The Oscars woke up and chose violence
Happy post-Oscars Monday! Or is it?
I was planning on writing a pretty standard recap for this year’s Oscars in Thursday’s newsletter, but after the chaotic evil that occurred last night I have couldn’t stay silent. And really, could we have expected less from the pandemic Oscars?
Because of COVID restrictions, the show’s producer Steven Soderbergh (an Oscar winner himself for Traffic) promised a more intimate ceremony that felt like a movie. Instead of the usual venue of the Dolby Theater, it was moved to LA’s Union Station with satellite locations set up across the globe — London, Sydney, Oslo, etc.
The ceremony was filmed with a wider aspect ratio than a traditional TV program to give it a cinematic quality while the camera angles (a little too often) respected the rule of thirds. To be fair, along with the dinner setting, it did shift focus to the winners and their speeches — they didn’t play anyone off! At the same time, however, it removed some of the patina that we look to the Oscars for. And like many Soderbergh productions, the pace took getting used to, but we got there.
Let’s start with the good. This year’s set of winners were for the most part satisfying — and historic.
Emerald Fennell won Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman and Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Father. Fennell is the first woman to win since 2007 when Diablo Cody won for Juno. Meanwhile, The Father upset eventual Best Picture winner Nomadland — while I thought the latter film was stronger, The Father’s adaptation from play to film was more impressive.
The supporting categories went to Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) and *he says through tears* Yuh-jung Youn (Minari) — she is the first-ever Korean actress to win an Oscar. Both were expected to triumph, however having this be the first time seeing them accept the awards in person was particularly powerful. Youn had the best speech of the night with the line, “I’m luckier than you.”
Chloé Zhao became the first woman of color to win Best Director and just the second woman ever — after Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker in 2009.
Some odds and ends: Sound of Metal won two deserved awards for Sound and Film Editing. Judas and the Black Messiah pulled off the biggest upset of the night (I’ll get to why Best Actor wasn’t necessarily an upset) with a Best Original Song win for H.E.R., D'Mile, and Tiara Thomas. Another Round took home Best International Film with a powerful speech from director Thomas Vinterberg.
There were some confusing wins, as well.
Mank won Best Cinematography over Nomadland, sending Oscar pundits into a tailspin wondering if it could pull off a Best Picture upset.
My Octopus Teacher won Best Documentary Feature over critical favorites Time and Collective. They just really loved that Octopus.
The ceremony was surprisingly swift and entertaining enough to hold your attention — even with the oddly upbeat and fast in memoriam segment. And then the last 15 minutes happened.
In what might be the single worst production choice in the history of the Academy Awards, the Best Picture Oscar was handed out before Best Actress and Best Actor. Clearly, the producers were anticipating that the late Chadwick Boseman would win Best Actor like many of us thought to create a moment and *whispers* hold onto viewers.
However, with the best proof that no one knows the winners except the accountants at Ernst & Young, who tabulate the winners, Boseman did not win. Anthony Hopkins pulled out a win for The Father, which was not entirely unexpected. We knew he was running in second place after winning the BAFTA award the week prior. Still, the producers trudged on.
With that one decision, the producers robbed Nomadland of its crowning moment — much like the 2016 wrong winner fiasco robbed Moonlight and Barry Jenkins. Created the awkward dance of making Frances McDormand accept Best Picture and then accept Best Actress minutes later. And then Joaquin Phoenix, a famously awkward goose of a human, had to announce Anthony Hopkins as the winner and accept the award on his behalf because he wasn’t there!
To make matters worse, it was revealed this morning that The Father co-star Olivia Colman was meant to give a speech on his behalf. Instead, they cut directly to the credits, which only drew more attention to the odd ending.
Unlike the 2016 Moonlight debacle and the Parasite team being cut off midspeech last year, this was made worse by the fact that this was a planned decision made by the production team. They took a huge bet and they were wrong and shifted the discourse in a way that is going to change the way we talk about this year’s Oscars.
In the end, this felt very much like an experimental Oscars. I kept pushing against the notion that this would be an “asterisks” ceremony in terms of history — meaning it wasn’t a real year or somehow lesser than. The Oscars are meant to be a capper to the year in cinema — and just because this was a weird year in cinema doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. However, the producers treated the show as if it was an “asterisks Oscars,” which is a disservice to nominees and winners. Well, there’s always 2022.
See you Thursday with your regularly programmed movie recommendations.
📽 P.S. You can see every movie I’ve ever recommended right here.
🍅 I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes! You can find new movie reviews here and here.