The 88th Academy Awards were held last night amidst calls for boycotts over the lack of black nominees. But African American host Chris Rock did not boycott and the Academy owes him a huge debt of gratitude.
The Academy was lucky to have hired Rock before the protest reached a peak and demands for a boycott gained momentum. He turned out to be the perfect host and delivered an opening monologue that hit the issues head on but with savvy humor that allowed him to poke fun at both “the white people’s choice awards” and boycott leaders Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Rock teased Will Smith by saying that sure it’s unfair that he didn’t get nominated for his work in “Concussion” but it’s also unfair he got $20 million for “Wild, Wild West.” Here’s how Rock opened the show:
“It’s the 88th Academy Awards. It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole no black nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times. OK? You gotta figure that it happened in the '50s, in the '60s — you know, in the 60s, one of those years Sidney [Poitier] didn’t put out a movie. I’m sure there were no black nominees some of those years. Say '62 or '63, and black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time, you know? We had real things to protest; you know, we’re too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer. You know, when your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.”
Later in his opening monologue he made a more charged comment that seemed to take the crowd by surprise, so the applause was moderate and then gained amplitude.
“This year, the Oscars, things are gonna be a little different. Things are going to be a little different at the Oscars. This year, in the In Memoriam package, it’s just going to be black people that were shot by the cops on their way to the movies. Yes, yes. I said it. Alright?”
If anyone deserved an award it was Chris Rock. He had apparently written his material for the show and then revised it after the calls for a boycott and as with much of his work he made it personal and used humor to call attention to what he sees as problems. He even outright asked: Is Hollywood racist?
“Is it burning-cross racist? No. Is it fetch-me-some-lemonade racist? No. No, no, no.
"It’s a different type of racist. Now, I remember one night I was at a fundraiser for President Obama … So, at some point you get to take a picture with the president, and, you know as they’re setting up the picture you get a little moment with the president. I’m like, ‘Mr. President, you see all these writers and producers and actors? They don’t hire black people, and they’re the nicest, white people on earth! They’re liberals! Cheese!’ That’s right. Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood is racist. But it ain’t that racist that you’ve grown accustomed to.
"Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like, ‘We like you Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.'"
Now, to the actual awards and who won. A bit of a surprise that “Mad Max: Fury Road,” an installment in a franchise that started as Australian exploitation, had 10 nominations and took home the most awards — six — mostly in technical and much-deserved categories. But it lost out in the big categories to “Spotlight” as Best Picture and “The Revenant” for Best Director.
Yet I I think the biggest surprise of the night was that the British indie sci-fi film “Ex Machina,” which was incredibly cerebral, took the Best Visual Effects prize from such big Hollywood films as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “The Martian.” That was pleasant.
In the biggest snubs category (aside from the omission of minorities in the acting categories), actors Angus Scrimm (The Tall Man in the “Phantasm” films) and Abe Vigoda (Tessio in “The Godfather” and Fish from TV’s “Barney Miller”) were omitted from the In Memoriam montage paying tribute to those who passed away in the last 12 months. Someone always gets left out and it’s a shame these two did. But the biggest snubs were “The Revenant” losing best picture to “Spotlight,” and Sylvester Stallone in “Creed” losing the Best Supporting Actor Oscar to a deserving Mark Rylance of “Bridge of Spies.”
Of course, the most predictable award of the night went to Leonardo DiCaprio for eating a bison liver in “The Revenant.” He’s been hungry for that Oscar for a long time (and six nominations) and the physical hardships he endured for that film pretty much assured him of a win. I think the controversy surrounding the Oscars this year may have prompted him and others to be more political in their acceptance speeches. Here’s what DiCaprio injected into his acceptance speech:
“And lastly, I just want to say this: Making 'The Revenant' was about man’s relationship to the natural world, a world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real. It is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.”
Alejandro González Iñárritu won a second directing award in a row for “The Revenant.” He also won last year for “Birdman” and is only the third director to win consecutive awards, the other two being Joseph L. Mankiewitz and John Ford. His acceptance speech got a little too gushy over Leo for my taste: “Leo, you are ‘The Revenant.’ Thank you for, give every soul, your soul, your art, your life.”
Well, he didn’t quite give his life but Leo and Iñárritu certainly wanted people to feel that he had.
A most worthy award went to Brie Larson for Best Actress for “Room.” The Academy completely overlooked her equally stunning work in “Short Term 12” in 2013. “Son of Saul” (still playing in San Diego at the La Paloma Theater) took Best Foreign Film, and “Amy,” about Amy Winehouse won Best Documentary.
But “The Look of Silence” was hands down the most worthy documentary entry for both its subject matter (Indonesian genocide) and its innovative approach to the subject matter. Not all documentaries can be called works of art but Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Look of Silence” most definitely is, as was his previously nominated companion film, “The Act of Killing.”
But perhaps the sweetest win was by veteran composer Ennio Morricone for “The Hateful 8.” He’s 87 and never won before. But the Academy should be embarrassed that they ignored all his brilliant work for Sergio Leone (like the classic theme for “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”) and didn’t give him his first nomination until 1979 for “Days of Heaven,” which was after he started working in the United States.
In terms of format, this year’s Oscar show did try to change things up. Usually the first award handed out is a Best Supporting Actor or Actress but this year it was Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. That might be the Academy acknowledging how important the writer is to a film but more likely it’s to get a less “sexy” award out of the way early before the show hits primetime hours.
Another change was adding a scroll of the people a winner wanted to thank in the hopes that this would speed up acceptance speeches. Not sure if it worked, people still thanked everyone and their agents. Jenny Beavan, winner for Best Costume for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” wasn’t sure how the scroll really would work and said in her acceptance speech: “We had the most amazing crew. I hope that, I heard that they were on ticker tape, I thought the names were going on the screen. But honestly, if anybody wants to know more about any of them, just get in touch with me through my wonderful agents Wayne Fitterman from William Morris and Sue Latimer from ARG."
Winners were still only given 45 seconds before getting Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries played by the orchestra to drown them off and push them off stage (of course this made for an awkward moment when the director of the Holocaust themed “Son of Saul” was ushered out to this music). The Oscars is supposed to be honoring these winners, it’s their moment to shine and if they take a couple minutes, so be it, cut down on presenter banter to offset it.
The host’s presence was minimized (maybe to avoid Rock having too many opportunities to ad lib too much) as graphics came up on the screen to identify presenters instead of Rock introducing everyone each time.
As usual, the presentation of the Best Song nominees led to some ridiculousness. This category should just be eliminated because it only encourages films to add unnecessary songs. But having an aerialist hanging from silks for “The Fifty Shades of Gray” just pointed out how silly it was to even have this film nominated.
All in all the show was moderately less painful than usual thanks to Rock and a few pleasant surprises. But the Oscars are still a clique-ish event that not only lacks diversity but also tends to favor West Coast talent over East Coast talent when it comes to some of the craft categories.
You can find a complete list of winners at the Oscar website.
Here are my picks for the best of last year.
