Whatever questions you have about Oscars 2019 – for 2018 movies – they will be answered in tonight’s three-hours-plus live event on ABC-TV. Next year, the Academy Awards will be at the beginning of February – the Berlin Film Festival has already taken note and adjusted their calendar to open two weeks later, after Oscar. Fearless
Whatever questions you have about Oscars 2019 – for 2018 movies – they will be answered in tonight’s three-hours-plus live event on ABC-TV. Next year, the Academy Awards will be at the beginning of February – the Berlin Film Festival has already taken note and adjusted their calendar to open two weeks later, after Oscar.
Fearless Oscar prediction: There will be many jokes about the hostless night.
Big Question for the Memorial section honoring those who have passed since the last Awards ceremony: Will Stanley Donen, the great director of “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Charade” who died on Thursday, be included? When the BAFTAs aired, their memorial began with Albert Finney who had died just two days earlier.
I love how Saturday’s Independent Spirit Award salute, broadcast live and uncensored, began with host Aubrey Plaza saluted the event’s director in his booth: None other than the divine John Waters who is observing the 50th anniversary of his very first film. Asked about how he planned to direct the Spirits, Waters deadpanned, “It’s television, it doesn’t need a director. Just like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’” The Spirits frequently honor Oscar nominees who are not likely to win with a Spirit Award. Cases in point: Richard A. Grant, who was visibly moved nearly to tears, as Best Supporting Male for “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” and “If Beale Street Could Talk” which won the Spirit for Best Picture. Their choice of Best Lead Male – Ethan Hawke’s remarkably moving portrait of a cleric in crisis in Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” wasn’t even Oscar nominated! Hawke is starring in the Broadway revival of “True West” but a thank you note was read in which he quoted the Trappist monk Thomas Merton about evil in the world. Merton’s book is on Hawke’s priest’s bedside table in the film.
Which brings me to the most glaring omission in tonight’s line-up: The absence of Rosamund Pike among Best Actress nominees. Pike didn’t so much as act but seemingly channeled murdered American journalist Marie Colvin in “A Private War.
