Oscar night.
It was mostly about Hollywood glitter and foolishness, but Palestine and unions managed to find moments.
Full disclosure. I’m a sucker for the Oscars and a hard core movie fan although not as much as I use to be.
Old age and hearing loss have kept me away from movie theaters which refuse to make open captioning available. And is it me, or has the sound quality in most movie theaters gotten worse?
This year’s Oscar ceremony started an hour earlier and moved along at a fairly brisk pace - at least compared to past years.
It even had a few extra moments near the end for host Jimmy Kimmel to read a post from Donald Trump criticizing his hosting performance.
Kimmel reacted on air by asking, “Isn’t it past your jail time?”
Pretty funny.
Kimmel also won me when at the end of his opening monologue he was joined on stage by below-the-line members of the Hollywood unions who observed the picket lines set up this year during the strikes by SAG-AFTRA and the WGA.
Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel drew a standing ovation at the Dolby Theatre when his show-opening monologue ended a salute to below-the-line union workers.
“We were able to make a deal because of the people who rallied beside us,” Kimmel said. “Before we celebrate ourselves, let’s have a very well-deserved round of applause for the people who work behind the scenes: the Teamsters, the truck drivers, the lighting crew, sound, camera, gaffers, grips. That’s right. All the people who refused to cross the picket line.”
Kimmel invited crew members working on the ABC awards telecast to step out onstage and acknowledge the cheers. “There they are,” Kimmel said, adding, “If you wear Skechers to the Oscars, take a bow.”
“Now that the strike is over, now that [SAG/AFTRA President] Fran Drescher has returned to her volunteer work, reading loudly to the hearing-impaired, we can be proud that this long and difficult work stoppage taught us that this very strange town of ours, as pretentious and superficial as it can be, at its heart is a union town. It’s not just a bunch of heavily Botoxed, Hailey Bieber smoothie-drinking, diabetes-prescription-abusing, gluten-sensitive nepo babies with perpetually shivering Chihuahuas. This is a coalition of strong, hard-working mentally tough American laborers. Women and men who would 100% for sure die if we even had to touch the handle of a shovel.”
Good stuff.
The awards show ended with Oppenheimer winning most of the awards as expected.
I was disappointed that Killers of the Flower Moon didn’t receive an Oscar. I’m amazed that Martin Scorsese, who at 81 is our greatest living director, has only won one award for best director.
The awards show had the usual amount of glitter, fashion and the other staples of show business.
Considering that the strike postponed a lot of film production I thought it was a good year for movies. Most of them I watched on my home TV with closed captioning.
Outside the Dolby theater hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters shut down a major section of Hollywood turning Oscar night into a traffic nightmare.
Protesters shut down Sunset Boulevard between Vine Street and La Brea Avenue. They marched down the street with signs that read “No awards for genocide” and drove school buses covered with Palestinian flags.
Police ordered the protest to disperse and waited on Sunset Boulevard with battering rams.
I read reports that some award show attendees abandoned their black-tie attire and high heels to walk uphill from Sunset Boulevard to the Dolby Theatre. Production staffers sent golf carts to transports attendees waiting in SUVs.
Inside the Dolby, Jonathan Glazer‘s Oscar acceptance speech was on fire. The Zone of Interest filmmaker condemned Israel’s war on Gaza and said he refused to allow his “Jewishness and the Holocaust (to be) hijacked by an occupation.”
On the red carpet, “What Was I Made For?” singer Billie Eilish, “Poor Things” star Ramy Youssef and more celebrities wore red pins in support of Artists for Ceasefire.
Ramy Youssef is an award-winning Egyptian-American creator, actor, producer, director, and comedian.
“We’re calling for immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We’re calling for peace and lasting justice for the people of Palestine,” Youssef told Variety‘s Marc Malkin on the red carpet. “It’s a universal message of, ‘Let’s stop killing kids. Let’s not be part of more war.’ No one has ever looked back at war and thought a bombing campaign was a good idea. To be surrounded by so many artists who are willing to lend their voices, the list is growing. A lot of people are going to be wearing these pins tonight. There’s a lot of talking heads on the news, this is a space of talking hearts. We’re trying to have this big beam to humanity.”
In October, a group of 400 prominent artists signed a letter urging U.S. President Joe Biden to demand a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. The signees included Youssef, Mark Ruffalo Joaquin Phoenix, Cate Blanchett, Jon Stewart, Kristen Stewart, Susan Sarandon, Mahershala Ali, Riz Ahmed, Quinta Brunson and more.
Also sporting the Artists for Ceasefire pins on Sunday’s Oscars red carpet were “Nimona” actor Eugene Lee Yang, director Ava DuVernay, director Misan Harriman, who is behind best live action short nominee “The After,” and writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania, of best documentary feature nominee, “Four Daughters.”