The 2017 Academy Awards for Film Year 2016: A Candid Review
In terms of interest level, in terms of unpredictability, this was one of the more transfixing Oscar ceremonies.
I'll get to the gaffes in a minute.
But first, let's talk about the rest of the ceremony. Much will not go talked about.
In theory, the 2017 Awards might have gone down in history merely for the political speeches. Much as Meryl Streep had that wonderful moment of candor, taking on Trump and hitting him square between the eyes, at the Golden Globes (and along with it putting her credibility as a human being at an all-time high, it's secondary that she's a fantastic and always watchable actress), and David Harbour, Julia Louise-Dreyfuss, and Mahershala Ali made memorable speeches at the SAG Awards, I expected the only thing truly newsworthy about the Oscars for film year 2016 to be the speeches aimed at Donald Trump.
Our country made the incredibly bad decision to elect an egomaniac of loose morals who has nothing at all to gain by passing laws in the service of others. He's pathetic. And to be honest, if there hadn't been the mistake with the envelopes, at least there would have been headlines about the acceptance speech read in place of the Iranian director who won Best Foreign Language Film for The Salesman. I've always liked the Foreign Film category. It puts nations of all races, creeds, and ethnicities on equal footing. They all run against each other with an equal chance of winning. And it guarantees diversity in the Oscar telecast. Be it Il Postino, Kolya, Life is Beautiful, All About My Mother, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, No Man's Land, Lés Choriste, The Lives of Others, and even famous also-rans like Amelié, The Sea Inside, and Pan's Labyrinth, we get a variety of films that speak for the experiences of people beyond our shores. Their struggles, their hopes, their dreams, we empathize with them through films.
And I was angry. I was angry that laws passed against seven countries outright banned everyone from there from crossing onto our shores. The Iranian director, Ashgar Farhadi, shouldn't have had any red tape in his way of attending the awards. Kudos to the Seattle area Federal District Judge who fulfilled his civic duty and squarely put an out of control president of the united states in his place. It's good to know he could have chosen to come. I hate that Foreign Language Film Oscar nominated directors could be barred from entering the country to be acknowledged for artistic achievement.
In addition to Farhadi, Gael García Bernal, effortlessly great in everything he does from Amores Perros to Letters to Juliet, made an excellent plea against the absurd border wall. A waste of federal funding. And he cannot make Mexico pay for it. That's not how contracting of government projects works. The government who commissions it pays for it. Trump knows that. Or should know it. I think he'll do or say anything for a vote. Congratulations to Bernal for putting himself in Trump's crosshairs. He's in good company.
Back to entertainment.
All the politics got swept under the rug by La La Land mistakenly being given a Best Picture win, only to be rescinded and given to Moonlight. Once the correct envelope was found.
I spent a few days just feeling sorry for La La Land. It really was a movie that we needed. In 2016-2017, we needed a distraction from politics. I needed a distraction from politics! I needed a room full of people sitting quietly watching a big screen and coming together in agreement that Damien Chazelle's vision, with Mandy Moore choreography, Justin Hurwitz' songs and score, and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's excellent performances building and crescendoing beautifully off of eachother, this was the perfect escape. I saw La La Land twice. And for four or five hours, I got away from the chaotic world. That's what movies do. So there. That's why I was a little upset it didn't win Best Picture.
But I didn't take that out on Moonlight.
And at the end of the day, La La Land did win six Academy Awards, including Best Director for Damien Chazelle, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Emma Stone, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score for Justin Hurwitz, Best Original Song for "City of Stars," by Hurwitz and some collaborators; and Production Design.
I'm fine with Moonlight winning! I do need to still see it. Emma Stone gave such a wonderful speech about using the Oscar as a reminder to keep working. Glad she said that. No actor should ever assumed they're at the summit of their accomplishments upon winning the Oscar. They still have much to do. The quality of their work isn't ultimately be-all-and-end-all reflected by their receiving an Oscar. Harrison Ford has one nomination, for Witness. And he didn't get one for The Fugitive, which I took as his career best performance; or Patriot Games, Presumed Innocent, Regarding Henry, Air Force One, or his comedic action roles like Raiders of the Lost Ark; or his recent excellent supporting work in 42 and The Age of Adaline.
