Canadians celebrated at pre-Oscar bash
LOS ANGELES— Instead of yet another red carpet, celebrity guests at Canada’s pre-Oscar bash walked down a long snow-white carpet under a permanent hardtop tent leading to the ballroom of the Four Seasons Los Angeles Hotel at Beverly Hills.
And at the entrance, producer Barry Avrich placed a blow-up of a black-and-white photo from a longago Cannes festival, with paparazzi catching images of movie stars on the Croisette.
Once 400 guests squeezed into the hotel ballroom, the sparkle extended into Thursday’s presentation boosting Canadian talent on both sides of the border, and on both big screens and small.
After Canadians nominated for Oscars were coaxed onto the stage, more than a dozen Canadian Screen Awards nominees got their turn, prompting Helga Stephenson to pronounce that when it comes to talent “we are truly blessed.”
Stephenson is CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, officially one of the three cohosts of the event.
So was Canada’s consul-general in Los Angeles. But the event was largely driven and financed by Telefilm Canada, the federal government’s funding agency, and cosponsored by Bell Media.
The mood of celebration was reinforced at the end of the affair, when Eric McCormack led the crowd in singing “O Canada.”
That was preceded by an emotional high point when Stephenson was joined onstage by Chaz Ebert, widow of film critic Roger Ebert, and actress Sandra Oh, luminous in emerald silk, to present the academy’s first-ever Legacy Award to the Toronto International Film Festival.
“Ultimately, this award belongs to the Toronto public,” said Piers Handling, TIFF’s CEO, graciously accepting the award, which salutes the festival’s success in raising the cinema world’s awareness of Canada over the past four decades.
Two decades ago Handling took over the top job after being groomed for it by his predecessor, Stephenson.
Ironically, this is almost sure to be the year that TIFF’s lucky streak in the Oscar best-picture category comes to an end. For seven consecutive years, the winner has been a movie that had its official world premiere in Toronto.
For the streak to be extended, The Theory of Everything would have to be crowned best movie of 2014 — and hardly anyone is predicting that will happen.
The one area in which Canada looms large at the Oscars is animation. Three of the films nominated for best animated feature were directed by Canadians, as well as one of the films nominated for best animated short.
But no matter what happens at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday, Thursday’s glittery, flag-waving bash counts as a win — and a huge improvement on last year’s lame and shapeless affair staged at another Beverly Hills hotel.
Even if Ben Mulroney of eTalk was too slick by half, and some of the speeches were more than a tad predictable, the show had enough pacing, momentum and high spirits to put me in mind of the Cole Porter lyrics Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sang in the 1956 movie musical High Society: “What a swell party — a swellegant, elegant party this is.” mknelman@thestar.ca