LOS ANGELES (AP) – After a film year that often captivates the crowds, the Academy Awards named Sunday’s Best Picture an indisputable family drama, “CODA,” giving Hollywood the top award for first-time streaming service. who saw the biggest drama when Will Smith came on stage and slapped Chris Rock.
Sian Heder’s “CODA”, which premiered at a virtual Sundance Film Festival in the winter of 2021, started out as an underdog but gradually emerged as the Oscar favorite. He also had a very strong supporter on Apple TV +, which won his first Academy Award for Best Picture on Sunday, less than three years after the service was released.
It also dealt another near defeat to Netflix, the veteran streamer who for years struggled in vain for the best movie. His best chance, Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”, came with 12 top nominations. Won one, for directing Campion.
But “CODA” led a wave of goodwill driven by its cast, including Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Emilia Jones and Daniel Durant. It is the first film with a largely deaf cast that won the best film. “CODA” did it even though it was one of the least nominated films with only three coming out on Sunday. Since 1932, the “Grand Hotel” has not won a Best Picture film with less than four nods.
Kotsour also won Best Supporting Actor for becoming the first Deaf male actor to win an Oscar and only the second Deaf male actor to do so, joining his co-star and “CODA” co-star Matlin.
“This is for the Deaf community, the CODA community and the disabled community,” Kotsur said, signing from the scene. “This is our moment.”
Many, however, were talking about another moment. After Rock, as the presenter, joked to Jada Pinkett Smith that he was looking forward to a “GI Jane” sequel, Will Smith got up from his seat near the stage, approached Rock and hit him. After sitting back, Smith shouted at Rock to “keep my wife’s name away from your mouth.” When Rock, who joked about Jada Pinkett Smith while hosting the 2016 Oscars, complained that he was just a “GI Jane”. funny, Smith repeated the same line.
“This was the most important night in the history of television,” Rock said before returning puzzled to the premiere of the best documentary, which went to Questlove’s “Summer of Soul…”
The moment shocked the Dolby Theater audience and spectators at home. During the commercial break, presenter Daniel Kaluuya came to hug Smith and Denzel Washington accompanied him to the side of the stage. The two talked and hugged and Tyler Perry came to talk as well.
Smith, who plays the father of Venus and Serena Williams in “King Richard”, later on the show won his first Academy Award for Best Actor. So Smith took the stage again shortly after one of the most infamous moments in the history of the Oscars. The reason for his acceptance fluctuated between defense and apology.
“Richard Williams was a tough defender of his family,” Smith said in his first remarks. Smith then shared what Washington told him: “At your highest moment, be careful because that is when the devil comes to you.”
Finally, Smith apologized to the academy and his candidates.
“Art imitates life. “I look like a crazy father,” Smith said with a laugh. “But love will make you do crazy things.”
Following the performance, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued a statement saying it “does not condone violence of any kind.” The Los Angeles Police Department said it was aware of a slap in the face at the Oscars, but said the person involved refused to file a police report.
Until then, the ceremony – which was designed as a revival for the Oscars and the movies – was going quite smoothly. Ariana DeBose became the first Afro-Latina and openly LBGTQ actress to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Jane Cambion won the Oscar for Best Director for “The Power of the Dog,” her open psychodrama that overturned and overturned Western conventions.
Cambion, who was the first woman to be nominated twice in the category (previously for “The Piano” in 1993), is only the third woman to win Best Director. It is also the first time the director’s award has been given to women in recent years, following the nomination of “Nomadland” director Chloé Zhao last year.
Best Actress went to Jessica Chastain, who also won her first Oscar. Chastain won for her empathic role as TV evangelist Tammy Faye in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” a film she also produced.
Following record lows and a 2021 pandemic show, producers this year turned to one of the world’s biggest stars – Beyoncé – to launch the Oscars aimed at reviving the pop culture’s awards position. After an introduction by Venus and Serena Williams, Beyoncé performed her nominee song for “King Richard”, “Be Alive”, in an elaborate choreographed performance from an open-air stage in Compton, where the Williams sisters grew up.
Then, presenters Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall started the television broadcast from the Dolby Theater.
Sykes, Sumer, and Hall boldly joked about prominent Hollywood issues, such as pay equality – saying three female hostesses were “cheaper than a man” – Lady Gaga’s drama, which Sykes called “House of Random Accents” , the state of the Golden Globes (now demoted to the memorandum package, Sykes said) and Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriends. Their sharpest political point came at the end of their routine, in which they promised a wonderful night and then referred to the Florida “Do Not Say Homosexual” bill.
“And for you in Florida, we’re going to have a gay night out,” Sykes said.
The first broadcast award went to Ariana DeBose, whose victory came 60 years after Rita Moreno won the same role in the original “West Side Story” of 1961. DeBose thanked Moreno for pioneering “tons of Anitas like me ».
“Imagine this little girl in the back seat of a white Ford Focus, look her in the eyes: You see a queer, openly queer colored woman, an Afro Latina who found her strength in life through art. “And that’s what I’m thinking we’re here to celebrate,” DeBose said.
“Encanto”, the success of Disney that was pushed by the soundtrack of the top chart, won the best animated film. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the hit songs for the film, missed the ceremony after his wife tested positive for COVID-19. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour Japanese drama “Drive My Car”, one of the most acclaimed films of the year, won Best International Film.
After two years of pandemics and under a hot sun in California on Sunday, the Hollywood Charming ceremony has begun again, with a red carpet and a common test for COVID. Before the exchange with Smith, Rock commented with pleasure: “Nobody wears a mask. “I’m just breathing raw dog tonight.”
To regain cultural prominence, the Oscars relied heavily on musical performances (Billie Eilish, Reba McEntire), film anniversaries (“The Godfather”, “Pulp Fiction”, “White Men Can’t Jump”) and so many other references. for The song “Encanto” entitled “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, as much as possible. Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis left a moment of silence of 30 seconds for Ukraine. Some stars, such as Sean Penn, had pushed the academy to have Ukrainians President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke at the ceremony
But other than a few blue ribbons found on the red carpet, politics was rarely in the spotlight. The Oscars instead doubled in surprise, and the films as an escape. The producers brought in BTS and Tony Hawk to attract more viewers. Some things worked better than others. Fans’ favorite awards, as voted by Twitter users, were surpassed by Zack Snyder fans, who voted in favor of Snyder’s version of “Justice League” and “Army of the Dead”.
Friendly movies did well too. “CODA” also won the best adapted script. Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical “Belfast”, an affectionate family drama bathed in nostalgia and shot in black and white, won the best original screenplay.
Eilish and her brother Finneas won a Bond for “No Time to Die”, a song that was released before the pandemic began.
The Oscars kicked off off-camera on Sunday, with the first eight awards going to the Dolby Theater the night before the start of the ABC television show. Dolby was largely full of time for the pre-show at 7 p.m. EDT, named “golden hour” by the academy. The speeches were later converted into a show.
“Dune” took an early lead in these first awards, and held it overnight. The biggest blockbuster of the 10 nominations for Best Picture this year, “Dune” won six top awards for production design, cinematography, editing, visual effects, sound and music by Hans Zimmer.
Greig Fraser’s victory in cinema deprived him of an opportunity in the history of the Oscars. Some had taken root for Ari Wenger, who directed Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” to become the first woman to win Best Picture, the only Oscar ever to win a woman in nine decades of awards. Oscar. plus story
The best make-up and hairstyle were won by Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”. Chastain was among the many …