Emma Stone may have yet more important work to do on screen! Don't stop now!
I watched the ceremony with Phil Kopp, Ian Mason, and my nephew Mason McConnell. I brought Pizza and Subs, as that was where I bought pizza three years ago when I had the party with Mason and Alaina...and Pizza and Subs let me watch ninety minutes of the ceremony the year we had lost power due to the ice storm. I was able to at least see Djimon Hounsou's Oscar clip for Blood Diamond, Al Gore's faux announcement of running for president with Leonardo Di Caprio, and the historically awkward Best Supporting Actor category, where Alan Arkin won for Little Miss Sunshine. While at Pizza and Subs in 2007, I got the call from Quad City Music Guild that I had been cast as the butler in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Likewise, I got the call that I had been cast as Sheldrake in Sunset Boulevard in this summer's production! I was happy to be with Mason when I got the news.
And I'm glad I was at Pizza and Subs. Three years ago, when we had a big Pizza and Subs and celebrated nominations and wins for Frozen and the beautiful Short Film Helium, the ceremony came a week after both Mason and I were casted in Oklahoma!
Ian hasn't talked about movies quite as much in texts, e-mails, or facebook message boards. Again, much of it has been political. So it was good to sit and watch an awards show with him, the first time we've watched it together in six years. I hope that he'll continue to send texts about how much he loves seeing little independent movies in Chicago. I didn't hear from him when he saw Moonlight. But he loved Moonlight. He was of course thrilled when La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz grabbed the card from Warren Beatty's hand and said, "wait, there's been a mistake, Moonlight, you're the winner." Oh, it was hard to watch! Not so much out of disappointment, as I like upsets, and I like it when little movies take the top prize. It was difficult to watch because it was such a badly produced moment. It was a fiasco. It was the textbook definition of a fiasco. The assumed winners have to retreat to being also-rans, and the actual winner, Moonlight, has to act happy about winning in a moment of awkwardness and confusion. I'm glad Ian was there. He was able to be the barometer pointing to the fact it was okay to celebrate Moonlight.
Well, better luck next year, or in a couple of years, to Damien Chazelle, Jordan Horowitz, and Justin Hurwitz.
Also, it was great to see Moana performances by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Auli'i Kravalho.
I'll get to the gaffes in a minute.
But first, let's talk about the rest of the ceremony. Much will not go talked about.
In theory, the 2017 Awards might have gone down in history merely for the political speeches. Much as Meryl Streep had that wonderful moment of candor, taking on Trump and hitting him square between the eyes, at the Golden Globes (and along with it putting her credibility as a human being at an all-time high, it's secondary that she's a fantastic and always watchable actress), and David Harbour, Julia Louise-Dreyfuss, and Mahershala Ali made memorable speeches at the SAG Awards, I expected the only thing truly newsworthy about the Oscars for film year 2016 to be the speeches aimed at Donald Trump.
Our country made the incredibly bad decision to elect an egomaniac of loose morals who has nothing at all to gain by passing laws in the service of others. He's pathetic. And to be honest, if there hadn't been the mistake with the envelopes, at least there would have been headlines about the acceptance speech read in place of the Iranian director who won Best Foreign Language Film for The Salesman. I've always liked the Foreign Film category. It puts nations of all races, creeds, and ethnicities on equal footing. They all run against each other with an equal chance of winning. And it guarantees diversity in the Oscar telecast. Be it Il Postino, Kolya, Life is Beautiful, All About My Mother, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, No Man's Land, Lés Choriste, The Lives of Others, and even famous also-rans like Amelié, The Sea Inside, and Pan's Labyrinth, we get a variety of films that speak for the experiences of people beyond our shores. Their struggles, their hopes, their dreams, we empathize with them through films.
And I was angry. I was angry that laws passed against seven countries outright banned everyone from there from crossing onto our shores. The Iranian director, Ashgar Farhadi, shouldn't have had any red tape in his way of attending the awards. Kudos to the Seattle area Federal District Judge who fulfilled his civic duty and squarely put an out of control president of the united states in his place. It's good to know he could have chosen to come. I hate that Foreign Language Film Oscar nominated directors could be barred from entering the country to be acknowledged for artistic achievement.
