I love that the Academy made the unusual choice of honoring a film with understated visual effects!
This is particularly admirable in a year with so many wonderful big effects pictures; Fury Road or The Force Awakens could have easily earned the Oscar.
Indeed.
shareEx Machina winning was totally baffling. I liked the VFX, but they were nothing extraordinary.
The Revenant should have won it for the bear scene alone. A VFX artist had devised a 'predictinator' which accurately predicted the VFX Oscar winner of every year based on a lot of aspects, with 100% accuracy. The Revenant had won the predictinator, and Ex Machina had the least chance among the 5 films.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f5Z64y4R4ks/VqbwbAdH8AI/AAAAAAAAKuE/lk0yBxJcOws/s1600/spreadsheet4.jpg
Ex Machina winning the Oscar just seems wrong. As if the Academy decided to take away one of Revenant's Oscars and throw it at EM just for the sake of rewarding it.