93rd Academy Awards Post-ceremony Post: The Winners

Another Awards Season has ended, and I'm writing a (much shorter) follow-up to last week's article, in which I discussed each and every one of the nominated films of the year.

This time, I'll share my thoughts on the winners and on the ceremony itself.

Nomadland wins BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR, as expected:

I wasn't surprised at all when Chloé Zhao's movie went to nab the big win of the night, alongside a nicely-earned one for Best Director. I had mentioned that this was the most likely scenario in my Pre-ceremony post and indeed, there were no upsets here. In the end, Nomadland, with just three, became the film with the most wins of the night. It's been a while since a movie has truly swept the Awards.

On a side note, I'm still shocked and intrigued about the fact that Zhao's next film is Marvel's The Eternals. She has a knack for big visuals, so let's see how she does with a large studio movie.

My favorite BP nominees win for BEST SCREENPLAY:

Promising Young Woman and The Father were the two films among the Best Picture nominees I enjoyed the most this year. I knew they hadn't a real chance to win that one, though, but I loved that they were recognized for their great scripts, winning Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay respectively.

Emerald Fennell and Florian Zeller, both first time directors who wrote their own scripts, are thus solidified as talents to watch, and I'm very excited about their futures.

BEST FILM EDITING continues its transformation:

In case you didn't know it, Best Film Editing was, traditionally, the category that best predicted the big win of the night. Historically, most Best Picture winners have also won Best Film Editing, in a correlation that surpasses that with any other category. In fact, a film rarely has a chance to get the big Oscar if it's not even nominated for Edition.

However, things have been changing in the last few years. Instead of giving Best Editing to the eventual Best Picture winner, the  Academy seems to prefer to give it to an altogether different film nowadays, usually one that can be seen as some sort of runner-up, or one with a technically accomplished postproduction. In fact, since 2010, only one film, Argo has gotten both awards, and that was back in 2012.

True to this new formula, Nomadland didn't win the category, which instead went to the skillful editing of Sound of Metal. Also, as I predicted due to its expert handling of its subject matter, they also won for Best Sound. Both very well-deserved.

On the ACTING wins:

No, I don't think Chadwick Boseman was snubbed. As you can see in my previous entry, I had expressed my opinion that Anthony Hopkins' performance was the strongest one out of all the -admittedly great- nominated ones, and I voiced my wish that he would get to win for Best Actor.

I also noted that Boseman's passing would make it really hard for both the voters and the audiences to be objective about the situation, and the general outcry I'm hearing seems to prove it. Anyway, nobody can take away the fact that the late Boseman was an extraordinary talent we lost way too soon, and that will forever remain in the memories of film lovers. I just hope it doesn't subtract from Hopkins' impressive achievement either, just because the public wanted an emotional catharsis. And if you want one, the fact that Sir Anthony has now become the oldest acting winner in history is heartwarming in its own way too.

As for Best Actress, I was also pretty sure Frances McDormand would be the one to get it, even if she makes the whole acting thing seem so effortless. What a talent! Her third Oscar  as a performer also makes her only the third woman to achieve this, but let's not forget she actually won a fourth, non-acting statue this year: As a Producer for Nomadland, she was technically one of the Best Picture winners.

In the Best Supporting Actor front, Daniel Kaluuya, who seemed a bit confused about his win, could be seen as an upset, as Paul Raci was many people's favorite (while others really wanted Sasha Baron Cohen to win), but I don't think there was any injustice done here. All three performances were equally powerful, but the energy Kaluuya displayed in the role actually made me root for him slightly more.

Talking about charisma, I had already mentioned how Youn Yuh-jung won me over in her Minari role, and now she has done the same in real life. Her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress was one of the funniest ones in a night where almost everyone seemed a bit down and uninspired. I really liked her competition too, but she was the one who wowed me the most, so my bets were on her.

The COVID of it all:

Nobody expected the ceremony to feel the same as any other year due to the many measures that were needed to take care of the guests.

In general, I thought that -at least on the surface- they made it look like it was a safe event, setting a good example to the viewers. The change of venue to a smaller place was necessary, even if it made it look like any other, less important awards show. The guests were all sitting in stablished places, and they were all tested and vaccinated, and in many cases they participated remotely from other countries.

They also intentionally reduced the runtime by taking out many elements beyond the announcement themselves: there were no nominated songs being performed (and I doubt anyone would complain, as this year there wasn't a Skyfall or a Let It Go), generally no comedic skits (except one, see below), and the category introductions by the guest stars (there was no host again) were quite short. This allowed for more time for the acceptance speeches, which are honestly more relevant than most of the stuff the show usually loses time with. In fact, speechmakers weren't played off the stage as usual, even if they took a bit longer.

