Prelude: I love the movies and I love being judgmental so the Academy Awards is right up my alley. I have seen more Oscar telecasts than Super Bowls, although until the emergence of Tom Brady, both events were usually episodes in futility. In fact my first Oscar memory is one of disappointment, when Julie Andrews (“The Sound of Music”) lost Best Actress to Julie Christie (“Darling” — a movie I still have never seen.)
But this year has stretched my patience. Like all other legitimate movie fans I opposed the Academy’s crazy plans to offer a “Most Popular Movie” Oscar and to eliminate the broadcast of four movie awards, including Best Cinematographer. But what really chapped me was the Kevin Hart fiasco, in which he was unceremoniously dumped as host because of some old tweets that seemed “edgy” five years ago but in retrospect seem insensitive today. And what a surprise — after the Academy buckled in the face of Twitter, no one else wanted to host, so we now have an unchaperoned ceremony. That’s bad because one of the fun things about the event is complaining about the host. So we’re already off to a bad start this year.
Red Carpet: I really don’t want to watch this but my wife hops on Twitter to see what the dresses look like. Marie Kondo looks cute but what is she doing there? Spike Lee is in a purple tux but that’s not the weirdest thing. Here’s some guy is a tux gown. He’s named Billy Porter and he’s actually trending on Twitter. How gender-bending.
I look at Twitter myself and wait, there’s Joe Alwyn, but without Taylor Swift? Meanwhile my wife yells from the computer room: “Wait until you see what Glenn Close has on.” Me from my laptop: “She LOOKS like Oscar!”
By now, I am starting to get nervous that my favorite — “Roma” — might not win because of the new preferential ballot counting method, instead of the straight up and down method in which the winner is the one who gets the most votes (A description of preferential voting is linked here.) Great. Why not? Let something else win — my first choice rarely does get the Oscar. Last year’s win by “The Shape of Water” over “Dunkirk” was a travesty, for example.
7:10 — We break from social media to watch a “Modern Family” recording of an episode that ran when we were away last week. It has a Super Bowl theme? Haven’t we moved past that?
7:45. Back to the red carpet just in time for an interview with Bradley Cooper. Awkward. The interviewer praises him to the sky but he still looks like he’s entering a pain palace. He knows he’s a dead man walking.
7:50: Someone’s delivering Oscar predictions on Best Actress. Says it’s definitely Glenn Close. Thanks. Why should we watch now?
7:55: There are a lot of tweets about Lady Gaga, who looks great. Reflecting on it, I think she’s getting screwed this year. Her performance really was the best this year. And while we’re at it, Bradley Cooper deserved better too.
8:00: With no host who is the first face we will see? Finding out now. And its ….. Queen!!! “We Will Rock You.” Up goes the volume on the TV. “We are the Champions” with Adam Lambert as front man. OK, whatever. The critics have been crapping on this movie all year but this opening will probably be the high point of the night.
8:04: First montage. Great scenes of this year’s movies.
8:06: Three “Not hosts,” Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph, come out and do a hilarious bit. Why weren’t they the hosts? They must have turned it down. A random line from Maya Rudolph: “Just a quick update, in case you’re confused. There is no host tonight, no popular Oscar category, and Mexico is not paying for the wall.” (Watch the video below for the whole thing):
8:08: Here’s the award for supporting actress, with an awkward reminder that Emma Stone performed in something that looked a lot like blackface. Regina King wins and Chris Evans helps her make it up the stairs when her dress gets stuck. Is that sexist or “man-helping” or any of the other presumptuous things that men do to “rescue” women? In any event, she delivers a tearful and moving tribute to James Baldwin, God and her mother.
8:14: Here comes the royalty. Jason Momoa, who played the Dothraki Khal, and Helen Mirren, who played Queen Elizabeth. I can’t imagine there will be a weirder combo tonight but both are pretty in pink. They are presenting for Best Documentary and I’m still outraged that the Mr. Rogers doc didn’t get nominated. I was assuming the political favorite “RGB” would win but it’s “Free Solo.” And here’s the first bleep of the night when the winners come to the stage and exclaim “Oh shit.” “Free Solo” is about a guy climbing El Capitan in Yosemite without a rope so it was a potential snuff film. I passed on this. And here’s more crying.
