Warren and Faye deserve Oscars of their own
Until yesterday morning, i had thought the most explosive moment of the awards season would be the one when Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield finally blew up at each other.
After four years together, Spider-Man and la la lady called it quits last year, only to be forced back together by a string of movie awards where he was nominated as best actor for Hacksaw Ridge and she was collecting hardware for her role in the musical.
What could be more thrilling for two exes than having to spend more time together, after splitting up? And by ‘thrilling’ i mean ‘like putting nitroglycerin in a bucket and giving it a vigorous stir with a stick’.
However, in the end, Andy and Ems kept it disappointingly classy. Perhaps they even went through the awards goody bags together afterwards, so that they could swap all her aftershaves for his foot pampering kits.
never mind. this year the Oscars managed a result we could all enjoy by announcing the wrong winner for Best Picture.
instead of la la land – a movie that claims that us ladies can’t resist a man if he bangs on about jazz piano – the deserving winner was almost anything else: in this case, Moonlight.
By the way, did you know that Vladimir Putin is a big fan of jazz piano? it’s absolutely true: just putting it out there for the kind of people who enjoy speculating that the independence referendum was ruined because people voted in pencil, or posting fake videos of Yes votes being dumped in bins.
this is not the most embarrassing thing to happen to Academy Award presenter Warren Beatty, who once made a film about the straight-arrow detective Dick tracy then allowed his girlfriend Madonna to put a song about spanking on its soundtrack.
Also, the Best Picture Oscar has gone to the wrong film loads of times before. this was just the first time they actually noticed in time.
Personally, i’m rather pleased about Moonlight’s win. it’s a more substantial, sensitive, evocative and surprising movie than la la land, and its Best Picture win might persuade a few more people to give it a go.
i also have some sympathy for the whole cock-up. i once presented an award at a ceremony that had neither scripts nor envelopes and as i got to the end of my memorised speech, i realised i had forgotten the winner’s name.
Desperately, i just pointed at the director and hollered heartily, ‘Yes! it’s you – come on down!’ as if hosting the Film Prize is Right.
THE Oscars has a lingering question of course – if Emma Stone’s card was in the best picture envelope, WHAT was in the best actress envelope? isabelle Huppert, get a lawyer! Otherwise, it would be great if we could get Warren and Faye Dunaway to announce everything, always.
Well, maybe not your biopsy results or a pregnancy test, but already the Democrats should be emailing to book them for the next Presidential election, labour would like them to MC their next leadership contest, and someone called Alex from Gordon thinks they might be able to find an unresignation letter that he wrote back in 2014.