AN ANONYMOUS ACADEMY MEMBER: John Bailey, we have a problem.
JOHN BAILEY: What? (bored out of his mind)
AN ANONYMOUS ACADEMY MEMBER: Not only did we upset many film fans by excluding live action short, makeup, cinematography and film editing awards, firing Kevin Hart as host, and adding a popular film category, but guess what?
JOHN BAILEY: (speaking so tirelessly and cranky, too) What?
AN ANONYMOUS ACADEMY MEMBER: We literally nominated not one, but two films for Best Picture that got mixed reviews from both critics and audiences alike.
JOHN BAILEY: Can you help me? (Reaching for his pill) I need to remember them.
AN ANONYMOUS ACADEMY MEMBER: God bless it, Bailey. Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice.
JOHN BAILEY: Well, then. I guess we need to be more consistent with choosing movies for the better. (Walks out of his office and plays Alice Cooper’s “How You Gonna See Me Now? on his pretentious iPod.)
AN ANONYMOUS ACADEMY MEMBER: (Gleefully in pure joy) Now is the time to nominate more movies and go back to where we started from 9 years ago. To nominate 10!
Well, alright. This is a purified and natural example of why the Oscars need to stick to their true guts: nominate more quality and honorable films.
On the other hand, the 91st Academy Awards ceremony on the other hand in my opinion wasn’t even that great. It was average at best. Not only do I miss the usual host of the ceremony, but also the referencing of repetitive politics, a surprisingly bad “Best Picture” presentation, and me wishing that Jimmy Kimmel was there (despite his awful politic humor) prevented it from being all that good.
There are very deserving aspects about this show despite being average at best.
I was massively excited about “Black Panther” winning 3 Oscars where it marks in Oscar history as Marvel Studios’ first Oscar wins which were for Production Design, Costume Design (first for Ruth E. Carter), and Original Score (by the amazing Ludwig Goransson). That gave me hope when the film was going to upset for Best Picture.
The performances of “Shallow” by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings”, “I’ll Fight”, and “The Place Where Lost Things Go” were all very well-assembled as well as the “In Memoriam” segment.
Mahershala Ali, one of the best actors working today, well-deservedly won his second Oscar for his amazing portrayal in without question the best part of “Green Book”, pianist Don Shirley.
The Oscar for Best Visual Effects went to “First Man” because of their reputation of giving the award last year to another Ryan Gosling-vehicle, “Blade Runner 2049”. I was still happy then even though “Avengers: Infinity War” or “Ready Player One” should have won.
Regina King obviously deserved the award for Best Supporting Actress in Barry Jenkins’ beautiful “If Beale Street Could Talk”. Even though Rachel Weisz in “The Favourite” could have upset King.
Another obvious win would be the outrageous make-up of Dick Cheney from “Vice” that was a dead lock from the start. The same can be said with the deserved wins for “Shallow” winning Best Original Song, Pixar’s “Bao” won Best Animated Short Film, and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” rightfully deserving Best Animated Feature Film (God, I was getting nervous about that potential loss).
I was very happy to see “Free Solo” win Best Documentary Feature over “RBG” because of honoring a Supreme Court legend as well as politics even though the missing of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” is an absolute disgrace I cannot even process through my mind yet.
I absolutely loved Guillermo Del Toro (winner of “The Shape of Water” last year for Director and Picture) presenting the Best Director award where he told that each and every one of the nominees will be remembered from time to time. He gave it to his fellow Mexican filmmaker, Alfonso Cuaron for his stunning work on “Roma”, which also won for its Cinematography and being awarded as the Best Foreign Language Film of the year for Mexico (the country’s first Oscar BTW).
Here is where I am going to be like Anger from “Inside Out”…….
Let me start off right away that the Best Picture presentation absolutely was a huge, colossal letdown. You can tell it was bad when Julia Roberts questioned the pit orchestra with waving her hand towards Rickey Minor and an “Oh.” for probably the most important ingredient of the presentation.
That would be a timpani drum roll when the presenter opens the envelope.
