The Best & Worst Of The 2019 Oscars - Page 2 of 2

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Best: Melissa McCarthy & Brian Tyree Henry presenting Best Costumes
So we’d only just hit “send tweet” on our “Why aren’t Tina, Maya and amy hosting the whole thing?” messages, when out came MMC and BTY to extol the virtues of subtlety in costuming while wearing what appeared to be all the costumes. Brian Tyree Henry, who’d already given great Red Carpet (as well as about half a dozen of the best unacknowledged performances of the year) proved the adage “it’s only funny when the sucker has dignity” by delivering his bits with an absolute straight face despite being dressed as, well, Queen Anne Visits Wakanda. And Melissa McCarthy had a schtick with her rabbit hand-puppet that was pure dumb-funny — a relief since the last time she acted with puppets we got “The Happytime Murders.” Also, it should be noted they picked the two films (“The Favourite” and “Black Panther“) that were always level-pegging in the polls for this award, so they were funny and canny.

Worst: Why the hell did Rage Against The Machine guy intro “Vice”?
The first hostless Oscars since 1989 (a ceremony that legally must be accompanied by the word “debacle”) threw together some interesting presenting duos (Mirren and Momoa!) and some inspired Best Picture intro choices. Barbra Streisand talking up “BlacKkKlansman” and bonding with Spike Lee over Brooklyn and hats, was basically its de facto Best Picture award, and John Lewis walking out with Amandla Stenberg would have been one for the ages if they hadn’t been shilling for “Green Book” (incidentally the moment that many of us here were for proper real like, oh shit, it’s gonna win.) But no Best Picture ginner-upper was a more random choice than musician Tom Morello repping “Vice.” Not only is it always a bit forlorn to see people Solemnly Intone the virtues of films that have no chance at all of winning, but the Academy really told on itself by basically suggesting that “Vice” was the cinematic equivalent of Rage Against The Machine, when it isn’t.

Best: Diversity wins
While yeah, “Green Book”’s victories definitely took the air out of the balloon a bit, this was still a night that showcased some steps forward in terms of the journey towards more inclusive winners on the night. We saw the first African-American winners of the Costume Design, Production Design and Animated Film categories thanks to “Black Panther” and ‘Spider-verse,’ and a healthy number of female winners in categories like Best Documentary and Best Animated Short in the earlier part of the show. And even if there’s still something problematic about an Egyptian-American actor winning for playing a second-generation Indian immigrant, three wins for actors of color in the acting categories still felt like a step up after a very white 2018 ceremony. And while it’s hardly new news to have a Mexican man take Best Director (this has happened in 5 out of the last 6 ceremonies! How do they keep getting in past that wall?), “Roma“‘s strong showing may not have goosed it to the Best Picture win many were predicting/rooting for, but it still performed hugely well for a non-English language film starring, as Cuarón pointed out on one of his many trips up to the podium, an indigenous woman, in Yalitza Aparicio (who has also been a delight all season).

Worst: Bohemian Rhapsody wins Editing
In general, Bohemian Rhapsody is quite a bad film that happens to have a rousing climax, so all of its wins stung a little bit (though we’d have taken to the streets and started smashing stuff up if Anthony McCarten’s screenplay had been nominated and won). But its victory in Editing was the most representatively enraging. John Ottman’s done some fine work in the past, but “Bohemian Rhapsody” isn’t even a little bit up there (take the famous million-reaction-shots Aidan Gillen scene in the film that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter). But crucially, he’s also known entirely as an editor for his work with Bryan Singer, a man who wasn’t mentioned once during speeches, but remains the credited director of the movie. Regardless of whether he was actually overseeing the post-production, voting for his long-time editor feels like a tacit endorsement of Singer by the Academy, despite the awards campaign’s committed efforts to give the impression that this was a movie directed by… no one?

Best: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper perform “Shallow”
It could have been a major disappointment (remember Adele’s audio issues singing “Skyfall”?). Instead they completely knocked it out of the park, and benefitted from Glenn Weiss‘ most inspired direction of the night. They went low-key with the set, simple with the lightshow and so intimate with that look at the end that we were a little worried for Bradley Cooper’s girlfriend (especially after we looked it up and realized that Bradley Cooper’s girlfriend is dowdy Russian supermodel Irina Shayk who is a strong contender for literally the homeliest woman on earth. Rooting for you to keep your mans against all the odds, gurl!) Anyway, “Shallow” looked, sounded and felt amazing — a proper tingly moment of old-school Hollywood glamor, chemistry and real talent. And hearing Cooper sing, so soulfully and so well, holding his own against one of the biggest pop stars in the world (when even Jennifer Hudson had been a bit shaky), not quite in character, but not wholly out of it either — a perfectly judged performance — was almost as bittersweet as the song itself: WHAT IN HELL DID HE DO TO YOU PEOPLE THAT YOU VOTED FOR RAMI MALEK’S DENTURES INSTEAD?

