Monday, April 26, 2021

WELL...THAT WAS AN EVENING: Reactions to the 93rd Academy Awards

Here's how we are going to do this: I am going to start off discussing the ceremony as a whole in terms of the producing (which had Steven Soderbergh among the team), then I will delve into a brief discussion around the smaller categories before going into a discussion of the top 8 awards.
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CEREMONY QUALITY:

So...the socially distanced event done to meet the strict protocols still seemed like no one was following any kind of mask-wearing...although Frances McDormand was seen wearing one multiple times so good on her for that. 

I have to say that the idea of the ceremony, which was treated as more of a cinematic experience and in a setting that felt like a callback to the days of early Hollywood, was really nice. However...the show ended up feeling less cinematic simply because they relied far too little on movie clips. Some years don't have clips for the acting nominees but they often give us at least a montage of clips. This time around, they just had the presenters briefly gush to each nominee (which similar practices have been done in the past) and then the award was given.

Other random tech categories received clips while more visual based ones like Production Design got the "monologue" treatment. Instead of seeing images of their work, we get a cheeky "Six Degrees of Separation" setup amongst those nominees which didn't stick the landing in the way I am sure the producers felt it would.

The other downside was I felt like due to them pushing the Best Song performances off to the pre-show (which, frankly, I was fine with), they didn't seem as rushed to get the winners off the stage. People deserve to have their moment but they didn't play anybody off and some of those speeches felt like they went on for longer than most have in years.

And then, right before the final three awards of the night, they stop us dead in our tracks for an Oscar trivia bit which ended up falling flat...but it took Glenn Close and her knowledge of "Da Butt" and the dance moves of said number to save the day. 

Watch it for yourself!

https://youtu.be/pDdK3fNUQzQ

Lastly, they made the rather bizarre and unfortunate decision to save the acting Oscars for last which seemed to prove they felt Chadwick Boseman had his category sewn up but instead...they ended the night on a bit of a whimper in terms of impact.
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THE TECH/SMALLER CATEGORIES:

I don't really have as much to say here although I was a little disappointed that Nomadland lost cinematography. I can't really deny that Mank was a good selection though despite my rather tepid feelings on that film and I also feel its Production Design win was the best call.

Sound of Metal winning Sound was a foregone conclusion and truly one of the best wins of the night...and it also pulling off Film Editing was pretty remarkable as well. It wasn't the kind of film that typically wins this award as the saying is usually: "The film with the Most Editing wins Best Editing". 

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom pulled off two solid wins for Costumes and Makeup/Hairstyling, which both of those were wildly expected.

In regards to International Feature, I did like Another Round but I had hoped that more voters would've embraced Bosnia's offering for the prize which was Quo Vadis, Aida?...a film that truly packed an emotional punch.

It was also obvious that they were going for "light" when voting for Documentary Feature as My Octopus Teacher managed to beat Collective, Crip Camp, and Time....all which dealt with truly important and timely issues and yet they went with the lighthearted romp. I guess that'll make Bill Maher happy....

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THE ELITE EIGHT:

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

-As the first award of the night, Emerald Fennell gave a delightfully nervous and charming speech that set off everything on a pretty good note in my book. I fully support this win but the truth is as much as I really like a lot of the films in this category, all of them had something that I consider flawed or not as strong about their scripts. I do admire the chances that Fennell took with hers and the story she was trying to tell. It also must be said that Fennell is the first woman to win this award in 13 years...hopefully another woman will win much sooner than that!

Best Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller, THE FATHER

-In the end, my choice for predicting this paid off. They ended up going with the script that was arguably more complex and verbose...and just so happened to be a Best Picture nominee. Not much to add here other than I feel the Academy made the right decision with this one.

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, JUDAS & THE BLACK MESSIAH

-His speech may have been a little too long but he managed to get a lot of traction for his comment of thanking his parents for having sex and leading to his birth. The press has talked about this a lot...as opposed to his pleas for racial equality which should say a lot about the numbness of entertainment reporters...but this isn't anything new. Actors like Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro and Bruce Willis have made similar comments about thanking their parents for having sex after winning an award so I think we should cut him some slack. As for the win, it was a foregone conclusion and I highly support it but it still doesn't change the fact that he and his co-star/nominee Lakeith Stanfield were both leads. I hope that this breakthrough for Paul Raci leads to more work because I will always champion his sterling work in Sound of Metal.

Best Director: Chloe Zhao, NOMADLAND

-Biggest lock of the night. A truly lovely woman and filmmaker with an immensely bright future ahead of her. As I have stated, I admire and respect this film more than I would say I "love" it...but she did a truly masterful job on it. I just hate that the awards lineup pushed this off so early (much like they did with Best Picture which...what the fuck....) because it almost cheapens the enormity and importance of such a selection. To clarify, not only is Zhao the first woman of color to win this award, but only the second woman to even win the prize. Hopefully this is the start of more women getting their due in this category! Also, it was great to see Bong Joon-ho coming back to present with his wonderful translator from last year Sharon Choi!

Best Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung, MINARI

-This was simply fantastic. Many doubted early on that they would even go for her, but she did it. Not only is this the first time a Korean actress has won an Oscar, but it is the first time a predominately Asian-language performance has won...and she is only the SECOND actress of Asian descent to win an Oscar. The first was Miyoshi Umeki way back in 1958 for Sayonara, a performance that was in English. Much like Olivia Colman's speech back in 2019, I hope the internet makes Youn go viral for this delightful speech in which she championed all of her nominees and then ended with saying she was only up there because she got "lucky". She was up there because she was easily the best!

Best Picture: NOMADLAND

-As I stated, I am not a passionate supporter of the film. The win is fine, though. I felt almost pretty equally about most of the nominees save for Trial of the Chicago 7 and Mank. With this season of wins, Nomadland became the first film since the seasons of 12 Years a Slave and Argo to truly sweep through the season without any real significant competition.

Best Actress: Frances McDormand, NOMADLAND

-I love Frances McDormand because she's a damn good actress who doesn't care about the trappings of Hollywood. However, I can't deny that it is a little bit sad to see her win a THIRD Oscar for acting (and she just won an Oscar for producing Nomadland right before which now gives her four wins overall). I really wanted Carey Mulligan to pull this off but they were also still willing to vote for a white actress for a third time as opposed to giving a Black actress an Oscar, which has only occurred ONCE in the Academy's history. In the end, it should be about the performance and while I am not saying that McDormand was bad, I just didn't see this performance as an undeniable selection. At least her speech was short and to the point...she was ready to leave for the night!

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins, THE FATHER 

-My semi-gutsy prediction paid off!! Having the ceremony end with this moment and with Hopkins not taking part in the event in any way, it was truly a bleak feeling as it seemed poised to be set up as the coronation of Chadwick Boseman. Still though, this was a case where I have to commend the Academy for this selection. Hopkins is an actor who doesn't care about awards and doesn't do any type of serious campaigning unless its talking about the film with his colleagues or doing Q&As with other actors. He doesn't like to suck up to anyone and he finds award shows boring...and he isn't wrong for thinking that. Voters still chose to reward him because he was truly giving us a master class...and probably his greatest performance in his career. It sort of saddens me to think he is going to get pummeled on Twitter and all of social media when its very possible that most of those people didn't even see his film. So, if you preferred Boseman, that is fine...but you honestly can't deny that Hopkins was giving us brilliance.
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And with that, the Oscar season is over. It has been the longest season ever and it feels it. I feel tired and I am ready to move on from it. Eventually I will look more in depth as to what the big contenders are going to be for this year (quite a few that got postponed from 2020), but for now...I am going to go drink some tea and unwind....sigh...

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