BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: BLADE RUNNER 2049
BEST EDITING: DUNKIRK
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: PHANTOM THREAD
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: DARKEST HOUR
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: BLADE RUNNER 2049
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: THE SHAPE OF WATER
BEST SOUND MIXING AND BEST SOUND EDITING: DUNKIRK
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: REMEMBER ME (COCO)
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: THE SHAPE OF WATER
BEST ANIMATED SHORT: DEAR BASKETBALL
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT: THE SILENT CHILD
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: HEAVEN IS A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE 405
BEST DOCUMENTARY: ICARUS
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: A FANTASTIC WOMAN (from Chile)
BEST ANIMATED FILM: COCO
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: GET OUT
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: ALLISON JANNEY
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: SAM ROCKWELL
BEST ACTRESS: FRANCES MCDORMAND
BEST ACTOR: GARY OLDMAN
BEST DIRECTOR: GUILLERMO DEL TORO (THE SHAPE OF WATER)
BEST PICTURE: THE SHAPE OF WATER
THOUGHTS ON THE SHOW
For the first time since Billy Crystal did it in 1997 and 1998, Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Oscars for the second year in a row. As I noted last year, Kimmel is my personal favorite of the current crop of late night talk show hosts; heck, I even went to one of the tapings for his show this past summer when I was on vacation in Los Angeles. Like last year, Kimmel did an excellent job as host, addressing some of the year’s biggest controversies (specifically the Weinstein epidemic, as many expected he would) while also delivering some enjoyably humorous sketches. I’m aware that some people weren’t too big on his opening monologue addressing all the recent movements in Hollywood (e.g. #TimesUp) as they felt that it would’ve been better for a female host to address these subjects. Ultimately, though, I do think that Kimmel handled them well as he’s done the same thing with several other key issues over the past few months (e.g. when he talked about the necessity for his son to have multiple heart surgeries at a time when the benefit of health care for children was in peril). And before any of you say anything; yes, I’m well-aware that one of his first major roles in the industry was being the co-creator of the male-centric series The Man Show. All I will say to that is that a lot has changed since then, folks, and I’m not just talking about him. This year’s show was more than reflective of the current Hollywood climate where women and minority filmmakers and stars are making monumental efforts to make sure that their voices are being heard in an industry long dominated by Caucasian males.
Anyway, the show itself lived up to its mantle of being the 90th edition of the Academy Awards. The entire night was dedicated to iconic films of yesteryear, which were represented via several great montages. Legendary Hollywood stars’ most famous roles were highlighted before they came out to present an award, including Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront and Rita Moreno in West Side Story. Heck, Moreno even wore the same dress that she wore to the 34th Academy Awards, where she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story. When each of the acting categories was introduced, a montage of all the awards’ previous winners was played, effectively showcasing the full range of acting talent that has been honored at these ceremonies. All in all, it was a perfect follow-up to all those montages from last year’s show where actors reflected on classic films and the legendary performances that came out of them. As for the awards themselves, I know that many felt that this year was far more predictable compared to last year. All the major front-runners in the acting categories won while this year’s Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water, was an undisputed front-runner. Here’s the thing, though… we cannot forget that while last year’s envelope gaffe was easily one of the most famous Oscars moments of all-time, it was also a TERRIBLE moment that negatively affected all who were involved in it. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were wrongfully scapegoated for a slip-up that wasn’t primarily their fault, the cast and crew of La La Land were forced to endure the embarrassment of being ‘the mistaken winner’ (though, to their credit, they took it like champs), and as much I hate to say it, Moonlight’s win was forever tainted by this infamous slip-up. In other words, I don’t watch the Oscars for shocking upsets; I watch them to see how they honor the best of the best that cinema has to offer us, which is something that they succeed at every year. Because of this, I quite enjoyed this year’s Oscars ceremony. And while I know that many will disagree with me on this, I dare you to find an Oscars ceremony that didn’t attract a polarizing reception after it was over.