At least when Tom Cruise presented the Best Picture award to “The Artist” back in 2012, it was properly staged well and was expected.
For god’s sake, the race for Best Picture was so nerve-wrecking this year where any film out of the “eight” could potentially win other than “Vice”.
Then finally, let me get to the nitty gritty of the Best Picture award, which in a jolted surprise, “Green Book” took the big prize (not to forget it won for Best “Original” Screenplay).
I understand that it is a film about a relationship between a white man and an African-American traveling through the deep South, but despite being a good movie, it was about RACE!! Along with homosexuality, those are some of the Oscars’ favorite topics to cover lately. Well, to fix that, they covered race for such a long time.
I also do understand that it was on my top 10 best films of last year on my blog, but I am absolutely sorry. My opinion has changed. “Green Book” is an undeserving film to win Best Picture making it out to be a well-made and acted film that acts like an live-action cartoon in the first 30 minutes. Mahershala stole the show and made it out to be the good film that it is.
Don’t worry. I am not going how Justin Chang did where he compared the film to Paul Haggis’ “Crash” as the worst Best Picture winner since that film.
It was just so close where the Academy can change their game to give “Black Panther” its award to make potential history as the first super hero film to win Best Picture. “Black Panther” is more than a superhero film. It is a gladiator-style epic about race that reigns the inspiration of “Ben-Hur” and coincidentally, Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator”.
Even Spike Lee was infuriating with livid emotion when he kind of acted like a kid having a temper tantrum and walked out of the Dolby Theatre when “Green Book” won. You know why? Because his film “Do the Right Thing” (his best movie) back in 1990 was nominated with another film with someone driving involving white and black races, “Driving Miss Daisy” (a presumably much better film than “Green Book”).
That shows he knows good stuff.
Speaking of Spike Lee, who is a better filmmaker than Peter Farrelly BTW, his film “BlacKkKlansman” was also up for a potential Best Picture win since it nabbed a win for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Boy, did Samuel L. Jackson go crazy on him.
“BlacKkKlansman” is such a brilliant, rousing work of art about the battle of white and black Ku Klux Klans. It also showcases such an important story about Ron Stallworth being the first black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department. I consider it to be his best since “Malcolm X” where it brings such a sensitive, crucial political commentary people will remember coming out of the theater.
It just also shows that it is sad that the Academy does not learn anything about awarding Best Picture where they could have picked Yorgos Lanthimos’ darkly comic film “The Favourite”, Alfonso Cuaron’s cinematography-heavy “Roma”, or Bradley Cooper’s absolutely stunning directorial debut “A Star is Born.”
Just do not nominate something like “Vice” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” ever again. They won’t even be remembered from time to time.
The next stop on Cliche Academy Boulevard I have to discuss is none other than Queen and their biopic that won “the most awards of the night” which would be “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
I am so ungratefully sorry. That film did not need to win any of its awards, especially for Best Film Editing. Anyone would check out at the library for an encyclopedic book on how to edit a film or even to purchase at “Barnes & Noble” will never see “Bohemian Rhapsody” as a prime example on the clear dusk of day.
Let me tell you. I would be so glad that “Vice” won because the best part of that movie was Hank Corwin’s imaginative editing he incorporated.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” showcases typical editing you would see in a typical-mainstream movie you would see from any major studio possible. John Ottman is no Thelma Schoonmaker (film editor of most of Scorsese’s films).
I would give the sound mixing and editing awards to “A Star Is Born” and “A Quiet Place” respectively because both films redefined the locations people were in like how in the opening scene where Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) amps his guitar up to 1,000 volts when playing “Black Eyes” as well as in “A Quiet Place” where Emily Blunt’s character was suffering in a bath tub.
I can both see and understand why “Bohemian Rhapsody” won because of one scene which is during the end when Queen is playing in front of a uproarious crowd at the Live-Aid concert.
But that is just one scene though.