In addition to Farhadi, Gael García Bernal, effortlessly great in everything he does from Amores Perros to Letters to Juliet, made an excellent plea against the absurd border wall. A waste of federal funding. And he cannot make Mexico pay for it. That's not how contracting of government projects works. The government who commissions it pays for it. Trump knows that. Or should know it. I think he'll do or say anything for a vote. Congratulations to Bernal for putting himself in Trump's crosshairs. He's in good company.
Back to entertainment.
All the politics got swept under the rug by La La Land mistakenly being given a Best Picture win, only to be rescinded and given to Moonlight. Once the correct envelope was found.
I spent a few days just feeling sorry for La La Land. It really was a movie that we needed. In 2016-2017, we needed a distraction from politics. I needed a distraction from politics! I needed a room full of people sitting quietly watching a big screen and coming together in agreement that Damien Chazelle's vision, with Mandy Moore choreography, Justin Hurwitz' songs and score, and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's excellent performances building and crescendoing beautifully off of eachother, this was the perfect escape. I saw La La Land twice. And for four or five hours, I got away from the chaotic world. That's what movies do. So there. That's why I was a little upset it didn't win Best Picture.
But I didn't take that out on Moonlight.
And at the end of the day, La La Land did win six Academy Awards, including Best Director for Damien Chazelle, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Emma Stone, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score for Justin Hurwitz, Best Original Song for "City of Stars," by Hurwitz and some collaborators; and Production Design.
I'm fine with Moonlight winning! I do need to still see it. Emma Stone gave such a wonderful speech about using the Oscar as a reminder to keep working. Glad she said that. No actor should ever assumed they're at the summit of their accomplishments upon winning the Oscar. They still have much to do. The quality of their work isn't ultimately be-all-and-end-all reflected by their receiving an Oscar. Harrison Ford has one nomination, for Witness. And he didn't get one for The Fugitive, which I took as his career best performance; or Patriot Games, Presumed Innocent, Regarding Henry, Air Force One, or his comedic action roles like Raiders of the Lost Ark; or his recent excellent supporting work in 42 and The Age of Adaline.
Emma Stone may have yet more important work to do on screen! Don't stop now!
I watched the ceremony with Phil Kopp, Ian Mason, and my nephew Mason McConnell. I brought Pizza and Subs, as that was where I bought pizza three years ago when I had the party with Mason and Alaina...and Pizza and Subs let me watch ninety minutes of the ceremony the year we had lost power due to the ice storm. I was able to at least see Djimon Hounsou's Oscar clip for Blood Diamond, Al Gore's faux announcement of running for president with Leonardo Di Caprio, and the historically awkward Best Supporting Actor category, where Alan Arkin won for Little Miss Sunshine. While at Pizza and Subs in 2007, I got the call from Quad City Music Guild that I had been cast as the butler in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Likewise, I got the call that I had been cast as Sheldrake in Sunset Boulevard in this summer's production! I was happy to be with Mason when I got the news.
And I'm glad I was at Pizza and Subs. Three years ago, when we had a big Pizza and Subs and celebrated nominations and wins for Frozen and the beautiful Short Film Helium, the ceremony came a week after both Mason and I were casted in Oklahoma!
Ian hasn't talked about movies quite as much in texts, e-mails, or facebook message boards. Again, much of it has been political. So it was good to sit and watch an awards show with him, the first time we've watched it together in six years. I hope that he'll continue to send texts about how much he loves seeing little independent movies in Chicago. I didn't hear from him when he saw Moonlight. But he loved Moonlight. He was of course thrilled when La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz grabbed the card from Warren Beatty's hand and said, "wait, there's been a mistake, Moonlight, you're the winner." Oh, it was hard to watch! Not so much out of disappointment, as I like upsets, and I like it when little movies take the top prize. It was difficult to watch because it was such a badly produced moment. It was a fiasco. It was the textbook definition of a fiasco. The assumed winners have to retreat to being also-rans, and the actual winner, Moonlight, has to act happy about winning in a moment of awkwardness and confusion. I'm glad Ian was there. He was able to be the barometer pointing to the fact it was okay to celebrate Moonlight.
Well, better luck next year, or in a couple of years, to Damien Chazelle, Jordan Horowitz, and Justin Hurwitz.
Also, it was great to see Moana performances by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Auli'i Kravalho.