2020 Oscar Winners

[JamesG]

Best Picture:

Parasite
Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
1917
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood







Best Actress:

Renée Zellweger, Judy
Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Saoirse Ronan, Little Women
Charlize Theron, Bombshell








Best Actor:

Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes







Best Supporting Actor:

Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
Al Pacino, The Irishman
Joe Pesci, The Irishman








Best Supporting Actress:

Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell
Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit
Florence Pugh, Little Women
Margot Robbie, Bombshell







Best Director:

Bong Joon Ho, Parasite
Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Todd Phillips, Joker
Sam Mendes, 1917
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood









Best Animated Film:

Toy Story 4
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
I Lost My Body
Klaus
Missing Link







Best Short Animated Film:

Hair Love
Dcera (Daughter)
Kitbull
Memorable
Sister







Best Short Live Film:

The Neighbors’ Window
Brotherhood
Nefta Football Club
Saria
A Sister







Best Foreign Language Film:

Parasite
Corpus Christi
Honeyland
Les Misérables
Pain and Glory







Best Costume Design:

Little Women
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood







Best Makeup and Hair Styling:

Bombshell
Joker
Judy
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
1917







Best Cinematography:

1917
The Irishman
Joker
The Lighthouse
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood







Best Editing:

Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Parasite







Best Sound Editing:

Ford v Ferrari
Joker
1917
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker







Best Sound Mixing:

1917
Ad Astra
Ford v Ferrari
Joker
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood







Best Production Design:

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
1917
Parasite







Best Visual Effects:

1917
Avengers: Endgame
The Irishman
The Lion King
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker






Best Writing (Original Screenplay):

Parasite
Knives Out
Marriage Story
1917
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood






Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay):

Jojo Rabbit
The Irishman
Joker
Little Women
The Two Popes







Best Documentary (Long):

American Factory
The Cave
The Edge of Democracy
For Sama
Honeyland







Best Documentary (Short):

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)
In the Absence
Life Overtakes Me
St. Louis Superman
Walk Run Cha-Cha







Best Music (Original Score):

Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
1917
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker






Best Music (Original Song):

“(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again” by Elton John and Taron Egerton
Rocketman

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” by Randy Newman
Toy Story 4

“I'm Standing With You” by Chrissy Metz
Breakthrough

“Into the Unknown” by Panic! at the Disco
Frozen II

“Stand Up” by Cynthia Enrivo
Harriet

[JamesG]

^ Winners above in bold.

[80sTrivia]

Congratulations to the winners!

[MA]

Congratulations to all of the winners!

[HuntingtonM15]

While the Oscars don't mean nearly as much to me as they used to, I was glad to see Laura Dern and Brad Pitt win. Laura has been a favorite of mine for ages and she deserved it. While I loved the entire cast of "Once Upon a Time..." after seeing it I said Brad owned that movie. I thought it even more after seeing it a second time. He would have been snubbed if he didn't take it.

[MA]

I'm happy that Renee and Toy Story 4 won.

[TMC]

Oscars telecast sinks to a new viewership low with 23.6 million -- down 6 million from last year

This year's Oscars dipped 20% from last year's 29.6 million. The 23.6 million marked a new low, falling below the previous low of 26.5 million from Jimmy Kimmel's second hosting stint in 2018. This year also marked the earliest-ever Oscars, which are usually held weeks after the Super Bowl in late February. The Oscars ceremony has been declining in recent years. The last ceremony over 40 million viewers was Ellen DeGeneres' in 2014. The last ceremony over 30 million viewers was Kimmel's in 2017.

ALSO:

• Film Academy explains why Luke Perry and Cameron Boyce were omitted from In Memoriam segment: The Academy receives hundreds of requests to include loved ones and industry colleagues in the Oscars In Memoriam segment," the Academy's statement said. "An executive committee representing every branch considers the list and makes selections for the telecast based on limited available time. All the submissions are included on Oscar.com and will remain on the site throughout the year. Luke Perry and Cameron Boyce are remembered in the Oscar.com gallery."
• Billy Eichner slams Eminem's Oscar performance, citing the rapper's past homophobic lyrics
• Brad Pitt reveals Jim Jefferies was one of the "funny friends" he turned to for his award season jokes
• Analyzing Joaquin Phoenix and Renée Zellweger’s utterly baffling Oscar speeches
• Netflix Cheer star Jerry Harris got to interview Brad Pitt on the red carpet for Ellen

