The Oscars 2017. Pt.2.

This should be read as a continuation of Part 1; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/the-oscars-2017.html

The other huge movie of this year was;

Hacksaw Ridge: Following 14 years of delays this finally entered production in 2015. It is the biography of Desmond Doss.

Despite being a committed pacifist Doss fought a lengthy legal battle to serve in the US Army during the Second World War. He ended up serving as a medic during the brutal 1945 Battle of Okinawa, Japan.

On a patch of the island codenamed "Hacksaw Ridge" he single handedly saved the lives of 75 wounded soldiers. For that feat Doss was awarded the Bronze Star medal for bravery despite never firing a shot nor taking a life.

What makes Hacksaw Ridge such a big movie is that it is directed by Mel Gibson.

In 2006 Mel Gibson was arrested for driving whilst drunk in Los Angeles. He then proceeded to go on a foul mouthed, anti-semitic rant in which he accused the Jews of being responsible for all of history's wars and accusing the arresting officer - who was Jewish - of being part of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy his career.

I think the stories of the Jews running entertainment industry are overstated. However you don't need to be Jewish to be deeply offended by Mel Gibson's actions. Mind you launching into a racist and anti-semitic attack on a police officer would probably make Mel Gibson something of a hero to the "Oscars So White/Black Lives Matter" campaigners. If only he wasn't a white devil.

Despite an incident that should have ended his career and certainly significantly delayed the making of Hacksaw Ridge Mel Gibson has slowly made his way back into the Hollywood society.

In part this is because Mel Gibson has gone through a long period of admitting to and conquering his problems with alcohol while apologising profusely to the Jewish community.

However from the way this movie takes every opportunity to praise Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour sent to rescue the Jews from their sinful ways I have my doubts about the sincerity of those apologies. I'm sure you all have your own opinions. This has been your opportunity to share them.

Another significant part of Mel Gibson's return is that he is actually very talented both as an actor and a director. Back in 2011 he gave an extremely strong acting performance in "The Beaver."

Although I've not seen Hacksaw Ridge I have seen a similar war movie that Mel Gibson starred in and directed in 2002 called; "We Were Soldiers." This suffered the misfortune of being released just after the September 11th 2001 (11/9/01) terror attacks when absolutely nobody was in the mood for a war movie.

Frankly I think it could have done without the bits where Mel Gibson was on screen but the battle scenes in We Were Soldiers are vivid, visceral and gripping.

It was one of those movies I caught late at night on TV just as I was going to bed. When the credits rolled some two hours later I suddenly realised it was 3AM and I really needed to go to bed. Being able to completely captivate their audience is exactly the effect that movie makers are trying to achieve.

Those who have seen it say that the battle scenes in Hacksaw Ridge are even better than those in We Were Soldiers and although few people saw it We We Soldiers is better than the famous; "Saving Private Ryan."

This issue of forgiving any indiscretion if the person is talented enough is known in Hollywood as; "The Polanski Problem."

Roman Polanski was a hugely successful director in the 1970's. However in 1977 was arrested for raping a 13 year old girl. Polanski proceeded to skip bail and has been living in Switzerland ever since fighting to avoid extradition back to the US to stand trial for his crimes.

Despite his appalling behaviour due to his talent some in the movie business *coughs* Ewan McGregor *coughs* who have been prepared to overlook Polanski's paedophilia and continue to work with him.

There has been something of a similar controversy surrounding Casey Affleck who won the Best Actor Oscar this year.

However my understanding is that the accusation against him is that he had consensual sex with an adult woman in the hotel room of a female colleague without her permission while she was elsewhere. That's not really in the same league as raping a child.

Casey Affleck is of course the younger brother of Ben Affleck. In 1997 Ben Affleck starred in a movie called; "Chasing Amy" in which he fell in love with a lesbian named Amy. Shortly after that I got involved with my lesbian wife Amy. It looked like I had just copied the plot of the movie. We've sort of been stuck with each other ever since.

For example back in 2007 I studied for a basic vocational qualification in book-keeping. This is the first stage in qualifying as an accountant. After all I'm sure a big accountancy firm like Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) would keep me around just for the water cooler gossip.

I am still waiting for the envelope containing the results of my final exam to arrive. Much like I'm still waiting for my driving license and my passport.

