{"id":83450,"date":"2017-02-26T22:55:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T06:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=83450"},"modified":"2017-03-09T10:30:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T18:30:34","slug":"2017-oscar-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/2017-oscar-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 Oscar Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oscars ceremony last night was marked by high drama, controversy and a stunning upset. Honestly, I’m having trouble believing it myself, but indeed the shocking fact remains that Lin-Manuel Miranda did not EGOT\u2026
\n<\/p>\n

\u2026 yet. I’m sure he’ll get another chance in the future. In the meantime, despite the enormous pressure from seemingly the entirety of Western civilization to give the man another damn trophy, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences instead bestowed the Best Original Song award to Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for the tune “City of Stars” from ‘La La Land’.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, something else a little surprising happened as well.<\/p>\n

In what I have to assume is an unprecedented turn of events, the statues for Best Picture were ripped out of the hands of the announced winners in the middle of their acceptance speeches. After opening the envelope, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway doddered and stared at the card for a moment before Dunaway declared front-runner ‘La La Land’ the winner. Producers of the film took the stage and began delivering their thank yous. As they spoke, some commotion happened in the background until, finally, it was announced that ‘Moonlight’ had in fact won the prize.<\/p>\n

During the confused few moments that followed, Beatty took the microphone to explain that the envelope he opened contained a card listing Emma Stone as the Best Actress winner (a prize already given out a few minutes earlier). He and Dunaway took this to mean that ‘La La Land’ had also won Best Picture. It turns out, that was not the case.<\/p>\n

The producers of ‘La La Land’ graciously conceded their defeat and the team from ‘Moonlight’, in dazed disbelief, replaced them on stage and gave their own speeches.<\/p>\n

Even though this was probably not their fault, I doubt that Beatty or Dunaway will ever live this down. I foresee many jokes being made about how ‘Rules Don’t Apply’ wasn’t the only fiasco Beatty was responsible for in recent months.<\/p>\n

Random Thoughts and Observations<\/h2>\n

Notwithstanding the kerfuffle at the end, I thought that Jimmy Kimmel did a great job of hosting the ceremony this year. He kept the tone light and brisk. His opening monologue was funny and his comedy bits involving snacks parachuting in from the ceiling and a prank pulled on a tour bus filled with sightseers were entertaining. As it always does, the show ran far too long (nearly four hours), but it moved along pretty breezily and didn’t feel nearly as ponderous as usual.<\/p>\n

It was a very smart decision to forego the expected opening comedy skit. Those things have only gotten lamer and lamer over the years, Instead, Justin Timberlake started the evening with a high-energy performance of Best Song nominee “Can’t Stop the Feeling” that immediately put the crowd in a good mood.<\/p>\n

It should be no surprise to anyone that this year’s broadcast would feature a lot of political jokes from Kimmel as well as statements and commentary from the winners. Honestly, though, I expected worse than what we got, which wasn’t nearly as much of a burden on the show as it might have been.<\/p>\n

With the ‘Moonlight’ win as well as Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress prizes going to people of color (Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis, respectively), I’m sure the Academy hopes that an #OscarsLessWhite hashtag will start trending on social media.<\/p>\n

‘Suicide Squad’ actually won an Oscar, for Makeup and Hairstyling.<\/p>\n

Despite its record-tying 14 nominations, early losses in the Costume Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing categories demonstrated that ‘La La Land’ would not have an easy sweep as many people may have assumed. In all, the film claimed six awards, the biggest being Best Director for Damien Chazelle and Best Actress for Emma Stone.<\/p>\n

Following a trend of recent years, the Academy once again split up the Best Director and Best Picture prizes to separate movies. In the past, those two categories were traditionally very closely tied together.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, the most obnoxious moment of the evening came when Lin-Manuel Miranda added a new rap intro segment to the performance of song nominee “How Far I’ll Go” just so that he’d have an excuse to appear on stage. The production number for the rest of the song was lovely, however. <\/p>\n

New Oscar winner ‘Sing’ is not the movie named ‘Sing’ that you’ve actually heard of (the animated one about the animal talent show). This one’s a live-action short.<\/p>\n

The past year has been a virtual bloodbath of celebrity deaths, and it was probably inevitable that the Oscars’ In Memoriam reel would miss a few notable passings. The one that stuck out to me the most was a failure to mention David Bowie. [As pointed out in the Comments, he may have been included in last year’s montage.]<\/em> In presenting the clip, Jennifer Aniston did acknowledge this weekend’s shocking death of Bill Paxton, however. <\/p>\n

Recent chatter that the Best Actor momentum had swung toward Denzel Washington came to nothing when Casey Affleck took the prize after all. Washington looked quite pissed when the camera cut to him, even after Affleck thanked him personally.<\/p>\n

At the final count, I called 14 of the 24 winners correctly. That’s actually better than my usual average, but my wife still beat me by one.<\/p>\n

Best Picture<\/h2>\n