Bring back the host!: 92nd Academy Awards showed the pitfalls of a host-less ceremony

The chief job of a host is to bring continuity to the ceremony, which was something this year's Oscars lacked. "The 2020 awards kept trying to have segments built around the function of a host without actually having a host, says Emily Todd VanDerWerff.. "When Steve Martin and Chris Rock came out near the top of the show to offer five minutes of comedy, it felt like gilding the lily after Janelle Monaé’s entertaining but odd opening musical number. 'Musical number,' then 'host-like segment that, nevertheless, is not actually a host segment,' then the first award is a whiplash-inducing sequence." VanDerWerff adds: "It’s entirely possible that the problem with this year’s award show wasn’t the lack of a host, but its inability to decide which elements of a traditional host to keep and which to jettison. For as impossible a gig hosting the Oscars is, the simple fact that someone like Jimmy Kimmel or Chris Rock or Ellen DeGeneres is there to smooth transitions and help out when, say, La La Land is erroneously named best picture over Moonlight, offers a constant place for the director of the awards show to cut to. It’s a home base in a show that sometimes badly needs a home base. Television usually works best when a show has some sort of status quo to return to. That’s the case with awards shows, too. For as bad as so many Oscar hosts have been, they really do maintain the evening’s status quo. Even when you’re not sure why Joaquin Phoenix keeps winning awards for Joker, your host will be there to guide you through it. A hostless Oscars could continue to work, but the structure of the show as-is all but begs for a host. In order to not have one yet again, the show’s producers will likely have to get more ruthless about which elements of the show are tossed and which are kept."

ALSO:

