8:38 p.m. Seven Oscars for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — let the backlash begin! Just kidding. No matter the film, sweeps are always a mixed bag — a bit hard on the live audience (so many films left behind), a bit boring for the television audience (so many speeches by the same people), but it’s always amazing when a movie that is so beloved by the audience finds that echoed at the Oscars. Mary McNamara in the Los Angles Times  

“The world is opening up to the fact genius does not stem from individuals like us, standing on stage. Genius emerges from the collective. We are all products of our context.” Daniel Kwan, I think, although it is possible that it was Daniel Scheinert, one of the Daniels – as they call themselves – during their acceptance speech of the Best Director Oscar for ,

We got hit with another only-once-in-a-hundred-years- storm several days ago; it was one week to the day after the last once-in-a-hundred-years- storm. This time the rain gauge registered four inches of rain over about three days. Until then, I was planning on writing about the Academy Awards, but, both times, our power was knocked out (and the second time, we had no water). Usually, our power outages are in the summer when the days are long, the nights short and warm, and the Diablo winds are blowing from the Sierras to the Pacific. This time, it was very wet and freezing (OK, 44°may is not freezing for everybody, but it is freezing for us, although inside the house, it only got down to the mid 50°s). I don’t remember this ever happening before, but Michele reminds me that about 30 years ago, we were growing? babysitting? collecting? Killifish and we had to heat water on the stove to keep their tanks warm. She doesn’t remember, but the indications point to a winter blackout.

Whether this happened in the winter before or not, we were miserable in the cold dark. At one point, over working on a puzzle by camping light, one of us said, “how could this be more miserable?” The other answered something like, “Well, if we were in Kyiv, the windows could be blown out with it snowing outside.” “And no fireplace or gas stove…” “…and Russians randomly shooting rockets at us.” Trying to put together a puzzle in dim light may not be optimal, but it is almost infinitely more manageable than what some people, my age or older, are going through right now in Ukraine.

We had no TV, but we had the Academy Awards to think about, and I love the Academy Awards even when it is a bit boring. This year, it did help that the only horse I had in the game was Everything Everywhere All At Once, and, this year’s Academy Awards were mostly about Everything Everywhere All At Once.  I have no idea if it was the best movie released last year, but it was the best movie I saw and Michele and I saw several good movies (we even saw Top Gun on the big screen).

Except for Tár and Elvis, both of which we want to see and hope to see soon, we saw all the Best Picture nominees. The Fabelmans, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Top Gun: Maverick were all good movies, but none of them seemed to me to be what I would call Award Movies. Still, they were typical Award Movies back when The Academy used to only like big-budget movies made by prominent directors with big stars. That’s changed, however, this year, Everything Everywhere All At Once won -duh! – last year, the winner was CODA, and before that, Nomadland, and before that, Parasite.

The last two movies nominated for Best Picture did fit the new paradigm, Women Talking, which I thought was excellent, and The Banshees of Inisherin. We saw The Banshees of Inisherin primarily because it was Irish and Michele has been on an Irish kick recently by way of preparation for going to Ireland this summer. Banshees starts charmingly and we – I, at least – sort of expected a homier version of In Bruges but it isn’t. Banshees is more of a parable of the Irish Civil War which we can often hear in the background. Watching the movie, the sad and senseless actions by the characters seemed to only escalate the conflict, so I guess it is an effective parable for war but it was not my favorite movie by far.

The week before the Academy Awards, we watched Everything Everywhere All At Once again and loved it. In a way, it is a throwback to big Hollywood movies like Titanic and Gladiator, but it is also intimate and, in the end, very moving. Michelle Yeoh, as expected, was terrific in the lead, but Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan were also great. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.