Quick Oscars Reactions : How Dare They
The Academy Awards were last night and How dare the Academy Awards honor an 83 year old legend who put on his best performance of his life. How dare they put best actor last? It's not like even the director of the show has no idea who wins each award until the envelopes are opened
How dare the Oscars put on a solid show that was honestly just too calm and boring. Okay enough of that dumb bit. I have reached the point that I now miss long Oscars. They MUST bring back a full time host next year, and I really think they should go with a stand up who is outside the world of mainstream acting.
This is going to be a long quick blog reacting to the winners! On the the winners!
Best International Feature - Another Round
Absolutely adored this movie, honestly still pissed it did not get a Best Picture nomination
Best Production Design - Mank
Fits, Mank was classic Oscar bait and had the Hollywood story with personal story attached the academy had to fit it on the winners list somewhere
Best Sound - Sound of Metal
Ironic for the film, I was shocked Sound of Metal did not win more but THIS specifically was beautifully done
Best Film Editing - Sound of Metal
Like I said shocked it did not win more, winning both of these I assumed they would have won more down the line
Best Costume Design - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Easy win, happy they did not go Emma I said it last year how much longer can we be impressed with Victorian dress. This costume design was amazing specifically with Ma's design
Best Makeup and Hairstyling - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Another easy win, but I am partially happy the horror movie live action Pinocchio did not win
Best Cinematography - Mank
This is another fitting win, but shocking. Especially shocking knowing what other awards Nomadland won, this is probably the biggest mistake of the Oscars to me. Should have been Nomadland
Best Original Screenplay - Promising Young Woman
So happy for Emerald Fennell she seemed the most genuinely happy and shocked winner of the night. Though I am not looking forward to having a certain fanbase bragging about her winning and now writing / directing a movie that will more than likely never come out
Best Adapted Screenplay - The Father
Soul crunching movie, how dare you make me feel those feelings
Best Visual Effects - Tenet
Walk off win, the other nominations had zero chance in this category
Best Original Score - Soul
Was my prediction but I am not happy about it, still feel like this score could have been SO much better if Jon Batiste had more to do with the score but I am happy he got the main shine in the speech
Best Animated Feature - Soul
Pixar just wins this, I believe this is Pixar's 11th Best Animated Feature winner since they started in the 90's
Best Supporting Actress - Yuh-Jung Youn - "Minari"
Yuh-Jung Youn had one of the best speeches of the night slightly fawning over Brad Pitt just like everyone else, she was so deserving of this win I am very happy for her. Please watch this incredible story that really boils down to the American dream, Yuh-Jung Youn is such a delight in it
Best Actress - Frances McDormand "Nomadland"
Okay, I am not happy about this one. Genuinely shocked Viola did not win. Frances McDormand just is not for me, absolutely beautiful movie and she did an incredible job working primarily as the only other actual actor in the movie she did wonderfully. I am just disappointed because Viola Davis should have won this
Best Supporting Actor- Daniel Kaluuya "Judas and the Black Messiah"
Absolutely stunning performance, probably my favorite of all those nominated in any category. I had picked Leslie Odom Jr. based off previous wins and previous winners. This is the classic Oscars problem with he and LaKeith Stanfield were put together in this category where one should have been in lead. And in my opinion Daniel Kaluuya should have been in the Best Actor category where he would have won there as well
Best Actor - Anthony Hopkins "The Father"
This is the award that threw everyone in a tizzy, for whatever reason Steven Soderbergh (who directed this years Oscars) and the Academy decided to change the order to have Best Actor go last instead of Best Picture like it usually is. So many people were pissed of because they thought this meant SURELY Chadwick Boseman won and they are going to do a tribute send off for him to end the night.
Well, Anthony Hopkins won (deservingly) and due to him being an 83 year old man and IN Wales AND we are still dealing with Covid, he was not in attendance. What did the Academy do? They just said thank you and goodnight. Anticlimactic. They should have had some sort of video response ready by Hopkins, anything, supposedly Anthony Hopkins co-star and Academy Award winner herself Olivia Coleman was planned to come up and receive it on behalf of Anthony Hopkins but I guess plans change
Best Director - Chloe Zhao "Nomadland"
Chloe Zhao wow what a night for her and Nomadland, as the first woman of color and only the SECOND female director to ever win Best Director this was a big deal, but this is definitely no handout she really deserved this win
Best Picture - Nomadland
Nomadland "won" the night winning the most categories with three, but not just any three, winning Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress is a HUGE deal. Please watch and enjoy this beautiful film. My qualm here is if the Academy loved Nomadland so much, then why did it not win Best Cinematography like it was favored to do so?
Extra Thoughts For Free:
Something was off this year it was a very clean cut Oscars but the production was boring, it looked like a fancy jazz / comedy club you would see in a movie about the 60s-70s but with zero comedy or jazz. Bring back the performances, the clips, and most importantly A HOST. One singular host moving the show throughout the night is important, it is important that it is in a theater aesthetically, and just more of a big event. Glenn Close shaking her butt was the only lively moment of the night.
A main thought I keep having looking back on it was maybe it had to do with how the voting is segmented by categories, but this really felt like an everyone gets a trophy event I mean look at the film wins list
Nomadland - 3
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - 2
The Father - 2
Soul - 2
Mank - 2
Sound of Metal - 2
Judas and the Black Messiah - 1
Minari - 1
Tenet - 1
Promising Young Woman - 1
Another Round - 1
It is like they were trying to get all of the Best Picture nominees at least one and Trial of the Chicago 7 just got hung out to dry. But the way I am choosing to look at it is this, the 2020 movie season was filled with SO many amazing movies that one or two could not pull away from the pack to nab up more awards. All of the winners were deserving, just no one movie stood out among the rest to the Academy *cough Sound of Metal cough*
For those #HLSBets bettors at home we hit 9 right and made a sweet chunk of change, here was the prediction blog if you missed out