• There's no reason a host-less Oscars should run longer than The Irishman: "At three hours and 32 minutes, the 2020 Academy Awards ceremony was longer than its notoriously sprawling Best Picture nominee, The Irishman," says Jen Chaney. "It was also 15 minutes longer than last year’s ceremony, but not as long as the longest Oscars ceremony of all time — the 2002 marathon that lasted four hours and 23 minutes. Can you imagine sitting through that whole show only to find out at the end that Moulin Rouge! lost Best Picture to A Beautiful Mind? Well, I can, because I actually did. Bloated Oscar broadcasts are nothing new, and jokes about the show going long have provided comedians with material for decades. But now that there is no host — following last year’s post–Kevin Hart-debacle decision to go emcee-less, this year went the same route — the Academy Awards should, in theory, be much more streamlined. The most maddening thing about this year’s Oscars, which featured many delightful moments, including a semi-surprising Best Picture win for Parasite, wasn’t that it ran late. It was that there was absolutely no reason it needed to run late. If just a few segments had been snipped and some awkward transitions had been finessed, this could have been one of the best Oscar broadcasts in recent memory. It came close, but didn’t quite get there."
• Parasite saved the Oscars from an unmitigated disaster of a telecast: "The Oscars need a host," says Kevin Fallon. "Hosts provide guidance, inject energy, wrangle things into focus, and help maintain the gravitas that the ceremony requires. Before the conclusion’s much-needed Bong hit, the telecast was a lifeless slog, a zombie that somehow still tripped over the low bar that was set for the night." Fallon adds: "Here’s a thought: If you’re not gonna have a host, why have any of the fringe hoopla? If they only aired the announcement of the winners and their speeches on Sunday night, you’d have missed that convoluted Janelle Monáe performance, Eminem rap for some reason, (Chris) Rock and (Steve) Martin bomb their monologue, and live renditions of five of the snooziest songs to ever compete for an Oscar. Sounds ideal! Give me the full crazy, or give me just the goods. Thanks to its rewarding of Parasite, the Academy delivered the goods. But a desirable end result doesn’t absolve the messy, complicated journey it took to get there. That roadmap needs a major overhaul, even if we get to toast to Bong tonight."
• Hosts provide a needed function of being the elephant-in-the-room pointer, the joker, lowercase, who acknowledges the industry’s failures and embarrassment: "The Oscars are now an ensemble production," says James Poniewozik, adding: "This anarchist collective of a ceremony ended up being a sort of anthology of mini-shows, hosted by a string of presenters. Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig won Best Audition for a Future Awards Show, nailing a tight a cappella duet medley themed to the best costume design category. James Corden and Rebel Wilson, in costume from Cats, spoofed the uncanny-valley horror of that movie. There was also a string of questionable choices, starting with a bizarre Russian-doll approach in which several of the presenters were introduced by their own presenters. (The show did recognize that some stars, like the musical guest Elton John, needed no introduction.) There was, for some reason, a musical recap of the program halfway through, rapped by Utkarsh Ambudkar."
• Host-less Oscars led to some bizarre presenting decisions: "Going host-less for the second year running ostensibly puts more pressure on the presenters, some of whom inevitably fared better than others," says Caroline Framke. "But the show’s emphasis on not just presenters, but (younger) presenters for the (more established) presenters, seriously pushed the limits of what constitutes a high value cameo. I’ve always wanted to know who networks think they’re luring into an awards show broadcast thanks to some star power reading the categories, and this round’s especially strange attempts confirm that awards shows are especially prone to the 'more is more' approach, regardless of logic. There’s just no reason, for instance, that Booksmart star Beanie Feldstein shouldn’t have presented alongside Mindy Kaling instead of alerting the audience to Kaling’s presence. 1917 breakout George McKay truly needn’t have thrown to Olivia Colman from the tippy top of the Dolby Theater. Most importantly, and perhaps in the most perfect summary of just how bizarre the night got by the halfway mark, who on earth suggested that Anthony Ramos introduce Lin-Manuel Miranda, so Lin-Manuel Miranda could introduce a montage of popular movies and the songs they made famous, which in turn introduced none other than Eminem performing the entirety of his 2002 Oscar-winning song 8 Mile, for no other reason than he didn’t get the chance before and that has a new album to promote? By the time Utkarsh Ambudkar was rapping about what had already happened in the ceremony so far, in a tepid reboot of Neil Patrick Harris’ go to closing bit for the Tonys, it seemed like the show had completely lost the thread."
• The Oscars flaunted diversity without fully delivering: "Indeed, the Oscars kept patting itself on the back by trotting out women and people of color, as if giving them airtime made up for the lack of true recognition," says Shirley Li. "Actors like Beanie Feldstein, Zazie Beetz, and Mindy Kaling presented awards and introduced performances. Some, like the In the Heights star Anthony Ramos, arrived to present another presenter; in his case, Lin-Manuel Miranda. These moments appeared to not only be about making up for the lack of a host, but also about underlining the Academy’s expanding membership. Often, though, they only reminded the audience of the nominees’ homogeneity....Sure, it’s wonderful to see the Oscars give Kelly Marie Tran time to riff with Questlove, to watch Sandra Oh trade quips with Ray Romano, and to revel in Billy Porter taking the stage with Monae and matching her in exuberance ...But honoring those times requires more than just dressing up dancers as characters from the overlooked films and doling out stage time during a telecast at the end of a long awards season. Parasite’s Best Picture finish showed that if the Oscars wants to call itself diverse and to brandish its inclusivity, it’ll have to do so by nominating films that reflect diversity in the first place. When the roster of honorees looks nothing like the presenters and performers on Oscar night, the self-congratulatory tone doesn’t work. Actual results will always matter more than awards-show routines."
• Perhaps Parasite winning Best Picture will convince HBO to scrap its Adam McKay adaptation: "i really hope Parasite winning Best Picture means it'll re-open wide and stream everywhere and HBO will cancel the sh*t out of that Adam McKay version," tweeted Inkoo Kang. "if the highest honor in the industry isn't good enough to let a film stand on its own, what use is it?"
