SCANDALS AND STATUES
Host Kimmel acknowledges need for change before Rockwell, Janney take early awards
Kimmel sets a hashtag tone early on in Oscar’s annual film-fest love-in.
Hollywood’s glorious past and uncertain future were both celebrated Sunday night as the 90th annual Academy Awards were handed out.
Glitter and glamour were in abundance as always, as celebrities gathered to bestow and receive Oscars for the past year’s most honoured films and to celebrate cinema’s rich history. Presentations were made from a stage that resembled a giant diamond eye — in fact, it was composed of 45 million Swarovski crystals.
But all present in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, and the millions watching around the world, were very much aware of the Hollywood’s sexual-harassment scandals of recent months, along with the movie industry’s long history of sexism.
It took show host Jimmy Kimmel less than five minutes to remind everybody of the alleged sex crimes of ousted producer Harvey Weinstein, the first of many predators brought to light in recent months in the ongoing #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns.
“What happened with Harvey, what’s happening all over, is long overdue,” Kimmel said, to loud applause. “We can’t let bad behaviour slide anymore. The world is watching us; we need to set an example.”
Anticipating a night of long speeches, some of them potentially statements of rage, he made a serious offer: the shortest thank-you speech of the night would receive a brand new Jet Ski, worth $18,000 (U.S.).
Walking over to a giant Oscar statue onstage, Kimmel joked the naked golden man is the perfect symbol of the new Hollywood male everybody wants to see: “He keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word, and most importantly, no penis at all!”
Kimmel also jested about leading nominee The Shape of
Water, a beastly romance by Guillermo del Toro filmed in Toronto and Hamilton which won the prize for Best Production Design early in the evening.
The film is about a mute cleaning woman, played by Academy Award-nominated Sally Hawkins, falls in love with a humanoid amphibian (Doug Jones).
“Thanks to Guillermo, we will remember this year as the year men screwed up so badly, women started dating fish!” Kimmel said.
One man did very well right off the bat: First-time Oscar nominee Sam Rockwell took the night’s first trophy — Best Supporting Actor — for playing a racist small-town cop in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. “I’d like to thank the Academy — never thought I’d say those words!” the ebullient journeyman actor said. He added that his love of movies stretches back to when he was eight years old, when his dad sneaked him out of class so they could see a film together.
Rockwell thanked all the usual family and industry suspects as well as “everyone who’s ever looked at a billboard.”
Best Supporting Actress Allison Janney was another firsttime nominee and winner, taking the gold for her performance as the mom from hell in I, Tonya.
“I did it all by myself!” she joked.
Another visitor to the Academy Awards stage had bittersweet memories: Eva Marie Saint, 93, who won Best Supporting Actress in 1954 for On
the Waterfront, talked about the recent death of her husband of 65 years, Jeffrey Hayden, who had been her Oscar date for de- cades.
She was delighted to be back on stage however, giving the prizes for Best Costume Design to Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s fashionworld psychodrama.
“I just realized something: I’m older than the Academy, plus four months or maybe five!” Saint said.
With major awards not expected to be handed out until near the midnight hour, Oscar night 2018 was looking to be a share-the-wealth affair.
Christopher Nolan’s war drama Dunkirk took both sound awards, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing, and it was the only multiple winner in the early going.
The Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film went to A Fan
tastic Woman, the story of a transgender woman’s fight to be recognized as her late lover’s partner.
One thing very noticeable last night: the increased number of woman and people of colour who were presenting Oscars. Close to 60 per cent of presenters were female and 51 per cent were people of colour.
One famous presenting couple from last year, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, was expected to return to make good on the notorious envelope screw-up that briefly gave Best Picture to La La Land, when Moonlight had in fact won.
Beatty and Dunaway were reported to be in the wings to present Best Picture to this year’s winner, and Kimmel joked earlier there could be no mistake this year.
“We can’t ruin this one. This one is a special years. This is the 90th Academy Awards. This is history happening, right here.”