Beyond that, the major awards are largely up in the air.
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Hollywood heartthrob DiCaprio beat Eddie Redmayne, Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon and Michael Fassbender to take home the best actor gong for his role in The Revenant at the 88th Academy Awards.
“The Revenant”, buoyed by big box office and a win at the BAFTAs, is seen as the one with the most momentum and has the best odds in Las Vegas.
“Spotlight” collected two Oscars Oscars tonight – Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer also won for best original screenplay – and there were inspirational words for what journalists do and a nice shout-out from the stage to the real reporters behind the movie. McCarthy had previously directed the Adam Sandler fantasy The Cobbler and comedy-drama The Station Agent.
Spotlight, which was nominated for six Oscars, looks at the scandal of sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston, and the collusion and reluctance of the local community to face up to it. Did the Best Picture loss by “The Revenant” represent, in some fashion, a slight push-back against the #OscarsSoWhite furor and the academy’s plans to take away votes from some inactive members?
The Oscars are embracing the gilded glamor of the 1970s, and the National Post will be here, live to take you through the festivities.
The all-white slate of acting nominees restored the hashtag “OscarsSoWhite” to prominence and led Spike Lee (an honorary Oscar victor this year) and Jada Pinkett Smith to announce that they would not attend the show.
Alicia Vikander won best supporting actress for her performance in “The Danish Girl”.
Meanwhile, this is the third year in a row that a Mexican-born filmmaker won as best director, after Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity and Inarritu for both Birdman and now The Revenant. She won for “Silver Linings Playbook” in 2012.
THE buzzword in the run-up to this year’s Oscar ceremony was “diversity”.
The best actress trophy went to first-time nominee Brie Larson, who swept almost all of the pre-Oscar awards for her performance as a kidnapped woman raising a son in captivity in “Room”. Also vying for the prize are Jennifer Jason Leigh (“The Hateful Eight”), Rooney Mara (“Carol”), Rachel McAdams (“Spotlight”) and Kate Winslet (“Steve Jobs”). All are Oscars-bound, as well, although Mara was nominated in the supporting actress category. He’s already picked up Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Awards.
The contender that started piling up awards, in fact, was Mad Max: Fury Road, for its hugely stylish production design, makeup, costumes, film editing, sound editing and sound mixing.
“Movie” and “When Marnie Was There”.
Lady Gaga is scheduled to perform “Til It Happens to You, ” and she will be introduced by Vice President Joe Biden as part of a presentation aimed at combating sexual violence.
The best animated film Oscar went to popular Disney-Pixar movie “Inside Out”.
The evening turned out to be a platform not just for racial representation in the movies, led by host Chris Rock’s incisive insight and parody, but a wide array of causes, from global warming and bank reform to sexual abuse in church and on campus.
Rock will take criticism for some jokes and be praised for others, but at the very least, he paid sustained attention for 3 1/2 hours, in front of a very large audience, to issues of inclusiveness in the academy and in Hollywood as applied to black people.
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But the night belonged to Rock, whose much anticipated opening monologue left few disappointed.
