My Thoughts on the 59th Grammy Awards

My post-Grammy analysis post is going up later than customary, but what can I say? It's been one of those weeks. The 59th Grammy Awards were held Sunday evening, and I was able to watch a recording of the telecast in its entirety during the week, even though this was managed in bits and pieces between mountains of work. Hosting duties were handled by James Cordon of Carpool Karaoke fame, and as could be expected, he had no problem holding the whole thing together while also managing to deliver a few quality gags along the way.

There was an overall sense of deja vu this year as Adele onced again cleaned out in the major categories, winning all 5 awards for which she'd earned a nomination. Her wins included awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, Best Pop Vocal Album, and of course, Album of the Year. She'd beaten out fellow musical juggernaut, Beyoncé, for that last award, and even went as far as renouncing the award to Beyoncé during her tearful acceptance speech.

Elsewhere, Drake and Chance the Rapper won the rap categories with 2 awards apiece, with the latter also scoring an additional win for Best New Artist. Beyoncé managed two wins for Lemonade (Best Urban Contemporary Album) and Formation (Best Music Video), a crying shame considering she'd gone into the ceremony with the highest number of nomitations (9). David Bowie was honored with 4 posthumous awards for his album, Blackstar, while Cage the Elephant beat out Blink -182 and Panic! at the Disco for Best Rock Album (Tell Me I'm Pretty).

In terms of performances, The Weeknd and Daft Punk made musical magic with their performance of one of my 2016 favorites, I Feel It Coming. Other standout performances include Shape of You (by Ed Sheeran), Chained to the Rhythm (by Katy Perry and Skip Marley), the Bees Gees tribute (by Demi Lovato, Tori Kelly, Little Big Town and Andra Day), and the hip-hop mashup between A Tribe Called Quest, Anderson .Paak, Busta Rhymes and Consequence. Bruno Mars also brought his A-game during his performance of That's What I Like and the Prince tribute, so no surprises there.

One thing that surprised me this year though were the sheer number of hiccups and mistakes that were caught on camera. We had everything from Adele fumbling her lines and having to restart a song, to a faulty microphone during the Metallica performance, to Greg Kurstin being rudely cut off during an acceptance speech. I realize such things are inevitable during a live event, but come on, this is the Grammy's we're talking about here, not some B-grade musical sideshow.

The Wedding Party (Movie Review)

Well, this is a first. But whenever a movie gets touted for besting Rogue One at the local box office, then that movie had better damn well live up to that claim. Released locally on the same day as the recent Star Wars spinoff, The Wedding Party was the movie that had people flocking the various Lagos cineplexes all through the holiday season. So, of course, I was mildly curious and needed to see what all the fuss was about.

I'll start with a quick disclaimer: I am not the biggest fan of Nigerian movies. In fact, I tend to avoid them like the plague. This is due mainly to my inability to overlook their many artistic and technical shortcomings. That said, I'll try to keep this review as fair and free of bias as humanly possible.

The Wedding Party tells the story of an intercultural wedding between two high society families that don't exactly see eye to eye. It features an ensemble cast that include Adesua Etomi, Banky Wellington, Richard Mofe Damijo, Sola Sobowale and Iretiola Doyle. Set on the day of the titular party, the movie tries to capture the behind-the-scenes details of the typical Lagos wedding, in colorful and cartoonish fashion.

Unfortunately, the end result is plagued by the very same shortcomings that keep the vast library of Nollywood movies from being watchable. For a high-profile movie of this kind, the production values were surprisingly low. The editing was poorer than it had any right to be, with scenes cascading into one another with very little sense of purpose or direction. The sound mixing was even worse, with background music clashing with dialogue at every given opportunity.

As far as acting was concerned, the majority of the cast were content with mimicking the same caricatures we've seen in at least a dozen other movies. By and large, the biggest offender of the bunch was Richard Mofe Damijo, delivering his lines with the kind of hamfisted bravado that only a Nollywood veteran could muster. You can't blame him though, not when the script itself is laden with enough poorly-written dialogue and leaps of logic to make any recent Nicolas Cage movie look like high art.

The Wedding Party is a glorified home video masking as a proper theatrical release. The movie was so cheesy that by the time the end credits rolled, I felt like an overfed mouse. If you've managed to avoid seeing it at the cinemas this long, then I'd advise you continue doing so. There's simply nothing to see here, folks.