A Fittingly Predictable End to Awards Season: A Review of the 90th Annual Academy Awards
“How were the Oscars?”
I get this question every year the day after the ceremony and am never quite sure how to answer it. Are people asking if I thought the Academy made the right choices with the winners? Or are they asking if I thought the telecast itself succeeded as entertainment? These are two very different questions and ones I will answer in turn below.
My Take on the Winners
Anyone who read my previous blog where I previewed the key races can surmise that none of the major wins surprised me. The only category I did not call correctly was Best Original Screenplay, which I thought the Academy would give to Three Billboards’ scribe Martin McDonagh over Jordan Peele, who won for Get Out. Although I would have preferred to see Greta Gerwig take that award (her masterful Lady Bird went home empty-handed), Peele was a worthy winner. His movie was innovative, crowd-pleasing, critically acclaimed, and initiated a national conversation. The screenplay was objectively worthy of recognition regardless of who wrote it, but the win is undeniably sweetened (and made historic) by the fact that he is the first black writer to ever win the award.
The one category I thought might have an upset was Best Picture, but — as I predicted — it went to The Shape of Water. That film was overall the big winner of the night, winning the top award and three additional ones (Best Director for Guillermo Del Toro, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score.) Overall, I was a fan of the film and consider it a worthy winner. I thought Del Toro succeeded at ambitiously blending the science fiction, romance, comedy, thriller, historical drama, and even musical genres into a surprisingly coherent film. But outside of its technical achievements, I was moved by the story. Although I never was fully convinced by protagonist Elisa falling fast and hard for the aquatic creature being held captive in the research laboratory where she swept the floors, I found the other relationships to be deeply moving and relatable. I particularly enjoyed that the film was so sharply focused on societal outcasts — their longings, their courage, and their connection with one another. In contrast with the All-American villain played by Michael Shannon, the four protagonists are a mute janitor (nominee Sally Hawkins), her black coworker (nominee Octavia Spencer), her gay neighbor (nominee Richard Jenkins), and a Soviet scientist (Michael Stuhlbarg) living in 1962 Baltimore. The film has received it’s fair share of criticism, even from fans of the Mexican auteur’s previous work (most notably 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth). There have been complaints about the plot (one individual made a comparison to Free Willy), the pacing (saying that it lacked the enthralling pace a Best Picture nominee should have), and its treatment of women. Although it is the first Best Picture nominee since 2004’s Million Dollar Baby to have a woman in the lead role, it nevertheless has been criticized for its depiction of female sexuality through a decidedly male gaze and being insensitive in its portrayal of sexual harassment and abuse. I am open to these criticisms and plan to reevaluate the film in the future, but I did not find them to be detractors upon my first view. As such, I consider it a worthy winner — even if it was not my top choice.
The other big winner in the major categories was Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri. As expected, it took home Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor for Frances McDormand (her second win in the category following 1996’s Fargo) and Sam Rockwell, respectively. Although they were each my last choice in the respective categories, I can understand the appeal of their performances and am relieved that the film did not take the Best Original Screenplay or Best Picture awards. It is not that I think it was a truly bad film. It is often riveting, contains some wickedly sharp dialogue, and has moments of real power. But ultimately it did not cohere for me and I could not get past what I perceived to be three key flaws. First, the screenplay felt wildly unfocused. It crammed in issues including (but not limited to) sexual violence, police brutality, criminal justice, racism, misogyny, domestic abuse, terminal illness, religious hypocrisy, and height discrimination without ever really saying much about any of them. Second, the characters felt inauthentic to me. It seemed obvious in almost every scene that the film was written by an upper class foreigner (screenwriter and director Martin McDonagh hails from London) with no real idea of what life is actually like for people of diverse backgrounds living in a place like Ebbing, Missouri. And third, the film’s climax (or lack thereof) felt wildly unsatisfying to me. I will be purposefully vague to avoid spoilers, but the ending involves no resolution to key storylines and the redemption of characters that had no business being redeemed. Perhaps I will feel differently when I revisit it in the future, but it left me very cold.
