“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”
― Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love“Boyhood winning a single Oscar is awesome. We stopped it! We can go to bed now.” ― Academy member in the editors branch, sent to a friend this morning.
To understand that last sentiment, we can peel away the paradox that revolves around this line spoken by Meryl Streep in Postcards from the Edge. “You want me to be good, just not better than you.”
The Oscars in the modern era are about an industry feeling defensive against the increasing dominance of film critics as deciders of which film is best. Critics, unlike the insular Hollywood community of film-award voters, do not align themselves so religiously with the familiar major studios. A company like IFC Films or CBS Films can break through with critics awards, no problem. But they will be stopped when and if they try to break into the Oscars. They might slip in with the more populist PGA and DGA. They might charm the Golden Globes and they certainly fooled BAFTA. But they aren’t going to fool the Academy. Those industry VIPs know where their bread is buttered.
This defensiveness against film critics was the head of the monster that helped make Birdman such an Oscar-race juggernaut. The body of the beast was the industry’s pointless, symbolic rejection of how Hollywood has changed since the 1970s. Birdman did two things: it sought to viciously shame the critics (the original script had Riggan actually shooting the critic, far less self-pitying way to turn the story); and it meant to lay waste, at least in sentiment, to superhero movies, the younger generation’s dependence upon perceived trivialities like viral videos, youtube and Twitter — in short, everything that makes them feel irrelevant.
Spend enough time with entertainment people and you’ll see a group of folks who really are used to being treated like they’re the center of the universe. The Academy was kind enough to extend an invite to me to attend the show for the first time in 16 years of Oscar coverage. I needed a costume. I had three dresses to choose from. One was “The Norman Bates’ mother look” (and by that, I mean, the corpse in the chair, not Vera Farmiga). The second was Divine in Pink Flamingos, and the third was Joan Collins in Dynasty. I ended up discarding all of them, heading to Macy’s and buying a tight-fitting, curve-hugging dress that made each of my breasts look like bowling balls affixed to a Buddha. I did my makeup, bought some high heels, curled my hair (which the rain promptly uncurled), gathered my tickets and phone charger, stuffing them into my “fancy handbag” and disappeared into the cold and rainy afternoon. The next day, incidentally, the sun would return as if to say, “we just wanted to try to ruin the Oscars. It was worth a shot.”
One thing you can’t criticize the Academy for is not knowing precisely what they’re doing. There were check points and American snipers up and down Hollywood Boulevard. They searched my “Valley-mom SUV” and made me roll my windows down “until you get to the red carpet.” I thought it would be self-park but alas, I had to make some poor valet driver actually get into my messy car and park it. I stepped out onto the boulevard, juggling my fancy bag, my tickets, my ID and my phone. There were tourists lining the boulevard in the rain waiting to see a somebody. They looked at me, a giant boobed nobody and quickly looked away.
If I were a decent person and a good Oscarwatcher I would have lingered longer on the red carpet — which is kind of terrifying. It makes Stardust Memories and 8 1/2 seem like child’s play. This is harsh bright lighting, people screaming on cue in the bleachers, women as thin as matchsticks everywhere you looked, dresses so pretty they seem to be laughing silently at the dress you hastily put on. Okay, the dress I hastily put on. Okay, they weren’t really laughing. I haven’t actually lost my mind. Only pretend insanity.
Once you leave the madness of the red carpet you walk up lots of stairs. At one point I felt myself tip back and I wondered just how dramatic it would be if I’d tumbled all the way back, hitting my head on the marble staircase, calling in the ambulance and shutting down all of the fun. I steadied myself and kept walking, following lots of long dresses, women who smelled like expensive hairspray (not Aquanet). Where was John Waters when you needed him?
Once upstairs, at each checkpoint is a smiling, unformed person directing the flood of people through to the tiered lobbies where a bar was set up, with endlessly flowing champagne and mixed drinks. Caterers glided through each lobby with the same trays of hors d’ourvres. One plump shrimp in cocktail sauce, bacon quiche, the teeny tiniest bagel and lox, beaded caper salad on toothpicks, sliced vegetable sticks in paper cups, with bags of potato chips nearby.
If I’d been a good Oscarwatcher I would have used my press pass to lobby-hop to the main floor and middle lobbies where the beautiful people congregate. I didn’t but I can imagine what it was like, can’t you? Famous people eating and drinking and talking and laughing. I’ve seen so many of them already up close. I propped myself up at the bar upstairs where there were only scattered numbers of people, and caught my breath.
John Savage was the only recognizable person up on our floor. He was escorting a tall drink of water in a showstopper of a dress on an endless search for an electrical outlet to charge her phone.
At some point the television monitors came on to blare the official pre-show. Most stared up at it moon-faced, watching Julianne Moore up close talking about Alzheimer’s.
“Please take your seat. The Oscars will begin in 30 minutes.” I felt a pressing need to get to my seat and sit there for a half an hour. I grabbed my cocktail and headed in. Once inside, I was so high up I felt like I might get height sickness from looking down. The stage was so small and far away that appeared to me like an ornate tiny dollhouse ready to be filled with prettily dressed figurines. And so it was.
I was seated next to a nominee. I didn’t find this out until they called out the Sound Mixing category. I said “American Sniper” out loud and the guy next to me said “No.” Then Whiplash was announced. I heard his wife pat his arm. “Aw, we didn’t win. Next time.” They’d been arguing about Facebook the entire time they were sitting there. “Get your log-in and sign out, then sign back in and write down your password.” “I don’t know how to do it,” she said. “I’m telling you how to do it.” I didn’t expect to be sitting next to a nominee, way up at the back of the house. I’d heard smatterings of applause when they read out the shorts categories so I assumed those nominees were all upstairs too. I’ve never sat next to someone who didn’t hear their name called. They stayed a little bit longer and then left. “Next time,” she said again, soothingly. Turns out he was one of the sound guys on Interstellar.
On my other side was a journalist from Forbes. His favorite film was Whiplash. He also had enough courage to talk to John Savage, who ended up talking his ear off for about half an hour. It was fun to compare notes with another first-timer. We were figuring out the ins and outs of the whole thing. He was far more professional than I was. He wasn’t taking Boyhood’s loss personally. Even when The Imitation Game beat Whiplash for Adapted Screenplay he was disappointed but not about to rage against the machine.
You saw the same show I saw, but it quickly becomes clear that the ceremony is designed for the TV cameras, not an audience. I’m sure the people in the seats front and center feel the excitement in real time, perhaps the speeches were genuinely moving to them, down there, but I got the feeling it was all a tad put-on. The speeches, the audience interactions, the tears, the gratitude. It was entertainment in and of itself, or meant to be, to keep people believing in the magic of the movies, and that the Oscars really are still a celebration of that magic. PR for that magic.
The best part for me was watching the crew change the sets, or the steady-cam operator glide around behind a contender. Somewhere, the director was dictating which camera feed goes into the live feed. Simple things like knowing where a winner’s spouse is sitting to cut to their face, or how Neil Patrick Harris spent time in the audience while the stage sets were transformed. The show, like the organization, like any efficient business, is slick and extremely well organized. How it reads on TV is really out of their hands.