8:23: Who the heck is is this introducing the “Vice” montage?
8:25: Time for best make-up and the winner is “Vice.” This is probably the high point tonight for this movie and the acceptance speech is terrible, with three women tag teaming and fumbling over themselves as they try to share the spotlight. Couldn’t they practice? It wasn’t exactly a surprise that they’d win for making Christian Bale look like Dick Cheney.
8:28: Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry are dressed in parody 15th Century British costumes accessorized with bunny puppets. Ha Ha. This is for costume design. It should be “Black Panther” and it is. Standing ovation. I assume they know this is one of their few wins so they go for the African Royalty theme hard.
8:38: Production design also to “Black Panther.” Another standing ovation.
8:42: Here’s Tyler Perry. Isn’t he the Madea guy? Why is her announcing Best Cinematography? As it should be, the winner is Alphonso Cuaron for “Roma.” Cuaron is up for a number of awards so he keeps his speech short and doesn’t blow his whole wad on his first trip to the stage.
8:46: A pretty actress comes out to introduce the song from “RGB.” She says “Khaleesi has nothing on” Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that “if you want to borrow the dragons let me know.” Hey, wait a minute, is this Daenerys Targaryen? I wonder if she chatted with Jason Mamoa backstage? Jennifer Hudson then becomes the second American Idol star to sing tonight.
8:54: Serena Williams emerges to present the Best Picture montage for “A Star is Born.” I guess that makes sense? Although I wonder if she’d give up her career if her husband became an alcoholic like Ally Maine was willing to do. That part of the movie is not the empowerment message Serena is pushing tonight.
8:54: Sound editing. “First Man” gets screwed and not for the first time. “Bohemian Rhapsody wins.” True, there was A LOT of sound in that movie but it’s mostly based on pre-recorded songs so I don’t really see the logic. Meanwhile, there’s a shot of Rami Malek, who seems wound up tighter than Freddy Mercury himself.
8:58: Sound Mixing: This really really should be “First Man” but it’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” again. No no no.
9:03: Queen Latifah comes out to introduce “The Favourite” montage. Already there have been many many references to queens and to Queen tonight so I wonder if she was asked to do this because she calls herself one. In any event she takes an extremely subtle dig at the current president by describing the court of Queen Anne in a way that sounds a lot like the current White House.
9:04: Best Foreign Language film goes to “Roma,” of course, and here’s Cuaron again, getting a little more eloquent. “No walls or barriers can divide us.” “Roma” is the first movie from Mexico to win foreign language. Camera shots of his kids. Cute.
9:08: Keegan-Michael Key descends from the ceiling holding umbrella. Gee, I wonder what he will introduce? Surprise! It’s the song from Mary Poppins performed by Bette Midler. Her skin is smoother and her bosom bigger than it was when I bought “The Divine Miss M” album in college 45 years ago. The song itself — “Where The Lost Things Go — is sweet but somewhat forgettable. I’m noticing that they are performing shortened versions of the songs to save time. Another standing ovation — I’m going to stop mentioning them because they come as frequently as they do at the State of the Union. My wife says she would have loved it if Bette had broken into a rendition of “Hello Dolly.” Yes! BTW, this performance is followed by a Samsung ad that uses “Que Sera Sera” as its background track. That song comes from Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” and is a reminder of a time when the movies routinely produced great songs.
9:16: Trevor Noah, who is actually African, comes onstage to introduce the “Black Panther” montage. He’s pretty funny on the overuse of the “Wokana Forever” salute.
9:16: Michael Keaton announces the Best Editing award, which goes to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” This is hardly deserved except that the actual shooting of the movie became a disaster when the pedophile director was removed half-way through production, so simply pulling together a coherent movie from that mess is an achievement. The winner turns out to be American — I think this is the first white American man — to win anything.
