It was a clever innovation to have the actresses who dub the voice of Elsa in other countries join in with Idina Menzel’s rendition of Into The Unknown from Frozen II, but the trouble was that three of the Oscar-nominated songs were bombastic power ballads, and Randy Newman and Elton John’s grand-piano rockers, from Toy Story 4 and Rocketman respectively, sounded like pastiches of their earlier work that had been knocked off that afternoon for a sketch show. The evening dragged on and on, especially during the central hour – or was it seven hours – which was assigned to technical awards and songs. The Oscars made exactly the same choices, and while the luminously happy Gu ðnadóttir’s win was a rare victory for a woman in that category, the ceremony felt, at times, less like a unique event than a sequel: part three or four in a long-running franchise that is stuffed with familiar characters and running-out-of-plot twists. A week ago, for instance, the Baftas handed acting trophies to Pitt, Renée Zellweger for Judy, Joaquin Phoenix for Joker, and Laura Dern for Marriage Story, plus the cinematography prize to Roger Deakins for 1917, the screenplay prize to Bong and the music prize to Hildur Gu ðnadóttir for Joker. You can’t say fairer than that.īut Pitt’s win was just one of several that echoed those at the Golden Globes, the Baftas, The Screen Actors Guild awards and other award ceremonies. in Hollywood and his own Hollywood fairy tale, and dedicated the Oscar to his children. The good times kept rolling for a little while longer, though, with some relaxed joshing from Steve Martin and Chris Rock, and a laid-back speech from Brad Pitt (best supporting actor), which kept up the high standard of all of his many speeches over the past few weeks: in under two minutes, he had a pop at the US Senate, paid a personal tribute to his director (Quentin Tarantino) and co-star (Leonardo DiCaprio), made an intriguing point about the need for awards for stunt artists, made an emotional connection between Once Upon a Time. This was such a blast that when confetti showered on the heads of the elated spectators, it gave you the feeling you often get after the pre-credits set piece in a Bond movie, ie, nothing that follows is going to match this, so can we just skip ahead to the last 20 minutes? ![]() Things started promisingly, with Janelle Monae’s finger-clicking opening number, an all-singing all-dancing celebration of Hollywood. If it hadn’t been for Bong’s achievement, the evening would have looked very different. ![]() Do the Oscars really reward the best costumes? From Parasite to Joker: Is film at war with the rich? ![]() To put it mildly, last year’s best picture win for Green Book didn’t get the same reaction. Film critics and fans were united in celebration on social media, and the mood in the Dolby Theatre appeared to be just as jubilant. Not only will 2020 be known as one of those infrequent but not unheard-of years in which the best picture Oscar went to the actual best picture, but it will also be known as the year when the Academy admitted that subtitled films are not intrinsically inferior to ones that aren’t. But it was this groundbreaking grand finale that put the ceremony into cinema’s record books. Bong had already won the prize for best screenplay and best director, and Parasite was the inaugural winner of the best international film prize, the category’s name having been changed from ‘best film in a foreign language’. At Sunday’s Academy Awards, Bong Joon-ho’s South Korean black comedy Parasite became the first non-English-language film in the Oscars’ 92-year history to win the overall best picture prize.
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