Finally, Rami Malek did not need to win Best Actor. It should have gone to Bradley Cooper playing the drug-addicted rock star, Jackson Maine in “A Star is Born”. He was out of his character. His characteristic decisions are deeply effective. His singing and guitar playing is authentic as you would see Jimi Hendrix in Woodstock. He truly speaks what a Best Actor award performance symbolizes.
The problem with Rami Malek winning is that he for sure portrayed Freddie Mercury so well. It just came off as too safe for a biopic unlike “Walk the Line” where it went into deeper directions compared to a one-and-done biopic like “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
But what matters to the Academy? The fake teeth matter to them. That is why Meryl Streep won for playing Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” and that is also why Rami Malek won for “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Before I move on, the opening performance of the now-Americanized Queen still sounds very Americanized with a decent singing performance by Adam Lambert in the mix although it was nice to see both Brian May and Roger Taylor in the line-up.
You can’t beat Freddie, boys.
Another depressing thing that the Academy did in this ceremony would be Glenn Close losing her award for her phenomenal performance as Joan Castleman in “The Wife” to Olivia Colman’s insanely amazing performance as an ill Queen Anne.
It seemed that Glenn Close had her huge overdue-Oscar moment coming up when Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell (winners of Actress and Supporting Actor respectively last year for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) both opened the envelope where Frances with an underwhelming mindset said “Olivia Colman.”
Glenn Close played such a strong, logical, and brutally honest character in “The Wife” and also paired so perfectly with Jonathan Pryce that I can say is her best since “Fatal Attraction” back in 1987.
It makes me wonder also in my mind that what will be the next Oscar-worthy performance of Glenn Close’s career? Many people might say it will be a musical adaptation of the classic Billy Wilder film, “Sunset Boulevard”, where she will join Al Pacino and Geraldine Page in the eighth-nomination club since they won their first win when they simply had their eighth nomination.
Now, let’s get to the basics.
A lot of people say that having no host is actually really amazing, which I can respectfully agree and disagree on. I would mostly disagree because every second of this year’s ceremony, I kind of missed Jimmy Kimmel. I was so anticipating Whoopi Goldberg to take the stage wearing Freddie Mercury’s Queen costume like she did wearing the costumes of “Velvet Goldmine” and “Shakespeare in Love” back in the 1999 ceremony. But of course, it didn’t happen.
The actual look of the ceremony compared to last year looked very low-budgeted and cheap (even with a HUGE amount of real red roses) where both the 89th and 90th Oscar ceremonies looked so epic, eventful and audacious. The producing by Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss (also director) could have been so much better where it felt weak and wussy from the start of the show. Glenn Weiss even directed the last three ceremonies and it fit the tone of the Oscar night.
It is kind of sad to see him be part of this cheap college-looking project.
The orchestral arrangement by Rickey Minor (of “American Idol” and Whitney Houston fame) seemed very mediocre at best compared to composers like Harold Wheeler, William Ross, and Bill Conti, where they evoked a lot of glory and style in their orchestra during the ceremony. When Rickey Minor told the orchestra to play Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” or Don Shirley’s “The Lonesome Road” from “Green Book”, it just seemed too unfitting for an Oscar night.
Last but not least, some of the presenters and winner speeches absolutely blew. An example would be when Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph made a dry host-replacement introduction to the night (which would work very well next time the Oscars don’t have a host) as well as presenting Best Supporting Actress.
The absolute worst part of this is not just the politic references, but also MAYA RUDOLPH!! Dear god! Not only did she look really ugly, but also most of her joke deliveries were just plain awkward and bland as usual like in her movies.
The worst winner speech right on par with the introduction would none other than be the people that won the Oscar for the Documentary Short Subject, “Period: End of Sentence.” with the director of the short, Rayka Zehtabchi belting out her inner woman self, “I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar!”.
Overall, compared to the last two years, the Oscar ceremony was very disappointing for me as a film fan wishing that we had a host and that “Black Panther” can reign the Oscar for Best Picture instead of a one-and-done race-friendship film like “Green Book”. Hire a non-political host and get glamorous and stylish with the sets. Do better, Academy.
Grade: 5/10