9:20: Daniel Craig and Charlize Theron are here. She doesn’t look particularly sexy in that gown. They are announcing Best Supporting Actor. Adam Driver deserves it but I bet even he hopes his name isn’t called because that would mean a white guy would have won one of the few awards for “BlackkKlansman.” Sam Elliott also deserves to win for making every straight guy cry during the driveway scene in “A Star is Born.” But the winner is Mahershala Ali again, which is also not a bad choice. I’m not sure what that hat is all about, though. If his head is cold maybe he should grow his hair back. Sweetly, he dedicates the Oscar to his grandmother, “who’s been in my ear my whole life.”
9:28: Laura Dern arrives to pay tribute to the Academy’s museum of movies in Hollywood. I’m really excited to visit, until I realize that it’s not even open yet. Given how they are squeezing people for time all night, I think we could have waited another year to see this self-loving video.
9:29: It’s time to announce Best Animated feature and here’s Pharrell Williams in short pants quoting First Corinthians (“When I was a child, I spoke as a child” etc) This sets up the false premise that these are kids movies, when they have multi-generational appeal. “Spider-man: Into The Spiderverse” is the very deserving winner, and up come two white dudes talking about diversity. Does every speech tonight have to be about some bigger issue?
9:32: I hated “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” especially the scene where title character sings “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings,” but when the composers perform it now as a traditional Country & Western song, it resonates a lot better than it did in the movie.
9:40: Here are Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey: They look pretty old but sound just like their “Wayne’s World” characters. It is entirely appropriate that they introduce the “Bohemian Rhapsody” montage since they did so much to keep Queen relevant when the band went out of style in the 1990s. And you know what? Watching this montage makes me mist up a little. The film definitely has a crude emotional power.
9:42: Awkwafina and John Mulaney come out to introduce a couple of short film categories and are both very funny. It’s occurring to me that the show doesn’t really need a host if they can string together some funny presenters. All the animated shorts revolve around heart-breaking stories of parents missing their kids when they grow up. Sniff. The winner is “Bao,” the creepy cannibal-themed short that was shown before “Incredibles 2.”
9:46: Awkwafina and Mulaney are back to announce short documentary. All the nominees are incredibly depressing and you have to wonder if two hilarious comedians are the best presenters for this. Maybe Sir Patrick Stewart would have been better. Anyway, the winner is “Period. End Of Sentence.” I never knew there was such an issue as “menstrual equality,” but my consciousness is now raised. This is a good reason not to shunt the short films into a different awards show — every year the winner of this category has a worthy cause to promote. (In this case it’s “A period should end a sentence not a girl’s education.”)
9:54: A couple of guys speaking a lot of Spanish come on to introduce the “Roma” montage. One of them is a chef so the introduction is laden with culinary references: “People of the world, each person’s lives is a recipe all on its own with different measures of joy and sadness. Struggle and success. Love and loss. The results are unique every time, even though all the ingredients are universal.” It’s sweet and the montage is a good reminder of how emotional the movie ultimately turns out to be.
9:56: Paul Rudd and Sarah Paulson are here to present “Best Visual Effects.” This really, really REALLY should be “First Man” and it is. Phew! There’s some grumbling on Twitter that this should go to a superhero movie but it’s a lot harder to show what it was actually like to be in a space capsule than it is to CGI the crap out of everything and create a fake world.
9:59: Here’s the moment everyone is waiting for. There isn’t even an introduction — just music playing when Lady Gaga and Bradly Cooper walk up the steps to sing “Shallow.” Cooper is performing as himself, i.e., not as Jackson Maine, so he uses his real voice, not that deep bass from the movie. The performance is great, of course, but deeply unsettling since they are acting like real lovers, with soulful stares and the whole nine yards. When Gaga hits the high notes, it’s a thrill but my wife points out that her throat is really straining against that $30 million Tiffany necklace. The song ends on an extreme close-up and thanks to my giant hi-def TV I can see every pore and wrinkle. There’s a huge standing ovation at the end but what’s the real relationship between these two? Twitter predicts that “Bradley Cooper is 100% sleeping on the sofa tonight.”