When they read the nominees, the house lights go down to pitch black. The lights come up just before they announce the winner. Off and on, off an on, all night long it went. The sound was as you’d expect, though it must be said that the singing performances were far better live. You simply can’t get the same experience hearing them filtered through the airwaves.
Once Inarritu and his team won screenplay and director, the truth began to emerge like a flame catching a corner of paper just before it devours the whole thing. The changing landscape of the film industry is a done deal. Birdman was meant to be their rallying cry, uniting them in solidarity against their increasing feelings of futility. By the end of the night, when humanitarian and two-time Oscar winning actor Sean Penn, took the stage to hand the top prize to his friend, Alejandro, he could toss his head back self-righteously and proclaim, “movies aren’t about box office.”
Inarritu made his speech about Mexican immigrants, ironic since both he and Alfonso Cuaron have had to focus singularly on white American stories with white American stars to finally win their Oscars. But still, “two Mexican Best Directors in a row” has got to fill Mexico with some kind of pride, a record breaking twofer, unimaginable even ten years ago.
All in all, the Academy did spread the wealth, as the saying goes, with each Best Picture contender winning at least one Oscar.
Birdman – Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography
Grand Budapest – Costumes, Production Design, Score, Makeup
Whiplash – Sound, Editing, Supporting Actor
Imitation Game – Adapted Screenplay
Theory of Everything – Best Actor
American Sniper – Sound Editing
Boyhood – Supporting Actress
Selma – Song
A few thoughts about the industry crowded inside my head as I tried to shut out the lingering echoes of applause and laughter. Where the Oscar race used to seem, to me, like the last refuge for those out there still trying to do good work amidst a fast-changing economic reality, they really are the solution. If ticket buyers want fewer choices, branded movies aimed at the masses, earning them all the money they could ever want and then some, that makes Hollywood look like a bunch of greedy, artless capitalists.
But the Oscars? They can give Birdman their highest honor and they believe it will make them look like they still care about art. They care about it enough to sympathize with an actor who has discarded his superhero outfit to try to flail around with a Raymond Carver play. If only the rest of the world would notice how good it is. Not the critic who will never give it a pass because it’s too “Hollywood.” Not the irrelevant worker bees “out there” in the world because they don’t get it – they only get Twitter and viral videos. The industry has one night (or several since the big guilds really decide the Oscars now) to tell the rest of the world who they are.
We’ve all fallen for the act that the heart of Hollywood wants to turn back the clock on the tent poles. That’s all you heard about this year. Superhero movies and tent poles coming along to shit all over everything while the rich get richer and the poor help them do it. The truth of it is, and it became all too clear to me last night, no one really wants things to change. They need to make that kind of money. They like to make that kind of money.
It’s sort of like McDonald’s trying to hipster-up with coffee and healthy-up with salads. They’re still McDonald’s, the scourge of the planet, poisoning people, killing massive amounts of livestock, sucking up the earth’s resources to give people high cholesterol and heart disease. But hey, they sell salad so they must be great, they must care about us, right?
The Academy managed to stop Boyhood, thus invalidating what the critics, the HFPA and the British film industry thought was best. They have that card to play and they play it every year, whether it ultimately makes them look worse in retrospect or not.
As for me, a Cinderella for the night, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Leaving early meant I got a jump on the valet parking, though I suspect no one stood in line very long anywhere at the Academy. Entitlement wafted through the air vents — most of them don’t really know anything else other than being given special treatment. That isn’t the world I live in. It isn’t the world I see outside. It isn’t the world anywhere except behind the red rope.
If I could say one positive thing about the experience it would be this: it’s a marvel to watch such an adept organization put on a show like that. It probably reads really slow and clumsy to you all at home but from my seat I saw an expert balancing act that left no room for mistakes.
Even my car was delivered to me swiftly and efficiently. I lifted my shiny dress and sunk myself back into my cozy beater SUV, which smelled once again like real life. I pulled out of the parking garage and headed down Hollywood Boulevard to La Brea, to Franklin and onward to the 101 which would take me to the 170 and back to the valley where I belonged. The last bits of rain sprinkled on my windshield. My Cinderella dress already felt too tight. That bra had to come off. I was greeted by a dog who needed to be walked and a daughter with a high fever. I made her a cold cloth for her forehead but she was really warm.
“That guy who made that speech about the Imitation Game made me cry for like twenty minutes,” she said. “Oh yeah? Did you like the show,” I asked? “It was too long,” she said. Too long, an Oscar tradition achieved at last.
Great lead, and you look beautiful! I’m sorry you didn’t get the outcome you wanted, but it wouldn’t be the Oscars if their choices weren’t disappointing in some way. Live tapings are always surreal and superficial at the same time, so I can only gather from your piece the mix of emotions you must have felt being there. Well, I may be in the minority, but I thought it was the most entertaining Oscar broadcast in several years (at least since the first time they had each acting nominee presented by a different previous winner). And for a year with few standout films with both critics and audiences in their favor, it’s a very good, deserving set of winners.
Thank you for sharing the story about your Cinderella moment, Sasha. I’m sorry though, it wasn’t the end you dreamed of. Nice dress and boobs (I’m envious), you looked beautiful! 🙂
And last but not least, thank you for another year of Awards coverage.
I don’t care what they say Boyhood was cutting edge and no film ever came close to its challenge of watching boy grow.
Sasha, you are so good you should have sat in anyone’s lap who was on the front row. BTW, whatever happened to Nikki Fink?
Just asking..
http://www.examiner.com/review/boyhood-by-richard-linklater
http://www.examiner.com/review/birdman
Great post Sasha. Thanks for this.
“….why is so hard for you people to understand it’s possible to like more than one film?”
This is the part I find so perplexing about how the Oscar races have become. It’s become so like politics. Not that it’s political; the Academy has always been that. But it’s become like the mentality of politics, where winning isn’t enough, you must DESTROY the loser. And if you lost, it’s not because the majority thought another film was a bit greater than the one you loved, it’s some tragedy of epic nature, and crimes against humanity. It’s not a commentary on this blog, because the same is true everywhere. And seemingly in all facets, politics, sports, entertainment…so maybe it’s an American, or a people problem. You can’t just want to win, your enemy must be crushed before you because they’re scum.
I find it funny in this year’s race, because both the movies that were seemingly the head to head battle (I say seemingly, because with the amount of awards each got, are we sure Grand Budapest Hotel or Whiplash didn’t get the second most votes?) are both films that will largely be forgotten outside of film critic and Oscar historian circles. Neither is making enough of a public consciousness impact to really be thought of as triumphant or slighted. What this Oscars will most historically be remember for is as the year The Lego Movie was screwed of even being nominated for Best Animated Film.