And now, as always, I present to you my personal picks for the Best and Worst moments from this year’s ceremony… well, to be more specific, the ‘Best’ moments. Yes, folks, I don’t have any ‘Worst’ moments to speak of this time around…
BEST: WAL-MART’S THREE ‘BOX’ ADS
Now I’ll admit that this is somewhat of a weird topic to address, namely because I didn’t address it last year, but I wanted to highlight a trio of ads that were made for this year’s event. Last year, Wal-Mart teamed up with filmmakers Marc Forster, Antoine Fuqua, and the duo of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg to direct three 60-minute ads based around the concept of your average Wal-Mart receipt. This year, the focus was on their blue shipping boxes, with Mudbound director Dee Rees, long-time director Nancy Meyers, and comedian Melissa McCarthy being brought in to direct the ads. And overall, all three of these ads were excellent in their own unique way. Rees’ ad was sci-fi oriented, showcasing an epic battle that’s revealed to be the fantasy of two young girls using the box as a fort; it featured eye-catching visuals and an enjoyable turn from Rees’ Mudbound star Mary J. Blige as the ‘evil commander’. Next up, Meyers’ ad saw her reteam with frequent collaborator Hans Zimmer, who starred in the ad in which he dealt with a case of severe writer’s block until one of his collaborators uses the box as a drum. And that’s all that I need to say about this one, really; it’s a fun little ad involving Hans Zimmer, one of the industry’s most legendary composers. Finally, there was Melissa McCarthy’s ad, which was a surprisingly welcome ‘against type’ turn for her. Instead of being a comedic ad, it was an emotionally poignant spot in which Greatest Showman breakout star Keala Settle uses the box like a time machine to go back in time and encourage her younger self when she gets teased at a talent show. While I’ll openly admit that I found last year’s slate of Wal-Mart ads to be rather hit-and-miss, this year’s ads were all incredibly well-made, getting so much out of a simple concept.
BEST: JIMMY KIMMEL’S OLD-SCHOOL INTRO
For this year’s ceremony, Kimmel started it off with a parody of retro newsreels complete with old-timey narration. I’m aware that some people weren’t too big on this intro, but I personally liked it. Highlights include Armie Hammer being born ‘when a witch placed a curse on a Ken doll’ and Salma Hayek bringing the Asset from The Shape of Water as her date. However, I will admit that one specific montage that occurred later in the show (which, of course, will be addressed in just a bit) probably would’ve served as a better intro given that this was the 90th rendition of the Academy Awards. Still, this bit was a fun way of kicking off this year’s show.
BEST: SHORTEST SPEECH WINS A FREE JET SKI
During Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue, he openly acknowledged the most common criticism of the Oscars, its length. Thus, he offered a challenge to the winners; while encouraging them to say whatever they wanted during their speech, he also offered an incentive for those who manage to keep their speeches short. Said incentive was a free jet-ski introduced a la The Price is Right complete with Helen Mirren as the floor model. And before any of you ask… ‘Helen Mirren not included’. Kimmel sweetened the deal by offering a second prize of a trip to Lake Havasu, Arizona. So, who won it? That honor went to costume designer Mark Bridges, who won Best Costume Design for his work on Phantom Thread and gave a quick 36-second speech. Thus, one of the final images of the night was Bridges and Mirren riding the jet-ski onstage.
BEST: THE OSCARS’ NEW METHOD OF PLAYING WINNERS OFF
After Sam Rockwell’s win for Best Supporting Actor, Jimmy Kimmel came out to note that this year, the infamous music that the orchestra plays to tell winners to wrap their speeches up wasn’t going to be used this year (though it kind of did at one point, which I’ll get into later…). Their alternative? Having Get Out star Lakeith Stanfield reenact his iconic scene from the film in which he snaps at main protagonist Chris, telling him to, of course, ‘Get Out’. Simply put, this was an enjoyably humorous moment that served as an excellent satire of the film complete with Stanfield doing a phenomenal job of staying in character the whole time.
BEST: THE BIG FILM MONTAGE/TRIBUTE
While there were many great montages utilized in this year’s ceremony, the best came via the montage that honored the vast history of film. An endless array of cinematic classics was featured in this montage along with an awesome use of a speech made by the one and only Roger Ebert explaining the beauty of film. As you might have guessed, that was my favorite part of the montage; but, of course, the whole montage was amazing. If you’re a film fanatic like me, I’m 100% confident that this montage probably gave you goosebumps at one point. With that said, though, as I alluded to earlier, I think that this would’ve been a better way to start off the show this year instead of what they went with. Again, nothing against Kimmel’s old-timey ad, but it’s safe to say that this was a more suitable method of honoring cinema during the Oscars’ ‘anniversary year’. Ah well, maybe we’ll get something like this for the 100th ceremony in 2028.
