The Revenant is the Donald Trump of this years Oscars.Credit Image by Kimberley French / 20th Century FoxLast year was a terrible year for Hollywood, and the few good high-budget and high-publicity films were, for the most part, left on the sidelines of Oscar nominations, which is why, for the unveiling of awards this Sunday, I have very few dogs in the fray. The upside of this indifferent neutrality is objectivity: without enthusiasm for a particular candidate, its easier to look dispassionately at the nominees and make predictions accordingly.Early on, I figured that Spotlight was a shoo-in, until the tide of chatter (or a vague wind of enthusiasm) seemed to flow in the direction of The Big Short, if for no other reason than that people get tired of saying Spotlight and want to know the feeling of saying The Big Short. (I think that this is what hurts long-time or presumptive electoral front-runners as wellthe sheer craving for variety.) But now Id give the edge to The Revenant, the last of the three films to be released (it came out on Christmas), for several reasons that seem all the more relevant to the Presidential campaign.
The Revenant is the Donald Trump of the trioits vain, crude, and blustery, and therefore distinctly different in tone and affect from the other two films, which are familiarly mainstream Hollywood entertainments exactly as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2016/02/26/the-oscars-social-media-and-chocolate-diamonds-3-crucial-lessons/