Which leads to various points of “popular” movies getting a nod or not. This year hardly was one where a renaissance was needed; it was already here. The Academy just ignored it. Certainly there was The Lego Movie which had wide critical acclaim as well as popularity. But we’ve had a nice run of just “superhero movie/pop entertainment” that’s been critically acclaimed outside of the latest Transformers movie. Just this year Marvel put out Captain America 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy, both widely praised by critics. When you have critical notices on Rotten Tomatoes, you have films like Boyhood and Birdman at 98 and 93%, (and Whiplash at 95) but Lego (96) GotG (91) Cap (89) and others which can be mentioned certainly can stand with films like Gone Girl (88) Theory of Everything (79) Grand Budapest (92) Imitation Game (89) American Sniper (73) and films that were nominated. Yes, RT is more a thumbs up thumbs down, but few of those movies were “good for a kid’s movie” or other qualifications. Critics liked them. Audiences liked them. And both liked them better than some films that were actually nominated, if not the front runners for the truly best picture of the year. Till the Academy can acknowledge what the James Gunn link stated, that people do paint by the numbers blockbusters and “art” as much as put their heart and craft into a “big” picture was well as an indie, they’re going to be searching for validation as much as the fictional ones in Birdman.
What a boobiful night it must have been! 😉
They couldn’t have invited you to The Hurt Locker year those bastards. Ha. Good job though.
Thanks for the great insider’s read on the ceremony Sasha. Thoroughly enjoyed it and your tweets during the day.
“Is it too reactive to already predict something two decades down the line?. It obviously is, Dave.”
Ah, Claudiu, it was a rhetorical question; as I was reflecting on others who were already casting aspersions on the legacy of a best picture win.
I was agreeing with you. 🙂 Amazing how easy it is to misunderstand… I knew I shouldn’t have said “Dave” at the end – bad editing decision…
You will copy and paste bits and bobs everywhere from others (sometimes out of context) to make a point. How about you just make your own?
I don’t have original thoughts. I’m stupid.
Wow Sasha, I say this as a straight woman: your chest is awesome.
Well. What can I say?! Sasha said it best when she said the Academy wanted to invalidate the critics with its choce. BirdMan has an important segment in the movie which touched a nerve with the industry. The scene when Keaton’s character tries to have a genuine conversation with the “critic” and yet that same critic vows to destroy and kill his play – that scene is precisely the reason why the Academy and the guild rose against the critics. Since the same critics championed a different film, the Academy felt obligated to rally behind the movie in which the artist defies his worst nightmare – his critics.
So, even though I didn’t find Birdman to beamy special, I can certainly see why it was chosen.
Personally, I enjoyed Gone Girl, Nightcrawler, The Imitation Game, American Sniper, Selma and the Grand Budapest Hotel much more.
But often with the Academy, it’s about the statement that they make in the year that they make it rather than to actually award the film that deserves to win the most..
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. It’s kind of fun to see it through your eyes. This is different than seeing it on TV and probably the closest I’ll ever get to the red carpet.
“Is it too reactive to already predict something two decades down the line?. It obviously is, Dave.”
Ah, Claudiu, it was a rhetorical question; as I was reflecting on others who were already casting aspersions on the legacy of a best picture win.
You will copy and paste bits and bobs everywhere from others (sometimes out of context) to make a point. How about you just make your own?
Rhetorical question – Claudiu!
I’m a big Birdman fan and my biggest regret is that Keaton didn’t win.
Sounds like a unique and interesting event. Would like to be able to go one day.
Brilliant piece – one of your best of the season. Pretty great way to end it!
“Boyhood winning a single Oscar is awesome. We stopped it! We can go to bed now.” ― Academy member in the editors branch, sent to a friend this morning.
Wow, is that for real?!… If so, that’s cold…
When they read the nominees, the house lights go down to pitch black. The lights come up just before they announce the winner. Off and on, off an on, all night long it went.”
Weird. Why would they do that? Just to save energy? Or for the guests to see the screen better? (I assume the clips announcing the nominees are shown on the screen.)
“I hope that when you look back at the experience years from now some of the sting of having your favorite film lose will have subsided and you can remember the night fondly. academy politics notwithstanding.”
Yeah, yeah, I was thinking that too…
***
The Academy has certainly given the award to worse movies in the last 20 years. Argo, Crash. A Beautiful Mind. Gladiator. The issue is the gulf between the snubbed film and the quality of the one they chose. This is almost exactly on par with the very upsetting King’s Speech win two years ago. The film that loses is a true masterwork (Boyhood and TSN are my #1 and #2 films of the decade, respectively). And the film that wins is a big, fat B-plus of a film.
Yeah… that’s nothing more than your opinion, though, and your personal estimation of the “gulf” (which may or may not exist).
”Boyhood” didn’t win Best Picture at the Oscars, but that doesn’t invalidate the dozens and dozens of Best Film prizes it won from the N.Y. Film Critics, the L.A. Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics, BAFTA, etc. …
Absolutely – it’s still a great movie that won a lot of important prizes (most of them, even, one could say). The fact that it lost the Oscar matters to whomever chooses to care about it, and doesn’t to whomever chooses not to, it’s as simple as that.
Boyhood […] not emotionally engaging.
That’s not valid criticism, though – it WAS emotionally engaging for a whole lot of people (most, I daresay), myself included. It’s just your opinion that it wasn’t. It has value, but is entirely subjective and cannot be used as criticism for the movie itself (unless shared by most people/critics, at which point one has to assume this is more likely the fault of the movie itself, than a result of the disconnect between it and some people’s point of view).
Is it too reactive to already predict something two decades down the line?
It obviously is, Dave.
Woooow, the number of future readers that can tell what people are going to think years from now is astonishing.
It is, isn’t it?! 🙂
This year Boyhood was picked number 1 by 189 critics Birdman 60 to the academy 60 is higher than 189.
Dude, that’s what critics’ awards are for. What, are the Academy supposed to just award the best reviewed film every year? What’s the point of even having them vote, then? You don’t like their picks – don’t watch! Very simple…
NPH was a terrible host (though that was mostly due to the writing).
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel (except I didn’t think he was terrible, but rather adequate, if not particularly good) – I hated most of the material he had to work with.
I hope I am wrong, but I get the feeling that this may be your last year. Thoughts?
In a recent podcast, I believe she said 4-5 more years. I hope she never retires, though – as long as she still finds things to enjoy in the business, of course!
one of those fucking trolls on that thread who came on here to gloat.
I hope you don’t mean me, Chris – I kept my gloating as decent as possible, and only did it in the first place because certain people were simply insufferable at certain points earlier in the season.
”Boyhood needed that Best Picture.”
No movie NEEDS an Oscar to be remembered. There are numerous films that have won Best Picture that have been largely forgotten, or not held up to the test of time, and there are numerous films that were never even Oscar-nominated, but many people love and adore.
” I think deep down, those critics who loved Boyhood really wanted it to win, not just because they genuinely liked the film and thought it was the best.”