BEST: THE #TIMESUP/INCLUSION MONTAGE
Obviously, the #TimesUp movement and the call for a greater sense of diversity in the film industry was a key factor in this year’s proceedings. Thus, leave it to Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, and Annabella Sciorra, three of the most prominent activists in the Weinstein epidemic, to introduce a montage honoring the slow but steady growth of a diverse collection of faces and voices in the film industry. For the record, it didn’t directly address any of the numerous sexual harassment/assault incidents of the past few months, but it didn’t really need to. Also, a bonus shout-out to Lupita Nyong’o and Kumail Nanjiani for honoring all the ‘Dreamers’ in this country when they presented the award for Best Production Design. Plus, we even got to learn Nanjiani’s real name… Chris Pine! (Tee-Hee!)
BEST: THE WAR FILM MONTAGE
The last big film montage of the night (apart from the Best Actor and Actress montages) was a tribute to all the classic war films. This tribute to the U.S. military was presented by the legendary Wes Studi. During this speech, Studi reflected on his own military experience as a member of Alpha Company of the 39th Infantry during the Vietnam War. As for the montage itself, it was just as well-handled as the previous ones, featuring classics like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon along with recent hits like Saving Private Ryan and American Sniper.
BEST: THE GREAT PERFORMANCES OF THE BEST ORIGINAL SONG NOMINEES
As always, this year’s ceremony gave us some great performances from this year’s nominees for ‘Best Original Song’. First up, Mary J. Blige performed the song ‘Mighty River’ from Mudbound, for which she herself was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Simply put, it was a soulful performance of an emotional number. Next up, we had Gael Garcia Bernal perform ‘Remember Me’ from Coco followed by the pop version used in the film’s credits performed by Miguel (not to be confused with the film’s main protagonist) and Natalia Lafourcade. Like the song’s use in the film, this performance served as a nice representation of its various renditions. After that, we had Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Mystery of Love’ from Call Me by Your Name. Like ‘Mighty River’ and the next song that I’ll be talking about, I’ll openly admit that this year’s show was the first instance where I heard this song. Despite that, though, I must say that I quite liked the mellow nature of it. Next, we had Common and Andra Day perform the song ‘Stand Up for Something’ from Marshall. Just like Common and John Legend’s powerful performance of ‘Glory’ at the 87th Academy Awards, the performance was quite the emotional powerhouse. Common called out the divisive rhetoric of Donald Trump while he and Day featured cameos from several key activists, including #MeToo founder Tarana Burke and Nicole Hockley, who lost her son Dylan in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Finally, this sense of empowerment was further continued with Keala Settle once again bringing the house down with her performance of The Greatest Showman’s trademark anthem, ‘This is Me’. It may not have won Best Original Song, ultimately, but it was yet another showcase of Settle’s amazing talent.
BEST: IN MEMORIAM
Another classic emotional moment of the show is, of course, the ‘In Memoriam’ segment. After an intro from Jennifer Garner, Pearl Jam singer-songwriter Eddie Vedder performed ‘Room at the Top’ by the late Tom Petty during this year’s tribute. Now on that note, I’m well-aware that, as is the case every year, some notable stars were left out of this year’s segment, including Adam West, Tobe Hooper, and David Ogden Stiers, the latter of whom died just a few days prior to the ceremony. However, I never view this as the Oscars being ‘ignorant’; sometimes, it’s just hard to keep track of all the stars who passed away the previous year.