Hilariously, Dave Itzkoff then posts this photo on Twitter (thanks to my wife for sharing):
10:07: After all the Gaga/Cooper action I am too discombobulated to notice what’s next. Apparently it’s live action short. The winner is “Skin,” which I never heard of, but which is described on the Internet thusly: “In a small supermarket in a blue-collar town, a black man smiles at a white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment forces racial tensions to the breaking point and sends two gangs into a ruthless war.” This sounds depressing, but the winners are as exuberant as any Oscar winner ever. Maybe just short of James Cameron shouting “I’m on top of the world”
Do these people look like they just produced a movie about racism and violence?
10:09: Samuel L Jackson comes on stage to tell Spike Lee that the Knicks just won. And also to announce Original Screenplay. Weirdly, he’s giggling. In any event, the winner, announced by a very sour-looking Samuel L Jackson, is “Green Book.” Hmm. This is a very problematic win because the real-life family of a main character — the pianist Don Shirley — objects strenuously to how he was depicted in the movie. In any event Peter Farrelly calls out the entire state of Rhode Island, which delights my wife, who’s from there.
10:14: Jackson then awards the Best Adapted Screenplay to Spike Lee, who literally jumps into his arms. (I note for the record that for all the guff that “Green Book” received for bending the truth, no one took issue with the many factual liberties in the BlackkKlansman script.) Spike starts the speech vaguely incoherently and I first think he’s going off on a numerology tangent but it’s actually about how about slavery was introduced in Virginia 400 years years ago this year. My heart sinks when I see he’s reading from THREE pages of yellow legal paper but somehow he condenses it with the most overtly political remarks of the night. “The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize, let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing!” This eventually draws a Twitter response from the President (sigh.) Having said that, I do appreciate that there has been an effort tonight to keep the political commentary to a minimum. Maybe the Academy has woken up to the idea that half of America hates award shows because they feel insulted all the way through.
10:22: The Oscar for best original score goes to “Black Panther” and wait, the winner is a white guy? For “Black Panther”? I’m jealous of the luxuriantly flowing locks but maybe this would have been the right time for a man bun? And then we learn that this person is a college buddy of Ryan Coogler’s. Huh.
10:25: Wearing a great gown, Constance Wu announces the least surprising thing of the night: that the Best Original Song went to “Shallow.” Lady Gaga is crying and can barely make it up the stairs because she’s so overcome with emotion. “I worked hard for a long time. It’s not about winning, it’s about not giving up.” When she’s done they basically carry her off the stage.
10:29: Here comes the death montage. I guess this means we’re not going to get the usual special collection of clips illustrating how much movies have meant to us over the years. To make up for that, the roster of the recently departed seems longer than usual. They even honor a publicist, which makes me happy — in a somber way of course. There’s Burt Reynolds, Penny Marshall, William Goldman and Tab Hunter. Who’s left to get the closing position? It’s Albert Finney? Really?! In any event, this montage provides the most breathing room we’ve had all night. The presenters have raced through the awards and there’s been no fat in this show. But I kind of miss the old days, when Ellen brought in pizza for all the stars. It was dumb but humanizing and fun. BTW, what they should have done, death-wise, is show a montage for the most important person who died last year — Stan Lee. His superheros are what keep the studios afloat these days.
10:33: And then there’s a 60-second Hennessey ad produced by Ridley Scott. Scott, of course, created the iconic 1984 Apple Super Bowl ad and maybe the drinks-maker thought lightning would strike twice? Nope. I have no idea what I’m watching. Are they advertising chocolate brandy?
10:39: Barbra Streisand comes out by herself to introduce the “BlackkKlansman” montage. Of course she makes it all about her. She calls it Spike Lee’s masterpiece, which it’s not, and says it tells a story that is just as relevant today, which is extremely debatable.
10:42: Gary Oldman and Allison Janney present the Best Actor to Rami Malek. I would have given this to Bradley Cooper but am not upset by the outcome. Rami’s speech is completely under control and pretty eloquent. He compares himself to Freddy Mercury in that he was also the son of immigrants who struggled with his identity. Then he thanks his girlfriend (who, interestingly, played Freddy Mercury’s “girlfriend” — that’s weird). So maybe he didn’t struggle with his identity quite as much as Freddy Mercury did. In any event, Twitter is quick to announce that he’s the first actor of Arabic descent to win an Oscar, although I am also quick to note in response that Omar Sharif — also Egyptian and a major movie star in the 1960s — was nominated for “Lawrence of Arabia.” So let’s not overdo this identity stuff.