Why is it so hard to believe that the critics and the Academy members just have different tastes? Maybe the critics happen to recognize Linklater’s singular cinematic achievement and genuinely enjoyed his storytelling and his characters more. And maybe the Academy members happen to identify more with the actors and their plights in ‘Birdman” and really found Inarritu’s flights of fancy more creative. Who’s to say? I would no more presume to know what critics are ”thinking deep down,” any more than Oscar voters. But I’d like to believe everyone sincerely voted for their favorite, which is always subjective.
Sasha Stone, you are my idol!
Ethel,
Needed to edit to say “to the critics of Boyhood’s plot….”
Sorry to hijack Sasha’s postmortem with links to other sites, but so much great writing this day about movies I particularly didn’t care for. Plenty to disagree with in this splendid essay on the “fascinating incoherence of” SNIPER:
Like “J. Edgar,” which also caught the ire of progressives (as it’s a somewhat sympathetic film about an architect of American fascism), “American Sniper” is often defined by its conspicuous omissions. Hoover says to one of his many biographical ghostwriters who inquires about specifics, “Let’s leave that to the reader’s imagination. The important thing is drawing the line between protagonist and antagonist.” It’s a line that connects with a recurring Eastwood theme of black and white hats, but I think it gives more insight into Hoover’s mindset—and our nation’s mythology rooted in Eastwood’s embryotic Western mileau—than Eastwood’s. (Again, as if he’s never really considered the implications of “Unforgiven” or Eastwood’s “Iwo Jima” movies, Taibbi writes, “The characters in Eastwood’s movies almost always wear white and black hats or their equivalents, so you know at all times who’s the good guy on the one hand, and whose exploding head we’re to applaud on the other.”) The tone of suffusing dread Eastwood wrangles in “American Sniper,” like the eerie blankness in “J. Edgar,” makes such topical absences (the Iraq dead, WMDs, the policy of the Bush cabinet) feel more like repression than jingoistic whitewashing, encapsulated with an image of Chris returning home amongst servicemen’s caskets, something the Bush White House didn’t want photographers to publish.
The link between the two films is repression, which ties into the startling transgressive sense that “American Sniper” could be read as what the late Marxist critic Robin Wood defined as an “Incoherent Text.” The idea is a throwback to Eastwood’s heyday of the 1970s, when Classical Hollywood had collapsed. Wood writes, “There are two keys to understanding the development of the Hollywood cinema in the 70s: the impingement of Vietnam on the national consciousness and the unconscious, and the astonishing evolution of the horror film.” The war led to doubts about patriarchal guidelines, “the symbolic figure of the Father in all its manifestations,” while motifs of the horror genre began to permeate and undermine all facets of the era’s cinema, Wood focusing on three key motifs: the monster-as-human-psychopath who is a product of “normality”; the descent-into-hell; and the doppelganger. While art strives to make coherent meaning out of human experience, the maker of the “incoherent text” perceives the chaos that art represses and reorders. With these films, meaning is defeated. Built on Classical foundations of meaning, the films are fracturing as they play out before us. They’re bewildering, and “they are works that do not know what they want to say.” http://bit.ly/1Aoypvq
In the end, Boyhood was only a frontrunner in these critics’ and bloggers’ world. Much like The Social Network was.
Boyhood needed that Best Picture. And I think deep down, those critics who loved Boyhood really wanted it to win, not just because they genuinely liked the film and thought it was the best, but also because deep down they know the film will be forgotten and would not reach a wider audience without the win. Nobody remembers the runners-up, unless you have massive outrage from all sectors, ala Crash vs. Brokeback.
Oh, look! The current Best Picture winner is already garnering backlash. What a surprise (not).
Ultimately, the BAFTAs were a better awards ceremony this year with better winners, except Theory of Everything for adapted screenplay. Too bad Anderson and Linklater couldn’t accept their BAFTA awards because of the DGA which they both lost.
Er, Pete? Pete? PETE? Re: your second paragraph in your reply to me. Are you joking? Did you even read what I wrote? Wow. Seriously? No, seriously?
Uh oh…somebody needs a nap. I put “we’re” instead of “were.”
Sasha, Thanks for sharing your adventures at the Oscars. Your self-deprecating remarks we’re hilarious. You looked wonderful, by the way! Still getting over my Boyhood got shafted blues. I still can’t believe they couldn’t have at least gone with a BD/BP split. Thanks for the photos!
Great article, Sasha. This reader feels like he was there.
And yes, Boyhood lost. And yes, some Academy members will gloat about how they rebuked the critics for thinking it was the best film. And yes, those same Academy members will continue to think that what they say has any bearing on which films we’ll remember years from now — oblivious to the fact that it is their arch-nemeses, the critics, that actually keep the films alive. Well, critics and popularity, but we all know that only one film among this year’s Oscar nominees had the latter, and that one’s destined to be a minor work among its esteemed director’s oeuvre.
““Boyhood winning a single Oscar is awesome. We stopped it! We can go to bed now.” ― Academy member in the editors branch, sent to a friend this morning.”
I’m not calling anyone a liar, but I have a hard time believing a member of the editors branch said this. That’s the ONLY guild that actually awarded Boyhood.
@Pete
Yes, your right. I think this problem is not only an AMPAS problem, I strongly believe its a Hollywood business problem. I’m sure there are thoughtful men like Alfonso Cuaron, JJ Abrams, Chris Nolan, James Gunn, and Neill Blomkamp who are willing to return to the days of intelligent blockbusters (in the 70s and 80s). The problem is that the studio execs are too afraid to take those risks.
Birdie,
What Oscar needs is something like Raiders of the Lost Ark, a transcendent genre film that rose above the pitfalls of adventure films to really belong in the pantheon. Gravity was at its heart a genre film, but save for its script everything else about it was revolutionary. Mockingjay, on the other hand, was ordinary. Successful but ordinary.
Ethel,
Once you break the off the record pledge and name names, you lose access, hence the reliance on “blind items” like this. I have no doubt whatsoever that email is real. However, at this point it probably makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.
As for the supposed easy fixes to Boyhood, what exactly would you have done? Car crashes? Cancer? Shootings? The beauty of that movie was that it turned the coming of age genre on its ear by NOT showing obvious things like first kiss, first love, first time, etc. It was a brave decision.
I sort of wonder if the film hadn’t been nominated for Best Picture/Director if some of the people unloading on it today would instead be saying “that was a nice oddball film, too bad it didn’t contend for bigger prizes instead of Unbroken”. Conversely, if Before Midnight had received six nominations, we’d be seeing a furious backlash against it.
@Pete
I’m afraid though that the troll known as Paul Hanlin Jr. will just lazily say that Mockingjay should be nominated. It’s like nails on a chalkboard. I wish he would go away. 🙁
I have to laugh at all the declarative comments that Sasha has provided proof or documentation of an email showing conspiracy against Boyhood. Proof? Documentation? Where? Did it miss it? Can someone link to proof of this email’s validity? Nah, I suspect we won’t ever see any proof or documentation. Although as a Boyhood supporter, I’d LOVE to be wrong and see this column go viral once it’s updated with proof. It won’t be though.
