What have we learned from Oscars 2016?

Yet another Academy Awards ceremony is behind us. For the 88th time, the best were awarded: a lot of smiles were seen, some tears were shed, and almost nothing unsurprising happened. Leonardo DiCaprio finally managed to get a hold on his first Oscar and put an end to the numerous jokes that were cruising the Internet for years. Spotlight won the Best Picture Award, and Mad Max:The Fury Road swept away technical categories. Chris Rock was expectedly provocative in his performance, and Roger Federer made a surprising, yet entertaining pit-stop at the ceremony. Here it is the closer insight of what happened at the Dolby Theatre. Let's start with the least surprise of all. Leonardo DiCaprio won for the first time, exactly 22 years after his first nomination as a 20-year-old for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". Leo was welcomed with the standing ovations from the audience and used his speech to bring up the topic of one of the most threatening dangers around- global warming. He made an illustrative example of this problem while stating how shooting of "The Revenant" had to be moved from Canada to Argentina due to the lack of snow. In his dignified exposition, DiCaprio pointed out the importance of united activism in order for our planet to be saved. It was quite refreshing to see acceptance speech concerning the vital themes that was not turned in a soppy melodrama, quite usual for some previous Oscar ceremonies. And there is a new lifetime achievement that DiCaprio pulled out- he is probably the only movie worker in the history whose speech was not interrupted with the music at the 45-second mark. Way to go, Leo! Mark Rylance, Brie Larson, Leonardo di Caprio and Alicia Vikander holding their Academy Awards at the 88th Academy Awards Ceremony After the least surprising win, we can continue with the mention of what might be one of the few surprises that marked Oscars 2016- Mark Rylance's win in Best Supporting Actor category for his performance in "Bridge of Spies". While he was considered to be one of the front-runners, few were those who did not denote Sylvester Stallone and Tom Hardy as the prime contenders for the golden statue. However, 56-year-old English stage veteran snatched his first Academy Award, leaving Stallone with visibly disappointed look on his face. Rylance stayed humble in his speech, marking the crucial roles that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks performed in the entire project. Competition among ladies was tough, but two young actresses justified the roles of favorites, thus winning theirs first Oscars. Of course, their names are Brie Larson and Alicia Vikander. Vikander seemed a bit shocked, but nevertheless she rightfully deserved the award in the year that pushed her right among the top Hollywood movie stars. 2015  was the year this Swedish actress would always happily muse upon. As for Brie Larson, her bold and captivating performance in Room brought us back the hope in Hollywood, and showed us that good movies are not always ignored, even if they do not carry out great advertising campaign. Though this is often the case. Technical awards, at least most of them, went in the hands of the crew of "Mad Max:Fury Road", movie with the most Oscars won this year- 6 in total, including the ones for editing, sound mixing and sound editing, production design, costume design, as well as the makeup. The only surprise was the lack of the Visual Effect award, which surprisingly went to the "Ex Machina" which had far less budget than George Miller's movie. Even though, it collected 6 awards, "Mad Max" can not really be called the winner of the year, but nor can "Spotlight" which won the Best Picture Oscar. This is a part of a paradox that is present during the last few years, where it seems that awards are shared equally, with no movie that sweeps the locker with golden statues in it. There was a similar case 2014, when "Gravity" won the technical awards, and "12 Years A Slave" was proclaimed the best picture although it had less awards won than Alfonso Cuaron's film. As for the quality of the ceremony, it must be said that better ones were seen. Chris Rock did the best he could with the limited time (and means) in his treatment of the racial controversies surrounding the ceremony. Some will say he was harsh, some will say he hit the bullseye, but one thing was certain- he had some hits and misses. Ceremony itself dragged a bit, more than usual, in spite of (wise, but not very nice) decision of organizers to short winners' speeches by running their thank notes on the screen as they were speaking. Perhaps the best moment came from the least expected source- world's tennis No 3, Roger Federer, who used his time of recovery to visit the Oscars and do some tequila shots before the ceremony, certainly the feat he is not known for. In the end what to say about 88th Academy Awards? Action movies came back in big style thanks to George Miller, there were no major surprises, and black people did not get nominated again. But to make things a bit brighter, we have seen great blend of experience and youth this year with well-established thespians like Cate Blanchett, Leonardo DiCaprio or Jennifer Lawrence (yes, Jennifer Lawrence is experienced with 4 nominations under her belt), but new faces also broke on to the stage, most notably Brie Larson, Alicia Vikander, Saoirse Ronan etc. If the movie industry is in a crisis, then the acting business flourishes and we do not have to dread the lack of great acting performances in the years to follow.