In 2016 Ben Affleck made a movie called; "The Accountant" about an autistic accountant who is also a mafia hitman.

Shortly afterwards my younger brother was suddenly offered a job doing public relations for the Associated of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). A posting that takes him all across the globe. After last night's disaster he's got to be worried his holiday in Brazil is going to be cut short.

So representing me at this year's Oscars we have Manchester-by-the-Sea. This about a handyman/jack or all trades who is forced to give up his life to return to his depressing home town to look after his family. Thoroughly miserable apparently.

Representing the UK this year is; Lion. This is the story of a child orphan who is adopted from India and taken to Australia. As an adult he uses Google Maps to return to India and trace his relatives. Google Maps is just one of the multitude of maps I use on a daily basis.

Today the Queen and Great Britain and the Commonwealth has launched the UK-India Year of Culture with a lavish reception at Buckingham Palace. The British star of Lion Dev Patel won't be attending on account of his parents being from Kenya.

Also today Britain has finally launched its much hyped inquiry into child sexual abuse. The first part of the inquiry focuses on the practice of effectively deporting British orphans to Commonwealth nations such as Australia, Canada, India and that African country just north of South Africa the name of which is never mentioned in my family.

If nothing else this British power play demonstrates that legendary Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein can get any old tat nominated with his infamous lobbying campaigns.

Hacksaw Ridge is also important because it mocks American liberals attitude to war.

Apart from his strong Christian beliefs Desmond Doss was a committed pacifist because he nearly killed his younger brother in a childhood firearms accident. That would make him the poster boy for the gun control campaigns that American liberals are so keen on. You also suspect that many Hollywood liberals find it easier to celebrate Doss as a hero than American Sniper Chris Kyle because Doss saved lives while Kyle took them.

You can clearly see this attitude in the current war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups. Particularly the way former President Obama conducted it.

Obama and his band of liberals are happy to accept all the refugees from the conflict and boast about all the humanitarian aid they're sending. However when you get onto the matter of killing the people who are causing all this suffering they suddenly get very squeamish.

There is an element of this in White Helmets winning Best Documentary Short.

The White Helmets are not a humanitarian organisation. They are a illegal combatant organisation engaged in all sorts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. However liberals are clearly prepared to overlook all that because to do otherwise would take away that warm fuzzy feeling they get from talking about how caring they are.

This is a particular problem when it comes to the refugee issue. What groups like ISIL are trying to do is ethnically cleanse entire groups of people from the middle-east. By America throwing open its doors and declaring that refugees are welcome it is not helping ISIL's victims. If anything it is helping ISIL making all these supposedly caring people collaborators in a genocide.

As anyone familiar with war knows if Doss hadn't been surrounded by hundreds of men who were prepared to kill his behalf he would not have saved 75 lives. He would have been killed almost instantly.

I think it is fair to assume that Mel Gibson is now never going to win an Oscar. However Hacksaw Ridge did receive a lot of love this year being nominated in six categories and winning in two. Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing in respect of its battle scenes.

The Best Sound Mixing Oscar was shared by Robert MacKensie. The movie We Were Soldiers features the song; "Sgt MacKensie."

Also in the Best Sound Editing category prior to the ceremony one of the operators on the movie "13 hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" about Hillary Clinton's failure to protect the US Ambassador to Libya was excluded over a lobbying controversy. It was something to do with phones and emails apparently. This brought the movie a lot more attention than it otherwise would have received.

During the ceremony itself there was a sequence in which little packages containing candy were dropped by parachute for the audience to eat. This was a very specific reference to a tactic currently being employed by ISIL. Particularly in the battle for Mosul.

What ISIL do is use commercial drones to drop Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) sometimes on parachute, sometimes guided by shuttlecock from above. This has even experienced soldiers going; "Well that's new."

ISIL very noticeably used this tactic against the civilian Rashidiya neighbourhood of eastern Mosul on February 5th (5/2/17). That was the same day that Lady Gaga used hundreds of civilian drones in her Super Bowl halftime show thus highlighting ISIL's obsession with America and their very real desire to attack it.

To this day I swear that Obama still thinks ISIL are using those drones to drop sunshine and lollypops.

Obviously I will need to look at the more political categories such as Best Foreign Feature. But not as much as I need to get back to the war.  

21:15 on 27/2/17 (UK date).