• Chris Rock and Steve Martin "sort of" hosting is sort of like Oscar category fraud: "Hollywood has somehow discovered a new form of category fraud," says Richard Lawson. "Running an obvious co-lead performance in a supporting category to better an actor’s chances of winning is a time-honored practice. But for two years now, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has said the Oscar ceremony won’t have a host only to reveal…sort of some hosts! In 2019, it was Tina Fey and Amy Poehler kicking off the show with some yuks, while this year it was past hosts Chris Rock and Steve Martin. They essentially gave the traditional opening monologue, ribbing the evening’s ills—particularly its near-total lack of people of color nominated in the acting categories, and the entire lack of women on the best director list—and then offered some warmed-over jokes about Fords and Ferraris and the Iowa caucus debacle. It was pretty unremarkable, except for one dark facet: Both Martin and Rock seemed pretty chagrined, perhaps channeling the mood an at least partially embarrassed Academy that knows the show must go on despite egregious nomination oversights and ineffectual efforts to prevent them. Do the Oscars hate themselves? No, of course not. But during those awkward host-ish moments, this Academy showcase seemed at least a little squirmy about the status of its legacy."
• Sigourney Weaver, Brie Larson and Gal Gadot delivered the night's most cringeworthy moment: "The superwomen read some blustering, barely coherent text with all the good intentions in the world, including a belabored set-up about an all-woman fight club and a dull punchline about women in the industry being asked what it’s like being a woman in the industry," says Cassie Da Costa. "Then, the trio introduced Eimear Noone, the first woman conductor at the Oscars, who—in a horrifying move that surely wasn’t Noone’s choice—only led the orchestra for the Best Original Score nominees, and nothing else for any other part of the ceremony. It was a clear instance of tokenism: as long as we can see her, she can conduct."
• Fewer montages made for a more "present tense" ceremony: "As for the Academy’s notorious and roundly deplored love of montages," says Rob Harvilla, "there were fewer of the tired History of Cinema flourishes that have stopped past ceremonies dead in their tracks; the most prominent montages this year were, in fact, the lengthy jumble of scenes from all five nominees that preceded the major acting categories and many of the other awards. (Whoever picked the flamethrower scene from Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood to represent the film for Best Sound Editing deserves, yes, an Oscar.) The show was ferocious in its desire to stay present tense, to go light to the point of nonexistent on the Lifetime Achievement Award front, save for Billie Eilish quite movingly singing the Beatles’ 'Yesterday' during the In Memoriam segment, which is frankly quite the collection of nouns."
• If you like your Oscars automated, this year's ceremony was for you: "Automation isn’t just threatening the American workforce; it might be undermining America’s biggest awards show," says Hank Stuever. "The 92nd Academy Awards on ABC, hostless for a second year, seemed to run off some predetermined algorithm, not only in what viewers saw on Sunday night, but from the moment nominations were announced last month. Each year, that list seems perfectly calibrated to strike the most passionate filmgoers as just out of step with cultural progress; the outrage about that chronic condition is also beginning to seem reflexive, like a button too easily pressed. The telecast is then predictably salted with lots of jokes and jabs about what’s wrong with the Oscars." Stuever adds: "The more rote the Oscars become, the more they stand in contrast to what has perhaps become the most entertaining movie awards show — the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which took place Saturday afternoon and aired on cable channel IFC. Held under a big beachside tent in Santa Monica, the Spirit Awards have much of what viewers say they want from these affairs: spontanaiety, diversity and the general idea that going to a star-studded event (even vicariously, on television) ought to be a lot of fun."
• Just let Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig host next year's Oscars: "What more do you people want from Maya Rudolph?" says Marissa Martinelli. "This marks the second year that the Oscars have gone without a host, and also the second year that Rudolph has stolen the show while presenting an award. In 2019, after Kevin Hart walked away from the job rather than apologize for homophobic tweets, the Academy left the host spot vacant, with presenters and announcers instead trading jokes and introductions. And for the most part, it was fine! But Rudolph, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler had such strong chemistry that it made us wish they’d just been given the gig instead. The Golden Globes got the memo, announcing that Fey and Poehler will host next year’s ceremony. But that leaves Rudolph, who once again shone at the Oscars this year, this time while presenting with Kristen Wiig."
• Oscars' In Memoriam segment snubbed Luke Perry, Sid Haig and Cameron Boyce
• Jane Fonda's reaction to Parasite winning made it clear she was about to announce Best Picture history
• Brad Pitt insists he's written all his award season speeches, but with some help from "very, very funny friends": “Historically, I’ve always been really tentative about speeches," Pitt said backstage after accepting the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. "They make me nervous, so this round I figured if we’re going to do this, (I’d better) put some real work into it, to try to get comfortable, and this is the result of that. I definitely write them. I have some very, very funny friends that have helped me with some laughs, but it’s got to come from the heart.”
• Billie Eilish accused of disrespecting Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig -- but she has a connection to them: The "Bad Guy" singer, who was shown side-eying the two comedic actresses during the Oscars, has a connection to Rudolph and Wiig through her mom, Maggie Baird, a teacher at the legendary comedy theater and school that's been the training ground to many SNL stars.
• Joaquin Phoenix's Oscars speech on racism, queerness, misogyny, animal rights, personal sacrifice and cancel culture was a sprawling sociopolitical epic
• Laura Dern's Oscar speech was great, but it couldn't eclipse the Independent Spirit Awards tribute to her the previous day
• Watch Ray Romano's F-bomb, which wasn't bleeped on Australian TV
• Who Is Utkarsh Ambudkar, the guy who recapped the Oscars?: Ambudkar played Mindy Kaling's brother on The Mindy Project and is best known as a member of the freestyle live performance rap group, “Freestyle Love Supreme," along with Lin-Manuel Miranda.
• Meet Sharon Choi, Bong Joon Ho's translator: Choi, a filmmaker herself, is the interpreter who has followed Bong and the “Parasite” team throughout their successful awards season.
• Twitter couldn't figure out Ryan Seacrest's "weird" accent on the red carpet
• ESPN's Stephen A. Smith co-hosting the post-Oscars show begs the question: When did he have time to watch all of the nominees?
• ABC under fire for banning a postpartum pain ad from the Oscars