The remaining two acting categories went to Gary Oldman for hamming it up as legendary British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Allison Janney’s ferocious scenery chewing as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding’s abusive mother. Both actors are undeniably worthy of acclaim and their respective performances were very nuanced and entertaining. However, as a whole the four Oscar winners exemplify a longstanding problem with the Oscars — they often mistake most acting for best acting. The loudest and most extravagant performances more often than not triumph over the subtler and more nuanced ones. My pick for this year’s four acting categories — Lady Bird’s Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, Call Me By Your Name’s Timothee Chalamet, and The Shape of Waters’ Richard Jenkins — all gave much quieter performances that I found to be more challenging and more affecting.
There were a few other notable wins, described below:
- With his win for Best Director, Guillermo Del Toro became the fourth Mexican man to win Best Director in the past five years (Alfonso Cuaron won for 2013’s Gravity and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu won for 2014’s Birdman and 2015’s The Revenant.)
- 89-year-old James Ivory became the oldest Oscar winner in history when he won Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Call Me By Your Name.
- After thirteen consecutive losses dating back to his first nomination in 1994 for The Shawshank Redemption, cinematographer Roger Deakins finally won an Oscar for Blade Runner 2049.
- With his win for Best Original Song for “Remember Me” from the Pixar film Coco, Robert Lopez became the only person ever to win more than one Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. That’s right, he double EGOT-ed. For comparison’s sake, only eleven other people have ever managed to win one of each (Richard Rodgers, Helen Hayes, Rita Moreno, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, Marvin Hamlisch, Jonathan Tunick, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Whoopi Goldberg, and Scott Rudin).
- In perhaps the year’s most embarrassing win, Dear Basketball triumphed in Best Animated Feature. Most folks I know who have seen all the shorts (I haven’t), said it was clearly the weakest of the lot and many in the media have criticized the decision to give NBA superstar Kobe Bryant an Oscar in the wake of the resurfaced rape accusations against him.
- Best Foreign Language Film went to the acclaimed Chilean drama A Fantastic Woman, which is the first Oscar win for a film featuring a transgender lead character actually portrayed by a transgender performer (Daniele Vega plays Marina, a woman coping with the loss of her partner.) And notably, this landmark occurred just one year after Moonlight became the first Best Picture winner ever with an LGBT protagonist.
My Take on the Show
The Host. Jimmy Kimmel proved an affable host in his second consecutive turn. The late night host has come a long way since his start on Comedy Central’s The Man Show, an ode to toxic masculinity that would find it hard to survive in the #TimesUp era. He has proven himself a reliably funny comedian, a strong interviewer, and a champion for social progress. His jokes were fairly predictable, as he covered the criminal behavior of Harvey Weinstein and his fellow sexual predators, the bigotry of the Trump administration, the self-congratulatory nature of the awards, Christopher Plummer being old, the ceremony being too long, the failure of the Academy to embrace movies that are popular with audiences, and his hatred of Matt Damon (a long-running shtick of his). Although few of the jokes were particularly memorable, most landed well enough and he proved himself a competent if unspectacular host.
The Presenters. As always the presenters were a mixed bag. On one end of the spectrum there was the painfully strained “humor” of the Star Wars: The Last Jedi cast’s appearance. On the other end, there was the inspired, bawdy, high energy humor of Girls Trip breakout Tiffany Haddish and Saturday Night Live veteran Maya Rudolph (who until last night I somehow didn’t realize was married to revered auteur Paul Thomas Anderson). The show nicely highlighted some true film legends, most notably Eva Marie Saint (the 93-year-old Oscar winning star of On the Waterfront and North by Northwest) and Rita Moreno (the 86-year old Oscar winning star of West Side Story who herself is one of the 12 EGOT recipients). Both of their appearances added grace and gravitas to the proceedings. There were also some amusing moments with Sandra Bullock (whose appearance was inexplicably relentlessly teased at each commercial break for three hours) and Oscar winners Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence, who teamed up to present the Best Actress Oscar (taking over duties for Casey Affleck, who bowed out due to his resurfaced sexual harassment allegations). But ultimately, it felt like there was a distinct lack of star power. I mean, I love Jennifer Garner more than almost anyone (I was a diehard fan of her ABC spy series Alias), but was she the biggest and most relevant star they could have had introduce the In Memoriam section?