And to those who insist that Boyhood was boring and lacked a story, narrative or arc, I’m speechless that anyone would purposefully flaunt their naiveté and their lack of comprehension by making such ridiculous comments. I’ve no doubt that Birdman spoke for those people, er, spoke to those people a lot more than Boyhood did. That doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Birdie,
I do find some of the self congratulation from Birdman about “sticking it to superheroes” ironic considering Keaton, Norton, and Stone all did franchise pictures, and I suspect would do them again in a heartbeat if given the chance. Oscars should be about art, but even though I was a huge fan of Boyhood and other oddball gate crashers, the “artistic” awards are becoming VERY fragmented and hard to sell to the casual fan.
That being said, there are what, three dozen superhero movies in the pipeline right now? Oversaturation much? When those crash and crash hard what’s plan B for the studios? There’s only so many ways you can tell a superhero tale. Put it on ice for a few years and maybe they can stay fresh.
Speaking of which, I think the AMPAS membership has to do clean up the dirty house of white narrow minded men. Just like Ryan Adams said about how the early Grammy voters hated rock and roll, and then died off and now look at the Grammys now.
@Pete
I do believe that the Oscars should be about the art not the money. Superhero and other genre can get in if they play their cards rights.
That being said, I do think AMPAS has to wake up and stop with this superhero prejudice. I think James Gunn wrote a beautiful post on Facebook about superhero hate and elitism. Just because a director invests in superhero does not mean it is less quality.
https://www.facebook.com/jgunn/posts/10152514306101157
Firstly, love the photos. Sasha, you looked GREAT!!!
And secondly, thank you so much for this. Still love the show … cant help it. Would love to go one day, myself. But I loved your account for so many reasons.
I do feel like I was right there with you. I understand how impressed you might be about the actual show and how it ran like a well-oiled machine. And I understand that the show probably played much better IN the house than when watched on one’s living room couch.
But I also get the impression from your report here that it was a fairly lonely experience; empty. Glitz, glamour, all at an arms length away … and yet … never feeling that youre one of THEM. Thats the impression I feel I would get, too (based on how you wrote this).
Still. All fascinating. A fascinating look at the Academy, the show, and how the celebrities can be so close and yet so far.
David,
The fact that Birdman didn’t land any acting wins out of three was very odd, statistically speaking. That hasn’t happened since Dances with Wolves.
Alfredo,
Look at how reactive the Academy got when the whole Dark Knight hubub was going on. They are going to look at cratering television ratings, a precursor system that saps the final show of any suspense, and recent BP winners that are insular and divisive even amongst the voters. You don’t think that a group that expanded Best Picture over a Batman film isn’t going to freak out about these trends? I honestly think that some kind of pendululm shift is coming.
I love the behind the scenes details of how the lights go off and how they switch sets while NPH is in the audience. Are you certain that the guy next to you was an actual nominee instead of just a sound branch member who also worked on the film? If he really was a nominee, then it seems like sitting so far up would be a tip off that he’d never get to the stage in time. although I suppose they know who the likely winners are and who are the also-rans even before we do. Or maybe they’re so well organized that they have a quick path planned even for them?
Mostly, though, I’m a little sad that it sounds like you may not have enjoyed yourself very much. (You say you “couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”) You truly deserved to have a good time and I hope that when you look back at the experience years from now some of the sting of having your favorite film lose will have subsided and you can remember the night fondly. academy politics notwithstanding.
And if I haven’t said it before, thank you again for all the great work you do year-round to keep us informed of what’s happening!
GREAT piece of writing. Made me feel like I was there and shows you how different the reality of the event is from what we see on the tube. I attended one Super Bowl in the media nose-bleed seats, next to some beer-drinking journalists from Germany, and I think there were some similarities to what you write about, in terms of the surrealism and artificiality of it all.
JulieF, I was actually a huge Budapest fan, but I think it’s cool the Academy went for something as left field as Birdman. Boyhood was the Emperor’s New Clothes, always has been, always will be. And Eddie most certainly deserved it! Almost makes up for his Les Miz snub
Vital & Must-Read: Bordwell does BIRDMAN — do you good.
Excerpt:
I’ve never cared much for González Iñárritu’s films; they always seem too close to their influences. (My remarks on Babel are here.) Still, Birdman seems to me a fascinating example of how traditions can be revisited, or at least repackaged. I can also appreciate the skill with which the whole affair has been brought off. But I also wish that critics and mainstream filmmakers would be more accurate and comprehensive. Birdman isn’t a single-shot movie, and to insist on that point isn’t just pedantry. Part of the critic’s job is to look at what’s there, and a full account of the movie (which mine isn’t) would need to reckon in the other shots the film presents.
Critics should acknowledge that the long take has other expressive possibilities, some of them impossible to reduce to the patterns of continuity editing. To go back to Hou Hsiao-hsien, Flowers of Shanghai consists of thirty-five shots, nearly all made with a gently shifting camera. But Hou’s mobile long takes retain the intricacy of his static shots in earlier films. The camera may circle the action, but at each moment it’s not only following one character’s movement but drawing into view other movements, greater and lesser, nearer and farther off–the whole thing building up gestures and dialogue and facial reactions, as if by brush strokes, into a rich sense of characters coexisting in a story world and a social system. The result is a gradation of emphasis, to use Charles Barr’s neat phrase, that enriches our sense of the drama.
And sometimes the camera will not see all. Hou accepts the limits of the long take by making some action visible, some action partly visible, and some action unseen, even within the frame. Characters and props slide in to block the main action, sometimes shifting “against the grain” of the camera’s movement. The film’s visual flow doesn’t replicate the schemas of traditional scene analysis; often we must strain to see a gesture or reaction.
Hou’s isn’t the only way to use long takes, but it’s one that deserves more attention. Granted, he and other explorers in this vein will never win an Oscar. But our critics, too often dutifully repeating PR talking points, should signal that the enjoyable virtuosity of Birdman is only one way to employ the rich resources of cinema.
I’ll save for another time a reply to Riggan’s question to Tabitha: “What has to happen in a person’s life for them to become a critic anyway?” http://bit.ly/1AoxlYq
Lord,
We have the beginnings of #moviebloggergate…..it’s all about ethics in awards blogging.
Read Sasha’s run up articles, she said that Birdman would win based on the precursors. That doesn’t mean she isn’t allowed to say that it shouldn’t have won.
And about the logic of Birdman winning because is a movie about actors and the industry, how does that logic work?
Does apply only to Best Picture Categories, but on Best Actor categories they prefer astrophysicists?
AILIDH.. Sorry but Birman is a very good film, so it definitely won’t go down as the greatest tragedy in the past 20 years..Boyhood is not even as good as Whiplash, The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Selma. The filmmakers totally forgot that films, or stories in general, needs to have drama or an arc, for that matter, to even be considered as a complete story. Boyhood was a bore, and I’m glad the Academy was the only group who wasn’t blinded by the critics’ hype. Give me a camera, and check back with me in 12 years, and I could make a better story than that. Not every Naturalistic filmmaking deserves praise. Here are the real Oscar tragedies of the past 20 years:
Crash over Brokeback Mountain
The King’s Speech over The Social Network
Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan
Woooow, the number of future readers that can tell what people are going to think years from now is astonishing.
