Clutched His Sword

I didn't watch the Oscars because I normally find them nauseating but I mostly agree with this year's winners. Oppenheimer won Best Picture and Director and it was my second favourite movie of the year after The Boy and the Heron. And Boy and the Heron won Best Animated Feature. That's the second one for Miyazaki Hayao and another Japanese movie, Godzilla Minus One, took home an Oscar, too, for Best Special Effects. It seems people are reacting much more strongly to the Godzilla win. Maybe because it's a franchise with a longer history getting Oscar recognition for the first time. It's slightly frustrating, though, because Boy and the Heron is a much braver, altogether much better film. But then, there have been worse Oscar years. It could've been Brokeback Mountain all over again.

I was even happy with Poor Things' wins despite the fact that I do feel the movie's overrated. It won for Costume Design, Production Design, Makeup, and Emma Stone's performance as Best Actress, all of which I too thought were exemplary.

Moments from the ceremony people seem to be talking about are a couple of jabs at Madame Web and John Cena presenting Best Costume while naked. Maybe Sony's doing a better job clamping down on Madame Web criticism in Japan because I mysteriously lost Internet connexion when I tried to google the infamous compilation of bad line readings. Sure, my internet usually goes out when it rains and it's raining heavily to-day but I've heard being a conspiracy theorist is a sign of intelligence so I'm going with that.

While I'm at it, I wonder if some of the Madame Web roasting is covert ops from Disney because they need Madame Web to be more embarrassing than The Marvels in order to keep control of Spider-Man. With Warner Brothers meanwhile burying finished films to get tax breaks we could be entering a very strange new era of competition in the film industry.

X Sonnet #

The herbs and spices came before the beef.
But roasting thoughts were crashing low for days.
A month would pass before the cook's relief.
Before it came, she boiled many ways.
The knowledge came before the fish was caught.
Her wisdom checked the fall of stupid lust.
Forbearance, lest a date be dearly bought.
But trains of steam through metal ribbings bust.
It didn't work but children took the flag.
Regretful tourists dully chomp the roots.
Each chubby hand would fill its owner's bag.
The jig was up when shoppers saw their boots.
For rigging lines above the fly, they won.
For sailing sky around the kite, they're done.