All the changes made the event feel more solemn at a time where the world need to see things being taken seriously, so I'm glad they went with this instead of ignoring the risks.

That anticlimactic finale:

Whoever the genius was who thought Best Picture should not be the final category of the night shouldn't be allowed at any other ceremony ever again.

It simply makes no sense at all. I wasn't the only one who thought there had been a mistake and that the acting categories had somehow not been televised. It was confusing and, most of all, anticlimactic. It's as if the final match of a sporting event were to be played before the game for the third place. This is simply not done.

The fact that the final award ended up being Best Actor, and that Sir Anthony Hopkins wasn't even present to make a speech further emphasized the lack of closure this format created. At least the La La - Moonlight thing wasn't boring.

A misguided segment:

The only comedic skit of the night was a big miss for me. Not only was it pointless and unfunny, but it broke the two rules the show seemed to have: it lost precious time, and it violated the safety measures by sharing a mic among a few guests.

The moment featured Lil Rel Howery approaching a few tables and playing a trivia game. A song was played, and someone had to guess if it had been nominated at previous Oscars or not. It could have been fun, but the time didn't really allow for it to develop into anything but an awkward attempt at comedy. It was also supposed to be about the fact that the Academy sometimes fails to recognize songs which go on to become classic, but it didn't really get the point across, and it's a relatively unimportant bit of campaigning when there are much bigger Oscar crimes, as I mentioned in my Pre-ceremony Post.

To be fair, Glenn Close's participation, prepared or not, kind of saved the thing by being charismatic as always.

The In Memorian Race:

The In Memorian segment of this year didn't feature more fallen artist than usual. Why did they edit the video the way they did, then? It looked like they were racing against the clock, with each honored person gone so quickly you barely had any time to read the name, much less process the loss.

This was doubly offensive because:

1) The moment immediately followed the terrible, previously mentioned segment of the show. If they really wanted to have more time, why didn't they axe that instead of chopping the memorial?

2) We lost some great legends this year, including Christopher Plummer, Sean Connery, Ennio Morricone, Max Von Sydow, Diana Rigg, Ian Holm, Olivia de Havilland, etc. They truly deserved better. I didn't even catch Helen McCrory until a while after she was already done with.

Somebody in the production excused the poor pacing saying they wanted to match "the tempo of the song".  Well, just chose the right musical cue, then!

The lack of clips and proper music:

Talking about music... I can understand the lack of a traditional orchestra due to the size of the venue and the circumstances. The musical duties fell instead on disc jockey Questlove, which I'm also fine with.

What I didn't like was the strange decision of playing music completely unrelated to the nominees' soundtracks*, when traditionally they play a cue from the winner film each time they announce one. Even more jarring was the lack of at least a short piece of each of the five Best Original Score nominees during their announcement, which instead were presented in a weird void silence.

*In fact, the music played wasn't even from past classic films, but random stuff.

Similarly, there was a very inconsistent direction in the matter of introductions to the other categories. A couple of them, like Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature, featured the traditional clip along with each nominee mention, but most of them lacked similar visual contextualization, which made everything feel strangely dry.

Soul:

As I expected, Soul went to win Best Animated Picture and Best Original Score, because it would have been a miscarriage of justice if it had happened any other way. Somehow, this doesn't fully make up for the film's omission among the Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture nominees. Animation still has a long fight for equality ahead, even if it seemed like it had been making some progress a few years ago.

Mank gets what it needed:

I had explained how underwhelming I though Mank was as an overall film, but how impressive I found it visually. It was thus very fitting that the most nominated film of the night only got two (well-deserved) wins for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE:

I knew Another Round was going to win, even though it was my third pick among the five nominees. However, Thomas Vintemberg's speech about his late daughter was quite heartwarming, as I knew it would be if he had to take the podium.

I was a bit sad when Collective didn't win for Best Documentary either, though.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:

Despite some historically bad decisions in this category, this year got it right: Tenet's craft was objectively superior to its competition, and thankfully the Academy recognized the fact.

COSTUMES and MAKEUP:

Both went to Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, whichc was worthy but not my favorite on either category. I thought Pinnochio's prosthetic makeup was much more impressive or, if they wanted something subtler, the characterization in Hillbilly Elegy.

Emma, Mank and Mulan also featured a rather most extensive work for the wardrobe department than Ma Rainey's allowed, taking in consideration the few characters that appear onscreen.

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Now, much like the ceremony itself, let's end this post as dully as possible.