BEST: REGULAR MOVIEGOERS MEET CELEBS 2.0
Now, believe it or not, this one is going to be a controversial opinion. Following last year’s sketch in which Jimmy Kimmel had a bunch of tourists enter the Dolby Theater during the ceremony, this year’s ceremony saw him enlist the aid of several actors and actresses to sneak into a special screening of this weekend’s new release, A Wrinkle in Time. The cavalcade of stars included the likes of Mark Hamill, Gal Gadot, Ansel Elgort, Armie Hammer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and both Guillermo Del Toro and Kimmel’s trusted sidekick Guillermo; and bear in mind… the descriptive phrase of ‘that’s just to name a few…’ STILL applies to this scenario. Anyway, I noticed that this sketch got quite a lot of flak for being a rehash of the similar moment from last year’s show. But if you ask me… what’s so wrong about that? Yes, I will fully admit that this was a blatant rehash of the ‘tour bus’ sketch from last year complete with a similar set-up of Kimmel and company dropping in on unexpected guests. But how can you not crack a smile at a sketch that saw Gal Gadot and Mark Hamill meeting each other for the first time prior to them going into the theater, Ansel Elgort and Armie Hammer firing hot dogs from a hot dog launcher (“Do not aim the hot dogs at the vegetarians!”), and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Guillermo Del Toro carrying a big sub sandwich around? It’s just another perfect way of honoring those who go out to see films day in and day out which, to reiterate, is sort of what this whole ceremony is about. Heck, I’d even argue that this year’s sketch had one major advantage over last year’s sketch, and that is that it didn’t feel dragged out at the end this time. And for the record, yes, I’m saying this about an Oscars sketch unironically.
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| Don't mess with Armie Hammer and his hot dog launcher! |
BEST: THE ‘PLAY WINNERS OFF’ MUSIC SHUTS UP FOR ROBERT LOPEZ
Here’s a subtle little moment that I bet quite a few people missed the other night. When Robert and Kristen-Anderson Lopez won for Best Original Song for ‘Remember Me’ from Coco, the former concluded their speech by paying tribute to his late mother. And while the traditional playoff music did begin to play at this point, it wisely stopped almost immediately after he began to talk about his mom. In other words, you could say that this was an instance where the most infamous aspect of the ceremony was arguably self-aware of all the negative publicity that surrounds it on an annual basis.
BEST: JODIE FOSTER GOT ‘I, TONYA’D’ BY MERYL STREEP
In lieu of last year’s Best Actor and Best Actress winners coming out to announce their successors, as is tradition, Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren presented the award for Best Actor while Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence presented the award for Best Actress. Emma Stone, last year’s winner for Best Actress, instead presented Best Director while last year’s Best Actor winner Casey Affleck decided not to attend this year’s ceremony due to the sexual harassment allegations directed towards him. As Foster and Lawrence came out to present the award, we noticed that Foster was on crutches. Immediately, the two of them addressed it with Foster claiming that Meryl Streep was responsible for the injury a la I, Tonya. For the record, it was due to a skiing accident but regardless, it was easily one of the funniest moments from this year’s event. Streep, of course, took it like a champ like the legend that she is.
BEST: FRANCES MCDORMAND’S SPEECH
If you needed any more proof that Frances McDormand is a total boss, just look at her speech when she won her second Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. First up, she paid tribute to all the women nominated for Oscars this year across all categories by encouraging them to stand up in unison. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, there’s also the big phrase that she brought up at the end of it, ‘inclusion rider’. For those who don’t know what that is, ‘inclusion rider’ is a stipulation that actors and actresses can request in their contracts for a film to maintain a culturally diverse cast. In other words, thanks to Ms. McDormand, I’m sure that I’m not the only one out there who’d love to learn about the instances where this request has been made. And yes, given Hollywood’s track record with diversity, I know that there probably isn’t a lot of instances of this. Still, I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be seeing this phrase pop up a lot more in the years to come.
BEST: GUILLERMO DEL TORO ASSURES US THAT WE AREN’T GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER ENVELOPE MIX-UP
Finally, we end on the big one, Best Picture. After all the crap that went down last year, all eyes were on this year’s reveal in the hopes that it’d go a lot smoother. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway returned to the stage to get it right this time, and they did. But for us, the audience, it was ultimately Guillermo Del Toro who assured us that his marvelous film was this year’s winner. As soon as he got up on stage, he grabbed the envelope, read it, and delightfully turned to the crowd to confirm the results. If you needed further proof as to why GDT is one of the most entertaining filmmakers in the industry, that little moment is a prime piece of evidence.
And that concludes my recap of the 90th annual Academy Awards. Thanks for following along as always and be sure to sound off in the comments below with your own favorite moments from this year’s event. And yes, I specifically mean ‘favorite moments’; we’re here to have fun, after all…
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