Just According to Keikaku - 90th Academy Awards Recap + Final Awards Season Thoughts
IT’S OFFICIAL. MEXICANS HAVE TAKEN OVER. pic.twitter.com/8ErAG1Iegv
- Laura Martínez ®️ (@miblogestublog) March 5, 2018
There are three things you should learn by reading this post about the 90th Academy Awards: Keikaku means plan (in Japanese), Saoirse Ronan's name is pronounced sur-shah (or seer-shah) and not sow-ars, and you can win a Jet Ski but you can't take Helen Mirren with you, at least that was what the host Jimmy Kimmel said in his opening monologue. Apart from that, the highest prize of 2017-released movies has opened its doors after all the other awards taking place this Awards Season. After an exciting start of the journey in Golden Globes, the climax has decided who won the categories, and who took the biggest prize of all: the Best Picture.
The talking point has been always between Three Billboards and The Shape of Water, with both movies winning their fair share of awards since the first mentioned award show. The two movies have excelled an array of categories, with the former's wins strengths lied in its directorial and technical wins, while the latter within its casting ensemble and parts in the technicality. While Three Billboards managed to snatch Best Picture in Critics' Choice Awards, the Oscars may paint a much different picture, making things not as predictable as it is in the Best Picture front. Some also pointed out that names like Get Out or Lady Bird winning the category would be a big upset with their unique strengths. Other than that, the fact that whether the winners from the past awards prior to the Oscars, from Golden Globes to BAFTAs, would shape the eventual winners' roster in the award was also a discussion as well.
Live at the Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles, California, the fates of all the categories have been decided at that night, and the law of the victory has been set.
THE WINNERS
Click to viewJimmy Kimmel opened the show with his usual witty monologue which referenced last year's infamous gaffe, the history of the Academy as well as the Oscar statue, the problem with women in Hollywood as well as the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the sexual harassment issues, the success of recent movies like Black Panther and Wonder Woman, history-making nominees, the reshoot controversy involving Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams, and the rest of this year's award contenders, before giving the history lesson of the first Oscars ceremony and introducing a new spin to the ceremony: the Jet Ski, given for the category winner with the shortest speech time. It was actually a play on the "Oscars too long" joke, as the awards is notoriously known for being a lengthy affair. The host referenced the fact that the first Oscars ceremony lasted 15 minutes from beginning to end, with people still complaining about the duration beforehand during the history lesson.
Sam Rockwell of Three Billboards scored his win and the first for the movie as the first category of the night, being Supporting Actor, was presented, following a series of technical categories; Darkest Hour won for Makeup and Hair (Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, and Lucy Sibbick)
), Phantom Thread won for Costume Design (Mark Bridges), Dunkirk won both Sound Editing (Alex Gibson and Richard King) and Sound Mixing (Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker, and Gary A. Rizzo), and The Shape of Water for Production Design (Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin and Shane Vieau). The Supporting Actress followed after with the award went to I, Tonya's Allison Janney.
GET OUT wins Best Original Screenplay! pic.twitter.com/i5gpW5pOjX
- BuzzFeed Community (@BuzzFeeders) March 5, 2018
I just won an Oscar. WTF?!?
- Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) March 5, 2018
The award continued with Animated Feature in which Disney Pixar's Coco, created by Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson, won the category, successfully completing their wins from Golden Globes. Blade Runner 2049 edged out Critics Choice's Best Visual Effects winner War for the Planet of the Apes in Visual Effects courtesy of joint efforts from John Nelson, Paul Lambert, Richard R. Hoover, and Gerd Nefzer, before going for the second win in Cinematography courtesy of Roger Deakins. Later on, two Screenplay categories were presented, with Call Me By Your Name scoring its win number one in for Adapted Screenplay and the same for Get Out in Original Screenplay, successfully beating out Three Billboards's Martin McDonagh. The wins were courtesy of James Ivory and Jordan Peele respectively. Peele's victory marked the first Black writer to win for Original Screenplay.