The Musical Numbers. The performances of the nominees for Best Original Song were a bit more ambitious than previous years, but the results were uneven. Mary J. Blige (who became the first person to be nominated for acting and songwriting in the same year for Mudbound) provided a soaring rendition of her track “A Mighty River.” She was equally matched for sheer power by Keala Settle who performed the anthem “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman, as well as Andra Day and Common who teamed up for the rousing “Stand Up For Something” from Marshall. The other two were a bit less successful. Sufjan Stevens’s performance of “Mystery of Love” from Call Me By Your Name was mostly memorable for his suit jacket that needs to be seen to be believed. And the performance of eventual winner “Remember Me” from Coco was a mess. It started with the strained vocals of actor Gael Garcia Bernal and then progressed into a gaudy celebration of Mexican stereotypes that detracted from the strong vocal performances of Miguel and Natalie LaFourcade. The only musical performance of the night that wasn’t related to the Best Original Song category was Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder’s Tom Petty cover during the In Memoriam section, which I found to be utterly forgettable.
The Montages. Even though the show ran 3 hours and 50 minutes (making it the 12th longest ceremony in the 90 year history of the awards), the producers still felt there was plenty of time for montages. I thoroughly enjoyed the montages that preceded each acting award showcasing the classic performances that had previously won in the respective category. I was less enthusiastic, however, about the others. There was the lengthy and overly broad one that seemed to only have the theme that “A lot of memorable movies came out in the past 90 years.” And then there was the ode to the military. Those serving our country deserve a tribute and the selection of Wes Studi to introduce it was inspired. (The Cherokee actor has appeared in Oscar-winning films like Dances with Wolves and Avatar and himself is a Veteran of the U.S. military.) However, I’m not sure if a collection of fairly bloody combat scenes from past films (many of which were profusely anti-war) was the best way to do that.
The Speeches. During his monologue, Jimmy Kimmel made a naked plea for actors to make their speeches memorable, awkwardly encouraging them to highlight social issues. Only a few actually followed his request, with few speeches rousing genuine passion or courting any controversy. The only person who fully embraced Kimmel’s instruction was Frances McDormand, whose used her speech to call for greater inclusivity in the film industry. It was alternatively admirable in its message and somewhat off-putting in its delivery, but at least it was impossible to look away from. On the lighter side, Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney successfully landed hilarious one-liners in their speeches.
The Skit. Over the last few years, the ceremony has made appeals to us common people, either by proving the stars are just like us (past hosts Ellen DeGeneres and Chris Rock handed out food because stars get hungry just like normal people!) or actually incorporating regular people into the ceremony (see Jimmy Kimmel’s tour bus prank last year). This year Kimmel corralled a bevy of stars (including Mark Hamill, Lupita Nyong’o, Margot Robbie, and Armie Hammer) across the street to the Chinese Theater to surprise moviegoers. I thought it was cute, appropriately brief, and an improvement over prior stunts, but it still felt quite forced and at this point the shtick is quite predictable.
As I wrote this post, the overnight ratings came in and revealed that last night’s telecast hit an all-time low viewership of 26.5 million viewers (down 19% from the 2017 telecast). These are still big numbers compared to most programs on television and they reflect a general decline across all live programs (including fellow award shows, Olympics, and all non-Super Bowl football games), but it is nevertheless concerning for the Academy and ABC (which has a contract to air the ceremony in perpetuity). Perhaps the turn was due to a lack of passion for the nominated films (although Get Out, Dunkirk, and Coco were undeniable blockbusters). Maybe it was the lack of star power (sure there were A-listers there, but no one’s appearances created a lot of media buzz). Or maybe many film lovers were like me and had trouble getting too excited because they saw this year’s winners coming from a mile away.
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