I have to think that’s what happened. The Academy banked on Boseman, Anthony Hopkins didn’t expect to win so he just sent a headshot, and everyone gets to share that numb, flat “huh” feeling together. If nothing else, it does seem to indicate that the results really are secret right up until that envelope is opened on… Read more
Katie Rife
katierife
Katie Rife is senior writer of The A.V. Club. She co-hosts the A.V. Club's film podcast Film Club, and is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.
It’s interesting that this year’s Oscars skipped the clips for the acting categories in particular. You can sometimes spot which scene in an especially awards-thirsty movie is the “Oscars clip,” which makes me wonder if that particular balloon was being popped intentionally.
Announcing Best Picture before the acting awards really took the air out of the ceremony, and ending this year on an “and the Academy accepts the award on his behalf” made it even more anticlimactic.
Frances McDormand isn’t wrong about the karaoke bar. This is her third Oscar win, and she doesn’t seem to put that much importance on any of them, so appropriate that she kept it short and jokey. She already howled, what else is there to add?
I’ve gone on the record many times naming Nomadland as my No. 1 film of 2020, so to see it win Best Picture feels—to make it about me—like a validation. I also expected it, frankly; this film has been unstoppable ever since it premiered at Venice last September.
Me neither!
Another interesting format change is that normally, the Best Picture clips would be spread out throughout the evening, Here, we’re getting them all at once.
Jinx, Dowd! This might be the biggest shakeup of the entire evening!
wait...what?????
Oh, that’s possible, Dowd. I hadn’t thought of that. I figured we were getting pretty close to the top of the hour, so they were moving things along.
Even the In Memoriam is efficient this year.
As far as manufactured delight goes, I’ll take Glenn Close spouting facts about go-go music.
Well, I’m going to make it even more about you, and say that I am looking forward to seeing Summer Of Soul after reading your Sundance coverage.
This is a good category to include clips—it really does help to have a multimedia element for a music category, and plenty of viewers (like me and Dowd) will tune in to the main broadcast but not the pre-show, to which the performances of this year’s Best Original Song nominees were relegated this year. (I assume that…
He’s really trying his best to get everyone’s names right.
So, in your predictions piece, you had the acting awards at this year’s Oscars following the SAGs, Dowd. You’re two for two. Do you think Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman are a lock, then? I’d bet Boseman, at least, will win.
The prospect of a Nomadland Best Picture win recedes in my mind for each of these crafts awards it doesn’t win. Considering the movie was made in the back of a van, the quality of the images in that film was astounding and I would have liked to see it win Best Cinematography.
I’d call this an upset, but Youn Yuh-jung also won the BAFTA and SAG awards for her performance in Minari, so she’s been gaining momentum leading up to tonight. Her acceptance speech is a delight, however—if you’re standing 15 feet from Brad Pitt, you have to shoot your shot, even if you’re 73—and of the two veteran… Read more
Brad Pitt is a noted fan of the 1968 kaiju punch-out Destroy All Monsters, for the record. He says it’s the movie that made him want to become an actor.
I would love to see pictures of a young Steven Yeun and his mom going to see Terminator 2.