MOONLIGHT – Chiron (Ashton Sanders) – Photo Courtesy of Elevation Pictures.
The 89th Academy Awards® show was a rousing success – unexpected, fun opening with Justin Timberlake performing his Oscar®-nominated son, Can’t Stop the Feeling, as he danced into the Dolby Theater; on target but carefully modulated (and funny) opening monologue by host Jimmy Kimmel (and I’m not just saying that – he made me laugh and I am definitely not a fan); some surprisingly effective banter between presenters, and unexpected winners (take a bow, Suicide Squad!).
The show was well-paced – even if it did run over a half-hour long – with some nifty surprises (Kimmel’s riff on providing food for the audience; bringing an unsuspecting busload of tourists into the theater and the resulting genial chaos) and even a mention of Bill Paxton, whose death yesterday made it impossible to include him in the In Memoriam montage (accompanied by Sarah Bareilles’ stunning rendition of Joni Mitchell’s Both sides Now).
Then the gaffe of all gaffes – presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announcing the wrong film as Best Picture! Even as the producers of La La Land were giving their heartfelt and touching acceptance speeches, one of them looked at the card with the title and interrupted proceedings to announce that there had been a mistake – Moonlight had actually won!
There was, of course, a bit of chaos following the announcement as the producers and cast of Moonlight took the stage – and the producers and cast of La La Land beat a hasty retreat – but both groups showed unequaled poise and generosity in the face of it all.
Stunned, Kimmel ad libbed a couple of quick one-liners (‘I blame Steve Harvey!’) before promising he’d never be back – even though it wasn’t his fault and he was the best Oscars® host we’ve had since Billy Crystal was at his peak.
Here is the complete list of winners with a few comments where I felt it necessary.
BEST PICTURE
MOONLIGHT
Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
I would have been happy to see at least half of the nominees win here – it was a very strong year – but I couldn’t choose between Moonlight, La La Land and Hidden Figures.
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Emma Stone
La La Land
Any of the nominees in this category would have been the right choice. This was the toughest category by far. I would have picked Stone because she played a woman whose story echoes so many stars – an overnight success after many years of trying – and she made Mia so strong, yet so vulnerable.
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Casey Affleck
Manchester by the Sea
The only real competition for this category was Denzel Washington for Fences, but Manchester By the Sea was a film from the get go, while Fences felt like a filmed version of the actual play and I thought that Affleck gave a deeper, more nuanced performance.
DIRECTING
LA LA LAND
Damien Chazelle
Directing a musical is a unique challenge – you have to establish a believable world in which people break into singing and dancing as natural course of life – and Chazelle did that with a great deal of panache.
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
MOONLIGHT
Screenplay by Barry Jenkins; Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Barry Jenkins, who is straight, found a way to tell his story by making a film about a young, gay black boy who learns to appreciate who he is and where he’s from – while aspiring to be true to he is.
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
Written by Kenneth Lonergan
Lonergan’s movie says it’s okay to be broken after a great tragedy, but even if you try to get past it, you might not be successful – and that’s okay. Human beings are vulnerable creatures.
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
MAHERSHALA ALI
Moonlight
Ali played a character we’d never seen before and made him as real as the guy sitting in the next cubicle at your office, or the random guy you meet sitting a bar. He also played a man who could be seen as a straight-up villain in another movie, but sees and nourishes that something special in a young boy in his neighborhood.
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
VIOLA DAVIS
Fences
Davis would have won if she’d been (properly) entered in Actress in a Leading Role. Her performance was just that powerful.
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
ZOOTOPIA
Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Clark Spencer
I would have preferred to see Kubo and the Two Strings win, but Zootopia was a fun movie that said stuff without yeeling in your face, so that cool, too.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
THE SALESMAN
Iran
Elle and/or Toni Erdmann were jobbed to make a point to the current administration – and director Asghar Farhadi’s speech by proxy pushed some serious buttons.
Is it wrong of me to not appreciate that two better films lost in the name politics?
CINEMATOGRAPHY
LA LA LAND
Linus Sandgren
La La Land celebrates Hollywood, filmmaking, jazz and the city of Los Angeles – Sandgren’s cinematography making real L.A. and movie L.A. jell together and serves both th story and characters well.
Only Arrival’s equally mood-setting cinematography real offered a challenge.
FILM EDITING
HACKSAW RIDGE
John Gilbert
VISUAL EFFECTS
THE JUNGLE BOOK
Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones and Dan Lemmon
With only one real actor onscreen, The Jungle Book marked a precipitous advance in the use of photo real CGI. My only choice would have been Dr. Strange – which explored other worlds than out own.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
LA LA LAND
Production Design: David Wasco; Set Decoration: Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Replicating the feel of the musicals from the forties and fifties – without simply replicating them – had to have been quite the challenge. This is the one category, though, where I might have thrown a bone to Passengers. Whatever it flaws (and they were many) production design was not one of them. It shoulf have won if only for the exterior and interior desing of that starship.
SOUND MIXING
HACKSAW RIDGE
Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace
SOUND EDITING
ARRIVAL
Sylvain Bellemare
DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA
Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow
COSTUME DESIGN
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
Colleen Atwood
Atwood’s fourth win and well deserved. But now for the love of all that’s holy do you not nominate Rouge One?
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
SUICIDE SQUAD
Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson
One nomination; one win. Star Trek Beyond really should taken this one.
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
CITY OF STARS
from La La Land; Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
Second best song in the movie – and the less relatable. As good as John Legend was at singing it, I still Ryan Golsing’s regular guy singing chops. Now they are relatable.
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
LA LA LAND
Justin Hurwitz
Moonlight could have won here and I wouldn’t have disappointed. That’ said, I’m glad La La Land won.
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
PIPER
Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer
Piper wasn’t even one of Pixar’s best short films. Blind Vaysha should have won.
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
SING
Kristof Deák and Anna Udvardy
DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
THE WHITE HELMETS
Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara
DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
THE WHITE HELMETS
Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara