OSCARRED

Best Picture is usually the least interesting of all the awards at the Oscars. At least, that’s how it seems most years. Which film will win often feels, after the results of all those other awards shows, like a fait accompli going in, and even when it doesn’t, by the time we’ve arrived at the last award of the night, you typically have a sense of how things are leaning. There are exceptions, of course—Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan in 1999, for instance—but as a rule, Best Picture tends to be an anticlimax.

That sure wasn’t the case this year, however.

The show Sunday night began in normal fashion. Host Jimmy Kimmel, not being of the Neil Patrick Harris, Seth MacFarlane or Billy Crystal mold, didn’t try to wow everybody with a big semi-ironic song-and-dance production number, so that duty was managed by Justin Timberlake, extravagantly performing “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” his nominated song from Trolls.

Kimmel took over from there, and handled himself well, with some relaxed, mostly uncontroversial but quite funny standup and an unobtrusive modesty. There were oddball routines—like concessions dropping from the ceiling in tiny parachutes, or a group of Hollywood-star-home tourists being led through the Dolby Theatre by surprise—that seemed, as such bits often do, like more laborious trouble than they were worth, but they still had some charm.

There were touching moments as well, like the real-life, 98-year-old NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Henson in Hidden Figures, being wheeled onstage to a thunderous ovation. And a friend called me, convulsed with hilarity, after a segment in which Seth Rogen, discussing 1985’s Back to the Future, observed that “They really, like, captured future clothing pretty well, ‘cuz if you saw, like, Tilda Swinton wearing that exact outfit, you would not think it was weird.”

For most of its length, the show chugged along agreeably, if without any particular excitement. Casey Affleck winning Best Actor for Manchester by the Sea was perhaps a slight surprise, as Denzel Washington had taken the SAG Award for Fences. But on the whole, nothing suggested that La La Land wouldn’t win Best Picture as expected.

That Moonlight took the award instead would have been a surprise to begin with, but what made the upset great TV was an unfortunate mix-up: Presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were somehow accidentally given the wrong envelope, a duplicate of the one reading Emma Stone for Best Actress in La La Land. Beatty was confused, paused, and showed the card to Dunaway who, thinking that Beatty was just clowning, glanced at it and announced La La Land as the winner.

The cast and producers of that film came onstage and were in the midst of their acceptance speeches when the error was pointed out to them. Producer Jordan Horowitz stepped to the microphone, announced the mistake, and graciously called the Moonlight team to the stage, saying he was proud to present the award to them.

While I was less enthusiastic than most critics about La La Land, and while the stirring Moonlight topped my Top Ten List this year, it was hard not to feel for the La La Land gang, and harder still not to admire the grace with which they handled the situation. It was painful, but it sure wasn’t dull.

Another friend called me after the show to tell me he had the inside scoop on how the practice of two sets of envelopes originated. He claims that at the 1964 Oscars, the agent for Pricewaterhouse (then still known as Price Waterhouse) suffered a fatal heart attack just before showtime. These being the days when, probably mostly for the sake of showmanship, the operative would be presented onstage handcuffed to the briefcase containing the winners, the misfortune created an obvious problem for the ceremony, and the need for a backup became clear.

But there was another twist to the tale, according to my friend (who claims he knew the Price Waterhouse man's family as a kid in Reseda, California). He says the guy's heart attack was brought on by stress because he was related to Governor John Connally of Texas, who had been wounded a few months earlier in the Kennedy assassination. So there you have it: Last night's Oscar telecast was one more casualty of that fateful day in Dallas.

I have been unable to find any independent confirmation whatsoever for this. But hey, if you can't trust the testimony of a guy who calls you late at night after playing bar trivia, what can you trust?

LIST PUMP

Time for that annual list of the movies that, at this particular highly subjective moment, seem like my ten favorites of the year: 

Moonlight—This naturalistic coming-of-age story from director Barry Jenkins about an African-American kid in Miami’s Liberty City and his subsumed sexual identity, among other struggles, inspires a litany of adjectives: Heartbreaking, harrowing, tender, beautiful, thoroughly original.

Manchester by the Sea—There’s an unbearable tragedy at the center of this New England drama, but as usual writer-director Kenneth Lonergan seems incapable of hitting a false note, the long-underrated Casey Affleck is superb in the lead, and Michelle Williams is unforgettable in her big scene.

Florence Foster Jenkins—Heaping praise on Meryl Streep started getting old three decades ago, but when she keeps offering up beguilingly silly work like this portrait of the Manhattan wannabe soprano, what else can you do? Hugh Grant is also at his best in this, as is supporting player Simon Helberg and director Stephen Frears. 

The Eagle Huntress—Whether or not it strictly qualifies as a documentary, Otto Bell’s chronicle, full of engaging non-actors using their real names, of a Mongolian Kazakh teenage girl breaking into the traditionally male field of eagle hunting is one-of-a-kind and exhilarating.

Paterson—Jim Jarmusch’s New Jersey idyll, about a week in the life of a bus driver and contentedly unknown poet, is suspiciously rose-colored in its view of the heartsease of an artist with a working life. But it’s such a serene fantasy, and Adam Driver is so sweet in the lead, that you’re likely to be drawn in.

Hell or High Water—This tight, pissed-off, grimly funny Texas noir features maybe the best use of the “cop about to retire” cliché ever. The four leads are outstanding: Chris Pine as a desperate small-potatoes bank robber, Ben Foster as his cheerfully nihilistic brother and partner, and Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham as the Texas Rangers hunting them.

Loving—A hushed, restrained, moving portrait of the people behind 1967’s famous Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision, which declared interracial marriage a constitutional right. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga are quietly superb in the leads.

Dr. Strange—Of this year’s big-studio blockbusters, this origin story for Marvel’s cheeky metaphysician may have been the most enjoyable. Benedict Cumberbatch is just right in the title role, Tilda Swinton is a delight as The Ancient One, and the production is polished and impressive. 

Star Trek: Beyond—On the other hand, this latest entry in the rebooted Trek franchise was also a lot of fun. It will never replace the original for me, but on its own terms, it’s pretty rollicking.

Morris From America—Another coming-of-age tale, this one a bit lighter: the hero is a 13-year-old aspiring American rapper stuck in Germany with his single father. Markees Christmas and Craig Robinson are terrific as son and father.

Here are some others I’m not sorry I saw: Christine (excellent but painfully depressing), De Palma (made me want to watch a bunch of his movies), Miss Hokusai (Japanese historical anime; would have made the Top Ten but imdb says it’s a 2015 movie), The Edge of Seventeen, Fences, Zootopia, Don’t Breathe, Love & Friendship, Rogue One, Sully, Trolls, The Love Witch, Max Rose, The Hollars, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, City of Gold, Queen of Katwe, Anthropoid, Bad Santa 2, The Bronze, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Lobster, Green Room, The Jungle Book, The Shallows, Hidden Figures, Finding Dory,  Life, Animated and the maligned new version of Ghostbusters.

Also, A Monster Calls, which opens tomorrow. So…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s give the nod to the title character of the 2011 book upon which that movie is based, seen here…

 

…as rendered in the award-winning illustrations of Jim Kay.