10:53: I am very surprised to see Congressman John Lewis introducing “Green Book.” This movie has been under attack all awards season for telling the story of 1960’s racial segregation through the eyes of a white driver. To have John Lewis out there saying that that “Green Book” accurately captured that period of American history (“It’s seared into my memory”) is really pulling out the big guns. Here’s my position on “Green Book”: Peter Farrelly probably thought he was doing everyone a favor by resurrecting the memory of Don Shirley and telling a feel-good story about how people can change and grow. If Farrelly were black there wouldn’t be any question about this movie. I find the whole question about cultural appropriation and who “owns” history really tiresome. On the other hand, I think this is just a B+ movie. It’s fine, but pretty old-fashioned and predictable, so although I understand the appeal, it’s not my favorite.
10:56: Time for Glenn Close’s coronation. Myself, I would have voted for Lady Gaga. I didn’t see “The Wife” but from what I can tell, Glenn Close does a lot of scenery-chewing ACTING. Clearly this is going to be her make-up award for 40 years of being shut out. So I’m as shocked as anyone when it’s Olivia Colman. What a boon for Netflix since she is going to be the star of “The Crown” for the next two seasons. Twitter jokes: Glenn Close but no cigar. Obviously everyone else is shocked too, including Colman. They sat her out in Siberia, not in the front row like Glenn Close, so it takes her a long time to make it to the stage. Her speech is hilarious and touching. She even apologizes to Glenn Close and shrieks in delight when she notices Lady Gaga. Next to the “Shallow” performance this is the high point of the night.
11:06: Best Director goes to Alphonso Cuaron, who makes the first reference of the night to Netflix. This is the fourth time Cuaron came to the stage tonight and he certainly deserved this win. “Roma” is definitely a masterpiece that people will be watching forever.
11:13: Here’s Julia Roberts, still looking great, to announce Best Picture. When she says the dreaded works “Green Book,” I screamed out loud and almost fell on the floor. I haven’t been so shocked since since Malcolm Butler intercepted a Seahawks pass to win the Super Bowl four years ago (that night I actually did fall on the floor from that same chair I’m sitting in now.) This is one of the worst Oscar wins in Academy Awards history and I have to think it was Hollywood veterans pushing back against all the politically correct criticism of the movie. Peter Farrelly comes back on stage to thank a lot of people, including Stephen Spielberg, who must be thinking, “hey, leave me out of this.” Twitter is ablaze with jokes about how they hope there was a “LaLa Land/Moonlight” type of mistake, but no luck. My mood is enhanced only by the cries of pain from progressive Twitter, who haven’t been so surprised since the 2016 election. When will they learn that cultural bullying creates a backlash?
11:17: Final remarks from Julia Roberts: “Thanks to Bradley Cooper’s mother and my children.” Amen.
Some final thoughts:
The lack of a host wasn’t really a problem but the show did feel rushed. I’d like to know how much time is devoted to commercials, which is the real reason the show has gotten so long.
The Academy obviously tried hard to overcome its reputation of being stodgy old coots. They added a lot new members of color and XX chromosome and had diverse presenters everywhere. If “Roma” had won, Hollywood would have been patting itself on the back for successfully navigating to a new generation of multi-cultural film-makers. Having “Green Book” beat “BlackkKlansman,” “Black Panther,” “If Beale Street Could Talk” and Roma” blew that out of the water. I guess we’ll have to wait another year for New Hollywood to put Old Hollywood out to pasture.
It’s possible that “Roma’s” real problem, in addition to being black and white and in Spanish, is that it’s a Netflix movie. Hollywood hates and fears Netflix, which is putting TV out of business and now apparently coming for film. Of course the company also creates many many jobs for Hollywood, so you’d expect the fear to be tempered somewhat with gratitude. But if Netflix becomes a major force in motion picture production it could change the whole way people interact with film. That’s scary and maybe the Academy is reacting to that. Or maybe they just have bad taste, which has been a problem for 90 years.
Really!!? 