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty take to the stage for a second chance at the Best Picture Oscar announcement. #Oscars #Oscars90 pic.twitter.com/DTNT2rK8ql
- Vogue Australia (@vogueaustralia) March 5, 2018
The Shape of Water's Alexandre Desplat scored another win for the movie with Original Score win, while Coco's "Remember Me", performed by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, narrowed out another favorite of "This Is Me" of The Greatest Showman fame in the Original Song category, earning the Disney Pixar movie its second win of the night and successfully becoming the first person to double EGOT with two Grammies, three Tonys, and three Emmys in addition to his second Oscars. Guillermo del Toro successfully defend another Best Director title this season following the win in the same category, bringing the movie's win count into three which put itself as the potential big winner of the night. Gary Oldman and Frances McDormand won both Lead Actor and Lead Actress categories respectively, with the final category, being Best Picture, the only one remaining. The Shape of Water emerged victorious, beating out its close rival Three Billboards in the race.
During commercial break, Guillermo Del Toro came right back to his seat after winning best director #Oscars. He was greeted by standing ovation, fellow nominee Greta Gerwig. So cool 🙌🏻 #oscars pic.twitter.com/KQFfKxUsT7
- Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) March 5, 2018
Coming with Best Picture victory, The Shape of Water also collected the most wins for the night and successfully become the night's big winner, being four wins, with Dunkirk following behind with three wins, and a couple of movies with two wins, including Three Billboards, Coco, and Blade Runner 2049. Other notable wins include Chile's A Fantastic Woman for Best Foreign Film which also marked the first win for its transgender woman lead Daniela Vega, Glen Keane and famed basketball athlete Kobe Bryant's Dear Basketball for Animated Short, and Icarus by Bryan Fogel and Dan Cogan for Best Documentary Feature (also first ever for Netflix), telling the story of the Russian doping scandal in sports. The complete list of winners can be seen here.
This was not your average screening of #WrinkleInTime... #Oscars @GalGadot @AnselElgort @MargotRobbie @HamillHimself @RealGDT #EmilyBlunt @Lupita_Nyongo @ArmieHammer @Lin_Manuel @IamGuillermo @ChineseTheatres pic.twitter.com/CdpwRO6NS0
- Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) March 5, 2018
The ceremony also provided some of the entertaining scenes on stage, like the 93 year old actress Eva Marie Saint, older than the Academy, presenting the Best Costume Design and took the time to throw some throwback to the rose-covered dress she wore in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 film North by Northwest, which also featured Cary Grant. There were others like a cute moment involving Oscar Isaac and the BB8, and Jodie Foster played her skiing injury with a dialogue in which Meryl Streep "I, Tonya-ed her," referencing the Tonya Harding biographical movie starring Margot Robbie to Jennifer Lawrence. She replied with "no, it's cool. You know, she tripped me once." The best surprise actually came from the screening of A Wrinkle in Time, where Jimmy Kimmel, along with a band of star-studded performers which included Guillermo del Toro, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Lupita Nyong'o visited the movie's screening at Chinese Theatres.
Another big moment of the night also went to Frances McDormand, the Lead Actress winner, who asked the women nominees in the room to stand up while delivering an empowering speech to the audiences. McDormand also gave one big revelation in the form of the 'inclusion rider', a contractual clause for actors to ensure gender and racial equality in the work environment. Explaining further, McDormand also found out about the 'inclusion rider' last week prior to the ceremony, and learned that after 35 years of working in the industry, there's no going back. The inclusion rider is set to be the game-changer in the industry, giving the way for a diverse and inclusive environment in filmmaking.
Mark Bridges, suited up for a ride, with Helen Mirren. (Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images via The Verge)
Finally, with his short acceptance speech, Phantom Thread's costume designer Mark Bridges won the green Jet Ski. Despite the temptations, many don't seem to opt for the competition, like Roger Deakins who joked "I guess I better say something, or else they’ll give me a Jet Ski, and I don’t see myself on a Jet Ski somehow" before beginning his speech, and Sam Rockwell fumbled out his speech notes while saying that he wants to "get that ski jet or whatever that was" before it. The moment Bridges and Helen Mirren were carted out onstage on the Jet Ski also concluded the awards night which also turned out to be a successfully upbeat, clever, and humorous joke which took on the duration problem without any complaining.
