Photo courtesy of the Oscars website
Written by Rummel Medina
The 88th Academy Awards were held on Sunday Feb. 28 and honored the achievements of film in 2015. The ceremony was full of surprise wins, powerful performances and an outstanding amount of self-awareness in regards to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.
After a montage honoring every movie of 2015, Rock opened the self proclaimed “White People’s Choice Awards,” by saying “I’m sure there wasn’t no black nominees some of those [early] years… Because we had real things to protest at the time!”
The awards kicked off right away with a new ‘Thanks To’ bar running along the bottom of the screen displaying names of the winner’s friends and family.
The * marks films that made their way through the Savannah Film Festival!
Best Original Screenplay – “Spotlight*,” Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy.
Best Adapted Screenplay – “The Big Short, “Adam McKay & Charles Randolph.
Next was a collection of sketches that featured popular black actors in fictitious background rolls that “didn’t make it into the films” including Whoopi Goldberg as a janitor in “Joy,” Leslie Jones as the bear in the “Revenant,” Tracey Morgan as the “Danish girl” and Chris Rock himself –with Kristen Wig and Jeff Daniels– as “The Martian” that isn’t worth “white people dollars.” This was followed by Sam Smith’s breathtaking performance of “The Writing’s on the Wall” from Spectre, introduced by Sarah Silverman who jokes on the “too street” controversy of James Bond recasting.
Best Supporting Actress – “The Danish Girl,” Alicia Vikander.
Best Costume Design – “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Jenny Beavan.
Best Production Design – “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Lisa Thompson & Colin Gibson.
Best Makeup – “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Lesley Vanderwalt, Damien Martin & Elka Wardega.
Best Cinematography – “The Revenant,” Emmanuel Lubezki. Lubezki’s third consecutive Oscar.
Best Film Editing – “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Margaret Sixel. Special salute to editors for crafting the “final re-write” of a film.
The next sketch featured the “Black History Month Minute,” honoring star of Will Smith vehicles Enemy of the State and Shark Tale… Jack Black as the only ‘Black’ who can receive recognition.
Best Sound Editing – “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Mark Mangini & David White. “A film you can see with your ears.”
Best Sound Mixing – “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Gregg Rudloff, Chris Jenkins & Ben Osmo.
Best Visual Effects – Ex Machina, Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington & Sara Bennett.
Suddenly, fan-favorite droids C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8 storm the stage. The latter two mocked 3PO for his uncanny similarity to the Oscar trophy, and then congratulated John Williams on his 50th Oscar nomination! Following this, Chris Rock sended out an LA troop of Girls Scouts to sell cookies to raise the most money in his daughter’s troop. While everyone’s favorite headache, The Minions, presented the upcoming award.
Best Animated Short – “Bear Story,” Gabriel Osorio. Osorio took home the first ever Academy Award for the country of Chile!
The following award was introduced by “Toy Story’s” Woody and Buzz, who reminisced on their previous adventures.
Best Animated Feature – “Inside Out,” Pete Docter & Ronnie del Carmen. Docter dedicated his award to all children who had difficulties growing up, “There are days you’re gonna feel sad, you’re gonna feel angry, you’re gonna be scared. That’s nothing you can choose, but you can make stuff. Make films. Draw. Write. It’ll make a world of difference.”
Kevin Hart gave a heartwarming speech about how the negative issues of diversity will become a thing of the past. He then introduced an acrobatic performance from The Weeknd, who sung “Earned It” from Fifty Shades of Grey. This was followed by the next comedic segment from Chris Rock, who went to Compton and interviews local movie goers, most of which had no clue as to which films had been nominated.
Best Supporting Actor – “Bridge of Spies,” Mark Rylance.
Best Documentary Short – A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Director Obaid-Chinoy dedicated the award to all women who can work together to create something inspiring. She also acknowledged that Pakistan will be changing their laws on honor killing due to this documentary short, revealing the true power of film.
Best Documentary Feature – “Amy*,” Asif Kapadia & James Gay-Rees.
President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cheryl Boone Isaacs took the stage to congratulate everyone in the industry, and made it clear the Academy will be changing.
“Everyone in the Hollywood community has a role to play… so that we can accurately reflect the world today.” She urged members to be active and not a bystander. Finally she confided in the academy that together they will “shape a future of which all of us can be proud.”
Following this announcement, Dave Ghroll took the stage with a rendition of “Blackbird” for the in memoriam segment. Here members of the Academy that were lost this year including Wes Craven, Leonard Nimoy, and the recently deceased Allan Rickman and David Bowie were honored.
Best Live Action Short – “Stutterer*,” Benjamin Cleary.
Best Foreign Language Film – “Son of Saul (Hungary),” László Nemes.
Vice President Joe Biden made an appearance giving a segment of his traveling talk on sexual abuse victims. Biden encouraged college campuses to speak up and take action regarding sexual violence, stating no one should have to ask “What did I do?” If you would like to know more on the matter please visit their website. Biden introduced Lady Gaga who performed “Till it Happens To You” from The Hunting Ground along with sexual assault survivors who took the stage.
Best Original Music Score – “The Hateful Eight,” Ennio Morricone. At 87 years old, Morricone took home his first Oscar after a 60 year long career.
Best Original Song – “Spectre,” “Writing’s on the Wall” by Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes. Smith claimed the Oscar for the LGBT community, “I stand here tonight as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals one day.”
Best Director – “The Revenant,” Alejandro González Iñárritu. Iñárritu won his second consecutive Oscar and called for a liberation of prejudice hoping that we “make sure that the color of the skin becomes as irrelevant as the length of our hair.”
Best Actress – “Room*,” Brie Larson. The 26 year old actress walked away with her first Oscar all the “movie-goers” and the festivals which put the film on the map (Hey, that’s us!).
Best Actor – “The Revenant,” Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio discussed climate change calling it “the most urgent threat facing our entire species… [Do] not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted.”
Best Picture – “Spotlight.*” The producers thanked the heroic efforts of reporters everywhere nothing that they are responsible for reflecting the “global change”
That wraps up the 88th Academy Awards! A show filled with laughs, surprises and a true sense of self-awareness from the academy. Sunday night definitely showed that the industry is not just in need of change, but they are aware of the necessity to evolve. Will we be seeing a change in racial representation in all the categories? Time will only tell, but until then let us not forget the power of film and the messages delivered.