Eminem's baffling Oscars performance, explained

The rapper confused many when he appeared live on stage singing his Oscar-winning 2002 hit Lose Yourself from 8 Mile following a montage of Best Original Songs throughout the years. ABC reality boss Robert Mills explained that Eminem was making up for his no-show at the 2003 Oscars, when he was nominated, because he thought he wasn't going to win. “I just felt like I had no chance of winning because, you know, when I heard I was nominated, I thought that was for actors,” he said in a 2007 interview. As Eminem himself tweeted after his performance, "Look, if you had another shot, another opportunity... Thanks for having me @TheAcademy. Sorry it took me 18 years to get here."

ALSO:

• Watch the parts of Eminem's performance that ABC bleeped out
• Watch Oscar attendees react to Eminem's performance in animated GIF form

The love-hate relationship with the Oscars is why the ceremony endures as a TV event

"Here’s what I know about the Oscars: They are more than 90 years old and they are still driving," says Mary McNamara. "Thirty million people may be a fraction of glory-days viewership, but the glory days are gone, for everyone, and in this time of fractured audiences and multiple platforms that is still a hell of a lot of viewers. And whether you agree with the choice of each winner, or the general preferences/limitations of the academy voters, or the notion of awards at all, an Oscar, for better and worse, is still the most recognizable and referenced honor in the world (and it doesn’t even come with a cash award). Everyone wants to win an Oscar because it is a two-syllable shorthand for success and prestige. Why else would Netflix, a company that is literally based on blowing up the financial and spiritual tenets of the film industry, be campaigning so hard to win best picture? Not because it’s irrelevant. The Oscars are all the things fans and critics think they are, and those conflicting opinions are proof of the award’s endurance. When no one cares enough to launch a hashtag campaign or publicly protest an omission or “undeserving” win, we can talk irrelevance. As for now, well, it’s been almost a century since roughly 250 filmmakers gathered in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to celebrate the year’s achievement in film. Was it a ploy to draw attention to the still nascent film industry? To raise its status and cultural influence? To sell more tickets and increase the wattage of its stars? You bet it was. And, man, did it work."

