In my 2.29 “Oh, What A Night” riff I failed to post the best snap of the night — Spotlight director-cowriter Tom McCarthy coming down the main stairs at Palihouse and being cheered by the crowd.

Spotlight‘s Tom McCarthy — Sunday, 2.28, 11:35 pm.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan: “If a person” — Donald Trump — “wants to be the nominee of the Republican party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause this is built on bigotry” — a reference to former KKK bigwig David Duke, who has endorsed Trump. “This party does not prey on people’s prejudices,” Ryan went on. “We appeal to their highest ideals. This is the party of Lincoln. We believe all people are created equal in the eyes of God, and our government. This is fundamental. And if someone wants to be our nominee, they must understand this.”

Translation: Since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and particularly the rise of civil unrest in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the Republican party has been a haven for rich, alarmed or under-educated whites who feel threatened by liberal social legislation, programs and attitudes that have afforded a fair shot to people of color looking to get ahead. Republican leaders disavow blatant racism, of course, but we all know they’ve been speaking in code for decades about social and racial issues, and that they are, in fact, the party of racial dog-whistle sentiments.

In a 2.29 N.Y. Times piece about diversity concerns and the gradual implementation of new AMPAS voting rules, Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply state the following: “The academy has only a few months to repair damaged processes, internal relationships and its public image before the next Oscar season descends in late summer, bringing with it a chilling prospect: What if voters, even after a planned purge of inactive members, again snub actors of color?”

The purge will take a while to fully kick in, but in terms of the upcoming 2016 Oscar season Barnes and Cieply are essentially asking “what if Academy voters aren’t as impressed with Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation as many who attended the 2016 Sundance Film Festival were?”

Nation and possibly one other film — Barry Jenkins‘ Moonlight, a Plan B/A24 project about “black queer youth amid the temptations of the Miami drug trade” — are the only 2016 films made by and primarily starring African-Americans that seem to have, at least nominally, the markings of award-season contenders.

The only other film with an African-American theme and a sizable cast of African-American players is Gary Ross‘s The Free State of Jones (STX, 5.13), but this is basically a drama about a white savior — a true story of a Mississippi farmer, Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), who leads an armed rebellion against the Confederacy and marries a former slave, Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).

There’s also Jeff Nichols‘ Loving, a late ’50s-era drama about a real-life interracial marriage that briefly resulted in Mildred and Richard Loving (Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton) being sentenced to prison in Virginia.

Please check out HE’s just-posted 2016 Oscar Balloon — a rundown of over 55 films that may eventually register as awards fodder or at least as adult-friendly, review-driven fare. If I’m missing a black-centric film of any dimension — African-American focused, performed or created — please advise.

In a few days Quentin Tarantino‘s New Beverly Cinema will be screening a beware-of-Ryan O’Neal double bill — Love Story (’70) and Oliver’s Story (’78). A little more than 37 years ago I laughed at a defaced version of an Oliver’s Story one-sheet on a New York subway station wall. It won’t be very funny if I use the original graffiti so I’m going to use polite terminology. The dialogue balloons had O’Neal saying to costar Candice Bergen, “I’m sorry but may I have sex with you in a way that can’t get you pregnant?” Bergen answered, “I’d prefer another method.” I was poor and struggling and mostly miserable, but the graffiti made me laugh. I guess you had to be there.

The late George Kennedy‘s peak moment (“the greatest of my life”) was winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as a big-mouthed convict in Cool Hand Luke (’67). He was fine in that Stuart Rosenberg film, but my favorite Kennedy performances are his police detective in The Boston Strangler (’68) and particularly his bullying, sociopathic goon who was brought down by a pack of Dobermans in Clint Eastwood and Michael Cimino‘s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (’74). I understood Kennedy’s willingness to prostitute himself as Joe Petroni in those Godforsaken Airport sequels (Airport 1975, Airport ’77, The Concorde: Airport ’79), but doing these and other crap films diminished what he had going in the late ’60s.

Despite what the IMDB and Wikipedia say about Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie being a 2017 release, I’m going on the presumption that it’ll be pretty much done six or seven months hence (August/September) and acquired by Fox Searchlight for release during the 2016 award season, or certainly by November/December. It’s obviously an Oscar-baity thing, and it wouldn’t make much sense to hold it for a full year (i.e., until the fall of ’17). If Pablo doesn’t get the CG just right and make his footage blend perfectly with color newsreels of JFK’s funeral, Jackie won’t work. Here’s hoping.

Natalie Portman as Jackie kennedy — pic recently posted on Pablo Larrain’s Instagram page.