“Well, mission accomplished. Of course, Birdman didn’t do particularly well at the American Box Office and the Oscar telecast ratings completely cratered last night. That’s going to be hung around Birdman’s neck, Boyhood is in the clear. Guarantee next year there’s going to be a MAJOR change in direction, and a middlebrow piece of Oscar bait will run the boards. A film so bland that it will make King’s Speech look like Salo in comparison.”
Cue the annoying O’ Russell finally getting his Oscar glory and America’s darling Jennifer Lawrence landing her second statuette.
Well, yes JP, but finding individual stupid people and their reasons to dislike Boyhood, does not make the academy reject Boyhood.
I’m pretty sure there must be academy members with stupid reasons to dislike Birdman as well.
What about stupid reasons to dislike TGBH?, yes sure, you can find some.
I echo the sentiments above from Roger (from Brazil), and it’s a little sad for me, since I’ve been reading Sasha since maybe 1999.
The best film seldom wins. Birdman was my number 2 film but the gap between 1 and 2 is huge. I had Budepest number 14 and I did not have Whiplash I my top 20
I saw Boyhood at the Independent film festival on April 25, 2014 I told a friend I did not expect to see a better film the rest of the year and I did not. I doubt I would see a better film on 2015 . I donot always agree with the critics. I did not like the Tree of life or Drive
This year Boyhood was picked number 1 by 189 critics Birdman 60 to the academy 60 is higher than 189. I saw this almost Hollywood which includes the pga DGA and the academy are the worst judges of their own industry.
We will all be back next year as critic Andrew Sarris said you cannot always account for the academy’s bad taste
I was ok accepting that Birdman simply had the right voting blocs in their corner to secure the win. Even though a film about ACTING and ACTORS got skunked in three acting categories, Inarritu’s clever use of Cuaron’s cinematographer clearly paid dividends. Good for them. BUT. What *exactly* did Richard Linklater do to engender this kind of hostility that Sasha and others have been documenting from off the record voters? I highly doubt that when he started that project in 2002 he had any clue that it would make it as far as the final five. This wasn’t one of those “important” projects that screamed OSCAR before a frame had been shot (see: Unbroken). He basically made it a touch farther than Beasts of the Southern Wild did a few years ago, hardly disgracing either himself or the indie section of the industry.
Anyone else find it slightly ironic that the boosters of Birdman were amongst the loudest spleen-venters when it came to Boyhood crashing the party. Remember Birdman? That’s the film that supposedly really stuck it to the man, raged against superhero movies and franchises. Yet, the big villain in this awards season was a movie with two nonprofessional actors and a $4 million shooting budget. By god, the whole system is going to crash down if THAT movie won.
Well, mission accomplished. Of course, Birdman didn’t do particularly well at the American Box Office and the Oscar telecast ratings completely cratered last night. That’s going to be hung around Birdman’s neck, Boyhood is in the clear. Guarantee next year there’s going to be a MAJOR change in direction, and a middlebrow piece of Oscar bait will run the boards. A film so bland that it will make King’s Speech look like Salo in comparison.
Sasha – You have certainly revealed to us a very different aspect of this over-hyped event and how rarified the air that the world of the showbiz elite occupy in. I’m now more than ever looking forward to Maps To The Stars.
“(Boyhood) was ultimately a flawed product. It was boring and flat, and not emotionally engaging.”
Scott: You may want to add the words “for me” to your critique here. For me, I was totally engaged with Boyhood and I didn’t want it to end. For me, it is a deceptively simple masterpiece, singular and enthralling.
Great piece of writing. It’s puts it all in perspective when you spend time in that “world” and then go back to your own life. In some ways you feel sad, but mostly you feel better that you are a real person.
You have done the ultimate and attended the actual ceremony. Yout posts have expressed your disgust of the Oscar game. You even mentioned how running this site has served its purpose in your life. I hope I am wrong, but I get the feeling that this may be your last year. Thoughts?
David, I think the overarching point is not that it is impossible to love and appreciate more than one film, but that some industry insiders went against Boyhood because it was made by a small studio and beloved by critics. And, based on that email, some insiders seem to believe that small studios like IFC Films and film critics should not be defining the industry standard. And that is a poor reason to go against a film.
I pulled out of the parking garage and headed down Hollywood Boulevard to La Brea, to Franklin and onward to the 101 which would take me to the 170 and back to the valley where I belonged.
*sigh* I don’t know what makes you do that to yourself. Maybe it’s LA. I never went there but maybe there is a class thing that is more obvious than in other places? Did you feel the same way at the Independent Spirit Awards or was it just the Oscars that did that to you? Anyway, everybody is Cinderella sometimes. They wouldn’t keep remaking the damn thing if they weren’t. Last night on Kimmel he was telling John Travolta the story about how he was nice to him back when Jimmy wasn’t anybody yet. Everybody who is famous now used to be nobody, unless they were born famous. But still so what? There were plenty of famous people in this world who didn’t have a ticket last night. They didn’t belong there. You did. I wish you could have enjoyed it more. Maybe you’re just not a big show type. You seemed to like going to the film festivals and stuff.
I don’t understand this narrative about the Academy rejecting Boyhood. So, every time a movie wins, the academy is rejecting all the other nominees?, when No Country for Old Men won, the academy rejected There Will Be Blood?, when Robert De Niro won for Raging Bull, they rejected John Hurt (for the Elephant Man)?
Birdman and Boyhood are two wonderful films, and I’m pretty sure both loved by most academy members (as TGBH and Whiplash), why is so hard for you people to understand it’s possible to like more than one film?
Epic! Epic! I was there in spirit, as a reader, every step of the way. Now you know what you’ve been missing. And me, too. Epic piece of Oscar writing! Again! As always!
Julian, i don’t disagree with your sentiments; but it was Innaritu’s comment that you have highlighted that for me, redeemed his win. It may have been the thing to say, and lip service, but it was an important sentiment nonetheless. Is it too reactive to already predict something two decades down the line? American Beauty was much revered, then. But it may not be admired the same way now.
All the Oscars did this year is make obvious how little critics these days know what makes a good movie. Birdman was a masterpiece, and Boyhood, though ambitious, and having many praiseworthy aspects to its production, was ultimately a flawed product. It was boring and flat, and not emotionally engaging. The only performance that deserved an award received one. So much was made of Linklater’s ambitious concept, it seemed no one was willing to admit that the finished film could be anything but brilliant. Maybe Linklater should focus on writing a compelling story and casting a main actor that can actually act, and he will have more success. He clearly knew at one point how to produce this kind of film. Also, you’ve lived up to the critic stereotype perfectly. Everything that won didn’t deserve to win, and everything that didn’t win was robbed, because money. Yawn.