PREDICTION RESULTS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Guillermo Del Toro checking if the card is correct is the cutest thing in the world #Oscars pic.twitter.com/BUzmYPbOEY
- mel (@shxrlocked) March 5, 2018
Wow, a good 13/19 score for the Oscars here! Quite unfortunate that I got Film Editing, Sound Editing, Costume Design, Original Screenplay, Original Music, and Best Picture wrong, but this has to be a positive result so far for the award with lots of categories (my SAG Awards predictions on movie categories was 6 out of 6 correct, but it wasn't much). The predictable nature of the Awards Season this year does contribute a majority of things to be honest, if it weren't for Matt Neglia's tweet I posted in the preview post. The acting categories are already a total lock since Golden Globes, technical category winners (including directing and screenplay winners) don't differ much from Golden Globes, Critics' Choice, and BAFTAs, and all that's left is the Best Picture category which is exactly the big prize, but was actually down to Shape of Water and Three Billboards, given their award wins in factoring categories. While I expected the latter to win, the former shone as the victor.
The wins are also well-distributed compared to last year where La La Land almost swept everything. Shape of Water has four wins, Dunkirk three, and surprisingly Three Billboards only two, along with Coco and Blade Runner 2049. Three Billboards' upper-hand in BAFTAs' Best Original Screenplay and Golden Globes' Best Screenplay wasn't enough to jostle against Get Out which actually won the same category only in Critics' Choice, which caused the surprise. The Academy does give some love to Jordan Peele although I kinda question them for the fact that some of the members (especially the older members) said that Get Out wasn't an Academy movie. At least their mindset got backfired in this particular category, and Get Out got a big prize it deserves although Daniel Kaluuya couldn't able to contribute another one for Best Actor due to... *cough*predictability*cough*.
And that also summed part of my thoughts for this Awards Season: for the movies, it's kind of predictable, but then again doesn't every Awards Season go like this? You'd have this same set of acting category winners starting from either Golden Globes or Critics' Choice, then carbon copy it elsewhere including SAG Awards and BAFTAs although some will have an upset or two, and this pattern would also reflect for other categories as well. For television, it starts with the Emmys all the way to either two of the mentioned first award shows and ends at SAG Awards. The nominations may differ but winners can be the same. However, the positive part of this season is that no movie overly dominate every award show (compared to how La La Land eclipsed every award show except SAG Awards); Three Billboards started out winning in Golden Globes but Shape of Water fought back in Critics' Choice before the former got back at it again in SAG and BAFTAs. However, Shape of Water got its last laugh in the Oscars at the end. There's definitely a "fight back" attitude reflected in both movies which I think covered up the predictable nature of the season. Aside from that, the diversity is much better but once again it could be much better; you can't even hide the memory of Greta Gerwig being snubbed in Golden Globes' Best Director race, and that someone still needs to make history and hope the panel realise it. Cannot say much for television as it's kinda flat-out predictable with the exception of SAG Awards, and for the ongoing battle for inclusivity, I will keep supporting the efforts to make future award seasons as inclusive as ever, with not only white and black performers and filmmakers get the accolades they deserve, but also other races, while hoping that the sexual abuse practices in the Hollywood industry no longer have a place there. The inclusivity also goes for female filmmakers and those in the LGBTQ community.
The "Women Power" hug the world deserves. (Image: Ed Herrera/Getty Images via The Hollywood Reporter)
Eventually, I will conclude this Awards Season with this closing monologue: The battle between The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri have come to an end, with both movies dominated a fair share of the awards the entire awards season until Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece finally took home the big prize. However, there wasn't just one battle fought, as inclusivity and diversity has taken their stand against the sexual abuse practices in the industry in a secondary battle that's just as important since the Golden Globes two months back. The women strive to fight for the better environment, as well as the People of Color and those of varying sexuality. At one point the aquatic creature trapped inside an aquarium will soon awake as a stronger creature to fight for the right, while there will be three billboards that would call out all the abusers still lurking within the shadows. One fight has ended, but another still goes on for as long as the law of justice is set.
In the end, thank you for following the whole series of posts this Awards Season. It's been a long ride with all the on-stage action and predictability that followed. Kinda wished I can take my time to watch any of these award-nominated and award-winning movies the same way I wanted the same for the TV (I remember saying that I wished I could watch Big Little Lies in my watchlist post), I lean more towards TV than I do with movies. As for the next update of the Coefficient Table, it will come after the Zimbio March Madness competition post. This will also integrate the new awards added in the first update as well as the new one in store: the Independent Spirit Awards!
See you in Primetime Emmy Awards this September!
~[R]