Worst: That absolutely wretched song from “RBG”
Songwriter Diane Warren is as much a fixture at these awards as anyone, with “I’ll Fight” from the Ruth Badass Ginsburg documentary marking her tenth nomination in the Best Song category. Having never won before there was a small “she’s due” narrative going on which crashed to a halt as soon as anyone actually heard the damn thing: When even Jennifer Hudson can’t sell your “empowerment ballad” you know you’re in trouble. Poor J-Hud did her pitchy best, but as far as our ears could discern, was hampered by the absence of either tune or rhythm, and this was always the “Shallow” award anyway, but sheesh, having to sit through this thing and not even being rewarded by Kendrick doing his awesome “Black Panther” song was The Worst. Hudson was cute watching Gaga’s speech though:

Best: Spike Lee
Spike’s anger that “Green Book” won Best Picture matched our own, but even so, it was a good night to be Spike Lee and a good night to be a Spike Lee fan, with one of our most iconic filmmakers finally picking up an Oscar he should have picked up 25+ years ago at least. And from the director’s Waluigi-ish outfit to Samuel L. Jackson’s unashamedly overjoyed reaction to his longtime collaborator winning, to Lee’s leap into his old friend’s arms and his never-more-Spike acceptance speech, his win will be one of our more abiding memories of the night. Also, looks like he really got under someone’s tangerine skin.

Worst: Song performances in general
“Shallow” aside, this wasn’t a vintage year for the song performances, after all the back and forth about their inclusion. “Shallow” was fab, of course. And it didn’t help that Kendrick Lamar pulled out late in the day (though perhaps he could see which way the wind was blowing) so “All The Stars,” the only other interesting nominated song, wasn’t performed. But still, aside from that drab RBG song, the Buster Scruggs performance was a bit characterless given that it came from a Coen Brothers movie, and Bette Midler didn’t exactly storm the stage with the Mary Poppins number (perhaps more a fault of the song than the performer, but it might have been more fun with Emily Blunt herself doing it). We won’t make you listen. have a little Kendrick instead.

Best: Spider-verse!!!
Except for Spike Lee and Olivia Colman, perhaps no award last night was greeted with such universal joy as “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.” Which is sort of odd in a way — this wasn’t some GKIDS underdog, this was a big-budget animated superhero movie, about a superhero who’s been on screen eight other times since the turn of the millennium. But it’s testament to the artistry and heart in the film that it’s won over so many hearts and minds. And man, may we all bounce back from our failures like Phil Lord and Chris Miller , watching the movie you were fired from tank, then winning an Oscar for a Spider-Man cartoon. Couldn’t have happened to nicer fellas.

Worst: “Green Book”
This will be covered at length elsewhere in a billion thinkpieces, but in brief: “Green Book” winning Best Picture really does feel like the biggest Best Picture bummer in a while. And one that’s particularly pronounced after a run of winners from “12 Years A Slave” onwards that felt like one of the most interesting and progressive runs in Oscar history. We’re broadly ok with Mahershala Ali winning, even if he’s rightfully a co-lead for the film and squeezed out Richard E Grant who would have, I dunno, tapdanced and trampolined through his acceptance speech, just because Mahershala Ali is great in general. But the film itself is such a regressive, old-fashioned, Stanley Kramer-ish piece of middlebrow that it’s hard to conceive of it winning out without some level of ‘whitelash’ to it — Academy members being told that they shouldn’t like it, and going ‘fuck you’ and ticking its box instead, passing over “Black Panther” and “Blackkklansman” in the process. And a Screenplay win for its Trump-fan co-scribe Nick Villalonga felt like a particular poke in the eye. Still, maybe a place in history alongside “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Crash” is what “Green Room” deserved all along?

Best: Olivia Colman, obviously.
Nothing but respect for MY Queen. Unlike the Oscars themselves, we’re going to go out on a high, with the actual most important award of the night: Best Actress. We’ll have more on this win in our forthcoming Snubs and Surprises feature, but even the die hardiest of Glenn Close fans would have been hard pushed to stay mad throughout Olivia Colman‘s genuinely delightful and delighted Oscar acceptance speech. She was all over the map but completely on point, tearful but funny about it, suggested *she* wanted Close to win, blew kisses to Lady Gaga, called out Melissa McCarthy, and made her husband of 25 years cry. In fact the only thing she really missed was a mention of Yalitza Aparicio because they famously loathe each other and have major beef. Kidding! I’m sure, good as her word, they were snogging backstage within moments of the ceremony ending. Look, I’m sorry I can’t even be a little un-pleased here: Colman gave the single Best Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role in 2018, and she won an Oscar for it. Sometimes life can be so simple and pure and right.

What made your best & worst that we skipped over? Let us know below.

Click here for more from our Oscars 2019 coverage.

— with Andrew John Bundy