@Jesus: did we watch the same host? Seeing Harris bomb all night was torture.
Great piece Sasha. Really enjoyed it!
Maybe from now the site shouldn’t be about the Oscars but about all the cinema awards throughout the year with the Oscars just being the last of them. The Oscars do not deserve the spotlight and the honours they are given all around the world. As you said it… They certainly do not celebrate the magic of cinema.
Maybe it is time to stop feeding the monster.
In 2010 I was hoping the Social Network to win. As most of Sasha’s reader were hoping so.
However this time, I was very happy with Birdman winning. Boyhood was not in my top five choices. The best thing of the coming of age of a white boy is Patricia Arquette and she won. Outside of the states Boyhood seems a nice well crafted movie, no best picture material at all.
Yeah, I’m curious to see something more substantial than a quote of an email without any kind of source or even point of reference. I was cheering my fat ass off for Boyhood to win. I DO strongly suspect there were academy members who campaigned against Boyhood but a claim like the one above won’t give last night’s injustice the attention it deserves unless there’s the slightest bit of proof that it was actually sent by an academy member – until then it sounds like a blogger with sour grapes. But hey, even that’s more impressive than someone like me – a blog reader with sour grapes.
Until then congratulations to Inarritu. He worked almost as hard at winning his Oscars than he did on the inferior Birdman.
Hors d’oeurves and chips?! It offends me that at the biggest night of the year for the movie industry, they’re not serving popcorn.
“Attend the Academy Awards” would definitely be bucket list material, yeah. I think this was the first article I read about someone being in the audience and writing about it more extensively. Good read, Sasha.
I don’t feel bad for Boyhood. It’s a movie that will go down in history as a classic no matter what. I actually feel sorry for Birdman, a movie which will always be remembered for one thing only: as the movie that won best picture over a masterpiece, Boyhood.
In ten years’ time the consensus will be that this was one of the worst Oscar decisions of the last 25 years, up there with Forrest Gump and Crash. Therefore it was a bit ironic – or just prescient? – that Inarritu himself talked about how history will decide which movies will have the staying power to live on in the collective memory. Birdman is a loser exactly because it won.
A beautiful read Sasha. The madness has ended… at least for now.
Robert Peters,
Take a look around the comments section on this very site. Look at some of the garbage people are saying on the Oscar Winners thread. Not only do I buy it, I wouldn’t be surprised if that same editor was one of those fucking trolls on that thread who came on here to gloat. But I guess you have more faith in people’s ability to be mature.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Sasha. What a great perspective you’ve given us here. And, I must say, you looked va va voom!
Great article. I’ve always been a little curious as to what actually being in the audience at the Oscars was like. Sounds like it’s a bit of a pain in the rear, but with good grub and adult beverages.
As a movie-lover who has followed the Oscars since he was a kid, I’m beginning to wonder what winning an Academy Award means in this day where mass entertainment is being further and further broken up into small niches. It seems rare anymore that any one or two or three films transcend the national consciousness. Many of us are too distracted these days to even take the time to watch a few of the films nominated for BP. Do the Academy Awards even really matter that much, or are they not much more than a fun diversion, a way to focus discussion on the merits and demerits of particular films? Industry symbolism aside, watching the two front-runners back-to-back this past week, I enjoyed Birdman a little more than Boyhood (both stellar films, and I greatly admire Boyhood’s vision. Also, being from Pittsburgh, I was rooting for Michael Keaton.) But does not winning BP invalidate any of Boyhood’s greatness. It received many outstanding reviews and will always have a high Metacritic and Tomatometer score. I don’t think a BP win is necessary for its legacy. Future movie lovers and cinema historians will always be able to find it and appreciate it. Is E.T. any less beloved even though it lost BP to Gandhi? Are any of the great movies that lost to Rocky any less great?
Sasha! What a great piece! Thanks for sharing. It felt like we were in there with you.
What a brilliant read. Thanks for all the photos too.
Yeah..I’m still sad about Boyhood!
Wonderfully written, and though I was rooting for Boyhood, there is something to be said about AMPAS choosing a dark, bizarre comedy with postmodern touches as Best Picture in a year where there were far more conventional films in the race. That’s not something most people would see as typical Academy taste, industry-based or otherwise.
Your points about the insular nature of the Academy and the self-pitying of Birdman certainly stand, though
Sorry but I simply don’t believe that the quote about Boyhood by an alleged Academy member is genuine. Just don’t buy it.
Glory stole the show on TV. What was it like there?
NPH looked like he was wearing a shock collar.
Great piece, Sasha. As ever you paint a vivid picture. Love your photos too. Channeling the legendary Mae West in the low angle pic. I guess you can salvage some joyous moments from a pretty dire set of results. I loved the pure unadulterated joy of Eddie Redmayne; the glowing Julianne Moore; the authentic fire in the belly of Patricia Arquette; Graham Moore’s emotive plea to all the weird kids,
Boyhood really needed to win Best Picture to secure some legacy. Films like the Hurt Locker, the Artist, and possibly 12 Years A Slave, these types of small budget films are already beginning to fade from American consciousness, but at least they will forever be known as a Best Picture winner, however right or wrong that decision was. Boyhood is already a film that NOBODY saw except critics and hipsters, I think it’s going to be forgotten relatively quickly.
I’m not a member of the Academy, nor part of the Hollywood industry; Christ, I’m not even American and I’ve never set foot on your country. But I follow the Oscar race annualy for quite a long time now, just as a fan of the movies, and it’s normally a pleasure to discover a website that covers the awards season, since we don’t have many of those here in Brazil. Every season I follow the carpetbagger for daily news, and there, about a month ago, I read a piece that mentioned Awards Daily. Awesome. Another page where I can read about the nominees chances, the guilds prizes, interviews with the players and so on. But unfortunately, that’s not what I see here. I see a club in which everyone has the same opinion, the same favourite and all the pieces are written under the same point of view. Which is a shame. And I say that with a deep respect for those who run the site. But maybe people come here with the desire of getting the best information on the Oscar race, unbiased information that focus on the positive and negative aspects of each and every nominee; and that’s not what a newcomer sees here. I know it’s difficult to distance yourself from the things that you write; I’m a journalist too. And if the declared intention of Awards Daily is to be a blog about the author’s favourites, then sorry for bringing that up. It just wasn’t that clear to me. Maybe you won’t mind about one’s opinion about the website, and whether or not I’ll return next year. But I say this sincerely, I’m a little disappointed that 16 years of coverage have been like this.
“We stopped it! We can go to bed now.”
Yes, please. Go the fuck to bed.
You looked great and got to tick “attend the Oscars” off your list. We’re all glad you didn’t “birdman” off the balcony when Boyhood claimed its position next to Brokeback, TSN and Bonnie & Clyde.
The universe is as it should be.