Now that Donald Trump has all but locked down the Republican presidential nomination, the “chuckling and shaking one’s head” phase is pretty much over, and the serious artillery phase is kicking in. In the past the initial response of educated people to demagogues has been to laugh or call them foolish figures, and then go “wait a minute…this guy could actually win.” Trump is nothing if not an improvisational opportunist and a lying sociopath who shoots from the hip but isn’t that hip when he shoots. John Oliver: “We have no way of knowing which of his inconsistent views he will hold in office.” I can definitely imagine Clinton-funded campaign ads like that LBJ-funded ad than ran in 64 [after the jump] — an ad featuring a sensible-sounding establishment Republican saying “look, this is just too much…this is way beyond the pale…I can’t vote for this guy and neither should you.”

I reviewed Joachim Trier‘s Louder Than Bombs nine-plus months ago at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. It costars Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, Amy Ryan, Rachel Brosnahan, David Strathairn and Devin Druid. The Orchard will open it theatrically on 4.8 and will stream on iTunes/VOD beginning on 7.12. I’ve posted the Cannes review twice before so here goes a third time…sorry.

This is an ennui-laden, Euro-style Ordinary People stuffed with the usual suburban, middle-class downer intrigues and featuring one of the most reprehensible teenaged characters in the history of motion pictures. To me it felt contrived and gently infuriating. Too many aspects felt wrong and miscalculated or even hateful, and once the tally reached critical levels I began to sink into my usual exasperation (faint moaning, leaning forward, checking my watch).

“Uh-oh, this isn’t working,” I began saying to myself at around the ten-minute mark. Later on I was saying, “Wow, this really isn’t working.” Later on I was muttering worse things.

Bombs is basically about a father and two sons grappling with the death of their wife/mother, and the dysfunctional behavior that emerges in her absence.

Dad, a Long Island-based high-school teacher, is played by the aging, overly sensitive, watery-eyed Gabriel Byrne. Son #1, a mild-mannered college prof and mystifyingly irresponsible young dad, is played by Jesse Eisenberg, wearing a bizarre straight-hair wig instead of his usual curlies. Son #2, the above-mentioned demon from Hades, is played by Devin Druid. Isabelle Huppert plays the dead wife/mom — a renowned, N.Y. Times-endorsed war photographer who died some months ago in a local highway accident.

Big Short director Adam McKay, co-winner of Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, ended his acceptance speech with the following: “Most of all, if you don’t want big money to control government, don’t vote for candidates that take money from big banks, oil or weirdo billionaires…stop!” This wasn’t a “subtle” jab at Hillary Clinton, who has reportedly accepted more than $20 million from Wall Street bigwigs in the form of speaking fees and campaign contributions — it was a very precise and clear one. As well as a Bernie Sanders endorsement. Which of course meant nothing to the low-information no-accounts.

I was hugely impressed last night by the way Alejandro G. Inarritu ignored the orchestra trying to play him off and calmly stood his ground as he spoke about racial prejudice and opportunity and the meaning of his win. This is what backbone is…the fruit of will and a pair of balls.

At the Governor’s Ball he told Deadline‘s Pete Hammond that “I hadn’t even used all my time when they started to play me off.” Co-producer Reginald Hudlin told Hammond that “it was just one mistake in a three and a half hour show.” I think it was basic cluelessness, not a mistake. Everyone knows that you cut the major winners a little slack when it comes to acceptance speeches. Hudlin and co-producer David Hill could have told the orchestra conductor to stop and let Inarritu finish, but they chose not to. Insensitive, bad form.

Sylvester Stallone‘s surprising loss to Mark Rylance at the Oscars last night was the biggest shocker of the telecast. Expectation-wise it was like being hit on the side of the head with a waffle iron. Some had predicted Spotlight‘s surprise win, but almost nobody saw the Stallone thing coming.

Obviously some sentiment or conviction kicked in that very few picked up on. But what? You can’t just bellyache — something happened.

But before floating theories, you have to watch Michael Rapaport’s reaction, which was posted late last night or early this morning or whatever.

Sasha Stone has suggested that Sly lost because (1) it was a very competitive year resulting in a split-up vote, (2) “Did the Academy really want to go down in history rewarding ‘the only white guy’ in Creed?…that’s all the press talked about…if they gave him an award, doesn’t that just seal the deal?” and (3) “A lot of old timers really liked Bridge of Spies.”

HE theories: I agree with Sasha’s thinking but I also think Sly lost some votes when he forgot to thank Creed director Ryan Coogler during his thank-you speech at the Golden Globes — I think that pushed the wrong kind of button.