YOUR OSCARS PREVIEW
HOLLYWOOD will be sprinkled with stardust today at the Oscars, with dreamy nostalgic musical La La Land tipped for glory on the film industry’s biggest night.
Damien Chazelle’s glossy tribute to the all- singing, all- dancing Golden Age of Tinseltown’s studio system is vying for 13 statuettes, and many of its 14 nominees are sure- fire winners – if the oddsmakers are right.
The film, which stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as an aspiring actress and a struggling jazz musician who fall in love in Los Angeles, has charmed critics the world over and returned more than 10 times its $ 30 million budget.
La La Land will vie for best picture honours with eight films including alien thriller Arrival, family drama Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight, the coming of age story of an AfricanAmerican in Miami.
The most intriguing race is for best actor, which for weeks looked like a lock for Manchester by the Sea star Casey Affleck until a late surge by Denzel Washington ( Fences).
Affleck criticised US President Donald Trump’s “abhorrent” policies as he won best actor at the 2017 Film Independent Spirit Awards on the eve of the Oscars.
“The policies of this administration are abhorrent and they will not last, they won’t. They are really unAmerican,” he said.
This awards season, the popping of champagne corks has been muted by the tense political situation in the United States. Mr Trump’s controversial ( and now halted) travel ban – which led Iranian director Asghar Farhadi to opt out of attending despite a nomination for The Salesman — has sparked much anger.
Oscars weekend started with an anti- Trump rally organised by the United Talent Agency in Beverly Hills, which featured speakers including Jodie Foster and Michael J. Fox.
Also at the weekend, directors of the five nominees for best foreign language film, including Farhadi, issued a statement condemning “the climate of fanaticism and nationalism” in the US.
Moonlight picked up best film and director honours as well as four other statuettes at the Spirit Awards, which recognise achievements in independent filmmaking.
This year’s nominees reflected a push by the Academy to reward diversity after the # OscarsSoWhite controversy of the past two years that prompted calls for a boycott.