‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ leads in technical categories at Oscars

Chris Rock addressed Hollywood’s diversity controversy and Leonardo DiCaprio and “Spotlight” took home two of the biggest awards at Sunday night’s 88 Academy Awards. Outdoing even host Rock, Louis C.K. slayed the crowd during his presentation of the Best Documentary Short award, admitting to loving this category because the victor was undoubtedly broke: “This Oscar is going home in a Honda Civic”.

Ennio Morricone, the legendary composer of such film scores as “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “The Untouchables”, finally won an Oscar – his first in six nominations. Iñárritu won past year for Birdman, which also netted him a Best Picture Oscar. And believe me, they will. But what about that race question? “It’s wonderful to receive this award tonight”, he said. With a strong, big-name lead actor contender, The Revenant focussed the majority of its efforts on Leonardo DiCaprio, and much praise was directed at the actor for really putting the effort in and hitting the trail in a big way.

Best actress went to Brie Larson, the 26-year-old breakout of the mother-son captive drama “Room“. “Australia punches above its weight internationally for screencraft excellence, and today’s six Oscars, marking the most for any Australian film ever, attest to the technical skill of our talented industry”. Best Production Design and Best Make-Up and Hairstyling were both wins for “Mad Max: Fury Road“.

See more photos and our coverage of the Academy Awards at austin360.com/movies.

Best editing victor Margaret Sixel, Miller’s wife, gave a shout-out to the members of her photographic department back home who were celebrating in the afternoon Sydney time.

Mark A. Mangini (left) and David White after winning best sound editing. He’s overdue, yes. But it’s also his best performance, and the one he should win the Oscar for. Rylance delivered a compassionate a gracious speech giving kudos to his director Steven Spielberg and co-star Tom Hanks. Last year, best-actress victor Patricia Arquette made an impassioned plea for pay equity during her acceptance speech; the ensuing year has brought study after study examining the disproportionately small number of women working in front of and behind the camera, as well as the dearth of stories in which they’re subjects and not objects or bit players. The 27-year-old Sweden-born actress was ubiquitous in 2015, also winning awards for her performance in the sci-fi “Ex Machina“.

But despite the glory for The Revenant, the Best Picture award went to “Spotlight”. McKay thanked Paramount Pictures for taking a risk on a movie about “financial esoterica”.

Animated Feature Film: “Inside Out”. Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse portrait, “Amy”, took best documentary.

“Man, I counted at least 15 black people in that montage”, Rock said as he took the stage, referring to the opening clip of the year’s best films. One of them was definitely not Chris Rock ripping the academy all night for omitting actors of color among the major acting categories for a second straight year.

“It never ceases to annoy me how many people it takes to make me look competent”, Gibson said. Just want to gush about costume designer Jenny Beavan’s awesome leather jacket?

Actor Kevin Hart (who Rock joked makes “a movie a month”) presented an award and took the opportunity to urge positivity, congratulating all of the night’s nominees.

“Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right it’s racist”, said Rock. We put them all together then you pump up the volume with sound and editing.