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| Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty with the Best Actress envelope. |
How’s that for an ending? A relatively ho-hum Oscar ceremony
became a wild night after Best Picture presenters Warren Beatty and Faye
Dunaway received the envelope for Best Actress and incorrectly gave the prize
to La La Land. Moonlight, however, ultimately won in the biggest Oscar upset since
Crash. The
Hollywood Reporter has the full rundown on the
snafu. What a night to remember!
I’ll have to keep thoughts on the Oscars brief because work
is being a little hectic lately. Overall, Jimmy Kimmel was a fun, if safe,
host. He played up the anti-Trump sentiment well without overdoing it: keeping
it light and breezy was probably the right choice, but tweeting a hello from Meryl
Streep to Donald Trump was a highlight of the night. Ditto his jabs at Trump’s
retort of “overrated” to Streep’s Golden Globe speech by asking everyone in the
room to stand and clap for the queen. He
was less successful, however, with a painful sketch in which he trucked in a
busload of tourists to mingle with the stars. Every host now seems bent on
injecting an interactive moment à la Ellen DeGeneres’s pizza moment and this
gag didn’t work on any level.
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) February 27, 2017
Where Kimmel did well, however, was in the night’s final blunder
when he jokingly teased Beatty and asked, “Warren! What did you do?” and let
the actor explain the mix-up before Kimmel could suggest the films share the
prize. (I was confused and thought there was a tie.) Whatever hangs-up one found
in Kimmel’s so-so performance were overshadowed by the epic blunder with the
envelopes. Credit the Moonlight upset
to either the preferential ballot, an effort to correct #OscarsSoWhite, or a
strong showing of passion for a little movie that could, but the film feels
like a worthy winner. It’s also a historic moment as the first film with an
all-black cast and a queer coming-out story to snag Best Picture. This win is a
big deal for many people who don’t see their lives represented onscreen. The
success of Moonlight should open a
lot of doors.
Highlights of the night on the winners’ front included Viola
Davis’s powerful speech when she thanked the late Fences playwright and Best Adapted Screenplay nominee August Wilson
for “exhuming and exalting” characters who didn’t get their stories told during
their lifetimes. Best Sound Editing winner Sylvain Bellemare scored a happy victory
on the Canadian front for his work on Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, while the award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) going
to The White Helmets was one of the
best calls of the night.
Low points included two wins for Mel Gibson’s uneven Hacksaw Ridge in the categories for Best
Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing. Both categories were widely tipped to
contribute to La La Land’s sweep and
foreshadowed its upset. (But a tally of six awards for La La Land isn’t shabby.) Also disappointing were the five
performances of the Best Original Song nominees—Sting was downright boring and
John Legend’s take on the La La Land
songs didn’t do them justice, while Justin Timberlake’s energetic “Can’t Stop
the Feeling” made for a really awkward opening when he tried to get the stars
to join a dance party. It looked like a bunch of people went to a bar without
pre-drinking. At least Moana
performer Auli'i Cravalho got bumped in the head during her song, which’ll
hopefully discourage the future use of bizarre Cirque du Soleil stuff during
the musical numbers.
Still, this year’s Oscars will go down simply for its crazy
ending. I don’t think ever understand how such a heavy favourite dominated the
season only to lose in an unexpected and bizarre twist. People said the
broadcast would reflect the politics of the day and, strangely, it did.
The winners:
Best Director
★ Damian Chazelle, La La Land
Best Actress
★ Emma Stone, La La Land
Best Actor
Best Supporting Actress
★Viola Davis, Fences
Best Supporting Actor
★Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Adapted Screenplay
★Moonlight
Original Screenplay
★ Manchester by the Sea
Best Documentary Feature
★ OJ: Made in America
Best Foreign Language Film
★The Salesman (Iran)
Best Animated Film
★ Zootopia
Best Film Editing
★ Hacksaw Ridge
Best Cinematography
★ La La Land
Best Score
★ La La Land
Best Song
★ La La Land, “City of Stars”
Best Costumes
★ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Best Production Design
★ La La Land
Best Visual Effects
★Piper
Best Live Action Short
★ Sing
Best Documentary (Short Subject)
★The White Helmets
Picks for best dressed:
Winner: Taraji P. Henson
Runners-up:
Meryl Streep
Laura Dern
Emma Stone
What did you think of the Oscars?
