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The 90th Academy Awards Oscar winners…

David J. Fowlie

2018oscarglitz

 

Guillermo del Toro is one of my favorite filmmakers working today. I love his predilection for horror, sci-fi/fantasy and the weird, but I never thought any of his movies would win Best Picture. Yet, tonight at the 90th Academy Awards telecast at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the writer/director wound up winning 4 (out of 13 nominations) Oscars for his latest film, “The Shape of Water”, for Best Production Design, Best Score, Best Director and Best Picture. The movie earned the most Oscars tonight, followed closely by Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk”, which nabbed three Oscars including Best Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. Below are the rest of the winners, as well as some thoughts on the near-four-hour show tonight…

But first, back to “The Shape of Water”, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised with its Oscar love since the movie won over fifty awards since premiering at the Venice International Film Festival last August. It’s a good movie, just not del Toro’s best and I guess I’m mostly surprised that a dark fairy tale like this – a period piece set in Cold War-era Baltimore where a mute custodian falls in love with a captured mer-man – has been embraced by so many. There are viewers who typically don’t care for genre films like this, who have wound up oddly embracing it. It seemed like a story that only certain genre fans would latch on to. I had an issue with he simplicity of the story, the cookie cutter antagonists and stereotypical supporting characters. There’s good performances here, I just wasn’t crazy about the characterization of certain pivotal roles.

As for the show itself, I wasn’t feeling the glitzy and gaudy look of the stage design on an aesthetic level. Each year it becomes an increasing challenge to declare whether or not it’s great or horrible. It just is what it is. I show up for the speeches and for any possible unpredictable moments. I’ve given up hoping to be wowed or entertained by hosts and really just hone in on the tone of the overall show, hoping for some unexpected moments.

There were none of those moments in any of the acting categories, and really, in pretty much all the categories there were primarily disappointments rather than surprises. The biggest for me was my favorite film of 2017, “Faces Places” not winning Best Documentary, but I was also bummed that “War for the Planet of the Apes” didn’t win for Visual Effects, since neither of the previous two films won as well. It was also lame to see Kobe Bryant’s lame short “Dear Basketball” win, since it was certainly not the best short in that category.

 

 

 

After hosting twice now, I’ve decided I’m not a fan of Jimmy Kimmel making the show like his own late night show. The jet ski bit was lame and while it was fun to see certain actors and filmmakers walk over with Kimmel to the screening of “A Wrinkle in Time” across the street, it took up too much time. A host should host, not stamp the show with a personal touch, especially since there are time constraints (or at least there should be).

So, that leaves the presenters and acceptance speeches to carry the night and they did just that. The best examples of this were certain pairings like Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph or Kumail Nanjiani and Lupita Nyong’o. Of the acceptance speeches, I really enjoyed cinematographer Richard Deakins and writer/director Jordan Peele, but the standout was Frances McDormand, sho unsurprisingly brought down the house with her acceptance speech and had everyone scrambling to search what “inclusion rider” means.

As for the presence of the #metoo and #timesup movement, all I can say is “We’ll see”. Tonight was one night, but time will tell if Hollywood will do more than echoing a growing wave and instead actually recognizing more women and people of color in all aspects of filmmaking.

 

 

BEST PICTURE

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST ACTRESS

BEST ACTOR

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE 

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM 

BEST SCORE 

BEST ORIGINAL SONG 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 

BEST FILM EDITING 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS 

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN 

BEST COSTUME DESIGN 

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING 

BEST SOUND EDITING 

BEST SOUND MIXING

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT 

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT 

BEST ANIMATED SHORT 

 

 

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