I’m just about ready to sack the whole Oscar watching thing off after last night. And I’ve experienced proper major lows after awards seasons before, but last night took it right out of me. I realise now that, despite a number of close races and surprise turns through the last three months, I hadn’t actually ejoyed it very much. Not even that much to do with the quality of films on offer, possibly not even due to the severe decline in the quality of choices made by voters on the year before. Just sick of this shit.
All the same, this is an eye-opening and enjoyable article, Sasha. You’re always at your best writing about your personal experiences. Lovely piece.
Thanks for sharing, and congrats on having gotten the opportunity to attend the Oscar ceremony.
Cool Sasha- what’s the source of that email from the editor? That’s crazy
“The Academy’s Failure to Recognize Boyhood Is Their Worst Mistake in 20 Years”.
Best Actor Roberto Benigni would invalidate that argument.
Ironically, the American Cinema Editors turned out to be the only Guild that gave ”Boyhood” its due.
”Boyhood” didn’t win Best Picture at the Oscars, but that doesn’t invalidate the dozens and dozens of Best Film prizes it won from the N.Y. Film Critics, the L.A. Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics, BAFTA, etc. … Leave it to the Academy to reject the most critically acclaimed movie of the year, but it’s not the first time or the last. ”Boyhood” joins the proud company of ”Brokeback Mountain,” ”The Social Network,” etc. … From the beginning of December until the middle of January, it was a great ride while it lasted, but the most important thing is that ”Boyhood” is in the record books as a unique achievement.
It’s just a shame that the Academy had the chance to spread the wealth, and recognize TWO more of the finest filmmakers if they had given Best Director to Richard Linklater and Original Screenplay to Wes Anderson.
Was looking forward. Can you say vicarious?
First, Sasha, LOVE your talk on the experience with the lights on and off and such, I’m sure the show much be so much more thrilling in a way when you’re actually there than watching on TV and glad you shared it. Plus, love the dress. Overall, another great piece and do hope you get invited back, love your insight there.
Great report Sasha! Thanks so much.
@Jesus Are you serious about Travolta’s awkward moment being staged? They wrote all of those jokes in real time and then put them in right before NPH read them. Think that was glaringly obvious. I mean also on the prediction envelope were Streep jumping out of her seat during Arquette’s acceptance speech and the Ida guy getting played off and back on again.
On a more subjective note, I also think your #1 is way off. NPH was a terrible host (though that was mostly due to the writing).
Sasha, thank you for sharing your experience–I enjoyed your tweets far more than the actual show–though there were some great moments–Glory, Gaga, and Arquette’s speech stood out to me and reminded me why award shows like this can actually be fun to watch.
I read your sight every day and am eagerly awaiting the up coming races!
The Academy has certainly given the award to worse movies in the last 20 years. Argo, Crash. A Beautiful Mind. Gladiator. The issue is the gulf between the snubbed film and the quality of the one they chose. This is almost exactly on par with the very upsetting King’s Speech win two years ago. The film that loses is a true masterwork (Boyhood and TSN are my #1 and #2 films of the decade, respectively). And the film that wins is a big, fat B-plus of a film. Certainly not the worst thing on Earth, but more than disappointing enough to really sting. I’m very sad at the outcome, but relieved to put the film year to bed. Let’s stand aside and let time have its way with the lot of them.
Sam L. Stop being such a dick. You and your comments make it obvious that you’re a Birdman fan. You reek of it. Two words: Eddie Redmayne. Well deserved.
It was the wrong night to go to the Oscars, with some exceptions – in my point of view…
1) Neil Patrick Harris was fun.
2) Everything is Awesome was awesome indeed. And I think they calculated extremely well, who they were handing out their Lego Oscars… I know for sure they handed them down to – at least – Oprah and Travolta, two of the legendary Oscar snubbees. Revenge is served cold, but they even got Batman on stage with a bit from his song. Überkool and another epic movement by the best studio film of the year.
3) Travolta being game. The akward moment was staged, as NPH’s prediction envelope showed later.
4) Common and Legend’s acceptance speech.
5) Patricia’s acceptance speech
6) The Imitation Game’s writer acceptance speech
7) Lady Gaga meeting Julie Andrews – and I’m not a Gaga fan.
8) Best moment (apart from Lego’s song): Citizenfour’s acceptance speech. Problem is, almost no one in the audience understood what they were talking about. That’s our tragedy, in the XXIst century. NPH used dark humor in a really aproppiate way, but maybe too ambiguously… I wonder why people in the USA isn’t acting up to make Snowden free from charges and demand explanations to Obama and former president W. Bush.
The rest… well, loved every GBH win, but Big Hero 6? Birdman? American Sniper? Interstellar? Ugh.
I feel sad. I cannot believe they just gave that beautiful movie ONE award, supporting actress. It doesn’t feel real. Yeah, there’s the ego blow of going 22-2, 21-3, then dropping to 18-6. But that pales next to the fact that they made some very disappointing choices. The night was over for me when Boyhood lost editing. I could see the writing on the wall.
It’s too bad that Linklater and Anderson had to be left out. I still can’t believe that Birdman is best picture. Oh wait, it’s not. It’s the Academy Awards Best Picture, totally different deal.
I honestly feel like I’ve showered after some horrible accident. I didn’t realize how burdensome the waiting and predicting were until now, when it’s over.
@Sasha Stone
I was at my aunt’s house for a birthday party when all this happened. Neil Patrick Harris was okay, and I’m glad Birdman won (although feel sorry a little for Boyhood). High points were all the musical performances.
If only the Academy could stop masquerading like they cater to the world when they really don’t, and start doing so (ahem, Selma, Gone Girl).
Fantastic read! I think Birdman should have been obvious (despite the fact it’s a poor man’s Opening Night): it’s all about self-absorbed actors, down on their luck and just waiting for that big break so they can put on a show!
Inarritu is a big-time starfucker. Linklater is not. Inarritu thinks he’s the main attraction. Linklater works discreetly in the shadows. Actors down on their luck (Keaton, Norton) will think Inarritu will make them famous again and align them with his A listers (Penn, Pitt, Blanchett now DiCaprio). Actors know Linklater won’t hire them (and won’t pay them if he does).
There isn’t any doubt about which is the film that will follow in the footsteps of previous Hollywood exercises in navel-gazing and self-aggrandizement (Argo and The Artist) and be quickly forgotten. And which is the film that is truly the heir to Cassavetes: Boyhood.
I think the backlash will be terrible. It’s already started. Slate: “The Academy’s Failure to Recognize Boyhood Is Their Worst Mistake in 20 Years”.
Oh God, what a great piece! I’m sending it to everyone!
Thank you for sharing!!!
That Editor’s branch text/email was very telling. I enjoyed reading this Sasha as it gave us, your avid readers, the closest experience to attending the Oscars most of us will ever have. I didn’t know they would have nominees all the way up in the nosebleed seats. You looked good, will you attend the Oscars again if invited?
Awesome Sasha. Awesome!
really interesting piece- although the sound mixer for any Chris Nolan movie thinking he’s going to win an Oscar is clearly delusional