“This is a really long show,” said Jimmy Kimmel while
introducing last night’s Academy Awards broadcast. Kimmel started on the wrong
note. The Oscars never seemed to end, but the duration wasn’t the problem. The
monotony was. I could barely hear much of the show at the Oscar party I
attended, and after a while, that wasn’t a bad thing because the banter in the
room was often much livelier than the telecast. There wasn’t any big hiccup in
the show, yet Kimmel kept apologizing and asking folks to move it along when he
had no reason to say sorry. The absence of Envelopegate 2 stressed a big
takeaway from the evening: safe doesn’t make for great TV.
One can’t really begrudge Kimmel, the Academy, or anyone
else for playing it safe this year. After last year’s embarrassment and two
previous years of #OscarsSoWhite, the Academy didn’t need any bad publicity.
Kimmel also had the unenviable task of hosting the first Oscars after the
Harvey Weinstein scandal and of continuing the momentum for the #TimesUp and
#MeToo movements propelled throughout the season. Aside from a few good jokes, like
addressing the controversial wage gap between Mark Wahlberg and Michelle
Williams for reshoots of All the Money in the World and chirping that Williams should follow her co-stars lead and donate
her stipend to #TimesUp in the spirit of equality, Kimmel left it to the
winners to offer calls to action. Some of them delivered on that front.
Frances McDormand easily provided the highlight of the night
with her mic drop of an acceptance speech. She made viewers freeze as soon as
she took the stage and announced that she had a few things to say, delivering
the line with the same don’t-mess-with-me attitude that won her the Oscar for
playing Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. She called upon all the female nominees to stand
up and be acknowledged. The show of sisterhood was a welcome moment of
positivity in a season that has been overwhelmingly negative. It was also a
chance to steer the conversation in a new direction and start rebuilding. She
left the audience with two words—“inclusion rider”—and invited stars to attach
to their contracts a clause for better representation in the films in which
they appear. Sometimes the inevitability of a win can be put to good use.
Other highlights of the night included Allison Janney’s well-deserved
win for Best Supporting Actress for her viciously funny performance as the mom
from hell in I, Tonya. The win was a
coup for great character actors everywhere. Janney provided one of the show’s
few genuine laughs by nabbing her Oscar and declaring “I did it all by myself”
before shouting out to the I, Tonya cast
and crew, particularly her friend Steven Rogers who wrote the part of LaVona
specifically for her. Equally worth was Best Actor winner Gary Oldman, who was
gracious in accepting his award for his titanic performance as Winston
Churchill in Darkest Hour.
The Oscar win that has long eluded British cinematographer
Roger Deakins proved another of the show’s highlights. The prolific master
lenser finally won on his fourteenth nomination after missing out for films
such as Skyfall, No Country for Old Men, The
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Man who Wasn’t There, and The Shawshank Redemption. His win was
one of two for director Denis Villeneuve’s Blade
Runner 2049 (the other being for visual effects) and helped show the
efforts of Canadian talents at the ceremony.
In addition to Villeneuve’s film, Guillermo del Toro’s
Toronto-shot The Shape of Water won
the big prize, nabbing Best Picture and Best Director. The Academy brought back Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway for a do-over after last year's mix-up and they were good sports and got it right presenting to del Toro. The Mexican director is
a Toronto resident and shared the Best Picture Oscar with Canuck producer J.
Miles Dale while the Canadian trio of Paul Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin and
Shane Vieau won Best Production Design for the film and gave shout outs to the
local crew. The win for The Shape of
Water is a victory for the Toronto scene just two years after locally shot Spotlight nabbed Best Picture. Dale called the win "a watershed moment" for Canadian film and hopefully the success of The Shape of Water's transformation of Toronto will help the city continue to attract major projects. Toronto
had a good night with all of the winners in top categories save for Get Out making a premiere stop at the
Toronto International Film Festival, particularly Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri; I, Tonya and Call Me By Your Name, which won the People’s Choice Award and runner-up spots at the fest. Janney in particular gave a shout out to the festival in the press room and noted the life I, Tonya had after exploded at Toronto and having the biggest sale of the fest.
The Shape of Water’s
win was a mild surprise over Three
Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri, but a welcome one. del Toro’s film was
a magical feat and beautifully crafted—an astonishing production shot on a
modest $20 million dollar production that looks far costlier. On the other
hand, the loss of Three Billboards
proved a win to an extent for the pervasive negativity that grows with every
award season. The film was the target of several aggressive takedown pieces at
outlets including The New York Times
and The Daily Beast with writers
arguing that the film offered redemption for a racist and perpetuated un-woke
worldviews. Little to none of the bad press was done in the service of The Shape of Water, however, so one
can’t draw a cause and effect between the two.
As one of the few genre wins on the Best Picture front after
The Silence of the Lambs and The Return of the King, The Shape of Water’s Best Picture coup
helped with the Academy’s newly pronounced open-mindedness. The winners overall
reflected a better effort towards diversity and inclusion with Best Foreign
Language Film going to Chilean transgender drama A Fantastic Woman and Best Original Screenplay going to Jordan
Peele’s horror satire on race relations Get Out.
One of the crowning moments of the night was the inevitable
win for Call Me By Your Name screenwriter
James Ivory, who took the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The win was the
first for the 89-year-old filmmaker and pioneer of independent film. Ivory thanked
his partner, the late producer Ismael Merchant with whom he delivered numerous
great films under Merchant Ivory Productions. Ivory previously nominated for
directing The Remains of the Day, A Room with a View, and Howard’s End, for latter two earning
Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars for Merchant Ivory scribe Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
His win in the same category 25 years after Jhabvala was a fine continuation of
their legacy. And his Timothée Chalamet t-shirt was one of the better fashion
choices of the night!
The spirit of inclusion didn’t prevail, however, for The Greatest Showman’s inclusion anthem
“This is Me,” which brought the house down in Keala Settle’s showstopper of a
performance. The moment was the strongest of the musical numbers and nominees
and was flat-out robbed by the pathetically simple “Remember Me” from Coco. Common and Andra Day’s performance
of “Stand Up for Something” was also excellent with a song equally worthy of
the award. Ok, so maybe there was
something to apologize for – but the Best Original Song winner was hardly Jimmy’s
fault.
With a night of an overall slate of worthy winners and
little reason to fault the host aside from being needlessly safe, the Academy
can breathe a sigh of relief over a controversy free event. Now go crazy next
year!
And picks for the best on the red carpet!
Best dressed: Gal Gadot
Runners-up:
Betty Gabriel
Sandra Bullock
Jennifer Lawrence
Meryl Streep
And Jane Fonda - nearly #1
Now on to the Canadian Screen Awards!