Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Oscar Winners 2016   So said costume designer Jenny (Beaven), quite a declaration since she presumably had to sit through the entire three-and-a-half-hour ceremony. By most accounts, Chris Rock acquitted himself reasonably well, defusing the controversy over the whiteness of the nominations with some well-aimed quips, from the introductory “ Well, I’m here at the Academy Awards. Otherwise known as The White People’s Choice Awards ” to his reason for not boycotting the show (“ I didn’t want to lose another role to Kevin Hart ”) to the widespread indifference to Mrs Will Smith’s non-show (“ Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rhiana’s panties… I wasn’t invited ”; a risqué one, that) to drawing comparison to the ‘60s, when there were real things to protest, with African Americans “ too busy being raped and lynched to care about Best Documentary Foreign Short ”. Then there was his suggestion that the in memorium would be dedicated to “ black people shot by the cops

Top 1o Films 10. Dawn of the Dead I ummed and ahhed several pictures for the Ten spot on this list; Alan Parker’s Midnight Express , Fred Schepsi’s The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith , Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven and Robert Altman’s A Wedding (which Pauline Kael, generally a big advocate of the director, called “ a busted bag of marbles ”). In the end I decided to fill it with a horror movie, that least respected genre, and it was a toss up between Halloween and Dawn of the Dead . While Carpenter is one of my favourite directors (most of his post-’80s output aside), Halloween has never been in my top tier, despite an marvellously oddball Donald Pleasance, mesmerising camera work and being his most iconic work. So I opted for George Romero’s equally influential Dawn of the Dead . I’m decidedly not a gore hound, and not all that big a fan of Romero’s oeuvre (he doesn’t have the greatest finesse). I don’t even care that much for Night of the Living Dead (sacrilege,