ALSO:

• What if the Oscars ceremony was 30 minutes long?: "Here’s how my airtight and entirely feasible plan to condense the ceremony to 30 minutes—or one hour, if we must have commercials—will work," says Gabriella Paiella. "First, structure the evening like the nominations announcement, with two announcers onstage. I’ll leave that decision to the producers, but here are a handful of suggestions I thought of in the last five seconds alone: Rihanna, Stanley Tucci, Michael Stuhlbarg, Al Pacino’s scarf, the depressed child from Marriage Story. The announcers alternate each category, reading all the nominees, followed by the winner. The camera briefly pans to the winner just long enough to capture joy, surprise, Adam Driver resting face, whatever. The 'In Memoriam' segment can still take place halfway through. No speeches. No performances. No banter between presenters. The winners can pick up their statuettes from a folding table in the back on their way out."
• What was the weirdest Oscars ever?: Letterman's Uma/Oprah, The year of the Streaker, The Year of Adele Dazeem or The Year of Sacheen Littlefeather?
• Regina King will appear in two Oscar-exclusive Cadillac ads
• Will the Independent Spirit Awards ever become a bold alternative to the Oscars?
• Billy Crystal Oscar song parodies, ranked
• ABC will air a post-Oscars show hosted by Maria Menounos, Stephen A. Smith and Ben Lyons: Live From Hollywood: After the Awards will air from outside the Governor's Ball following Sunday's ceremony. “My name has always been synonymous with sports," said ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, "and this is a career-crossover move that I have been waiting for: Stephen A. Smith co-hosting Live From Hollywood: After the Awards."

Billy Crystal and Jimmy Kimmel bash host-less Oscars

Crystal noted on last night's Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he and Kimmel have hosted the Oscars a combined 11 times. “This year is another no-host show, which is like having a trial without witnesses,” Crystal cracked, alluding to President Trump’s impeachment proceeding. “It moves faster, but it’s not quite the result that you want.” Kimmel told Crystal he is rooting for another glitch like the Best Picture mishap he experienced in 2017. “I hope they get the right people out there in case something–” Crystal started, before Kimmel cut in, “I hope they don’t! I hope it’s a disaster.” As both ex-hosts laughed, Kimmel added, “We have to stick together. These jobs are very few.”

[Bonniegirl]

Happy about Brad Pitt , but I think Once upon a time in Hollywood should have won best picture ! And I wish Little women had won something !

[Bonniegirl]

Originally Posted by Bonniegirl

Happy about Brad Pitt , but I think Once upon a time in Hollywood should have won best picture ! And I wish Little women had won something !

Oh I just noticed , LW did win for best costume design!

[MA]

Did Once Upon A Time In Hollywood win anything?

[Bonniegirl]

Originally Posted by MA

Did Once Upon A Time In Hollywood win anything?

Best Production design !

[MA]

Originally Posted by Bonniegirl

Best Production design !

Thanks!

[MrCleveland]

It looks like The Irishman got nothing this year...Marriage Story got an Oscar (Laura Durne).

I didn't see The Oscars this year...and I wish these three things can be shown again...

1) A Host...why not Drew Carey?
2) More vintage film scenes...people should know why movies kicked ass!
3) Have it in March...people didn't even know that The Oscars were on earlier this year!

[JamesG]

Do people read? “Did this win anything?” “Did that win?” The winners list is all there... come on.

[TMC]

Oscars' attempt to address diversity complaints during the ceremony came off as superficial

Janelle Monáe called out the Oscars being so white in her opening performance. So did Steve Martin and Chris Rock's opening monologue, as well as Utkarsh Ambudkar's mid-show rap recap. But all this amounted to no more than lip service, says Jeremy Gordon. "Aside from that, the producers attempted to bridge this gap by installing a bizarre slate of pre-presenters, mostly non-white, non-male actors like Zazie Beetz, Kelly Marie Tran, and Beanie Feldstein whose job it was to announce the more recognizable presenters," says Gordon. "They were so formally second tier that they had to say their own names, because of course the people at home wouldn’t know who they were. All of this amounted to a nervous chuckle: It’s true, the Oscars are pretty white and male, just as they often are, but we’re aware of it so don’t make too much of a fuss… okay? Please?" Gordon adds: "Then again, the Academy Awards are not a vehicle of social transgression, and it would be truly naive to expect this. So if we are to make a sweeping cultural declaration, it’s not that these ceremonies are populated by hypocrites (though they are) or that the Oscars can’t fix everything through the magic of cinema (though they obviously can’t). It’s just that the entire song-and-dance demonstrates how joking about a problem isn’t really fixing a problem. In fact, it might even be worse, because if you know something is a problem, and have some small power to fix the problem, but choose not to use it, then you’re just the smartest, most useless person in the room. What use is your arch understanding of the situation, when it continues to endure — when that arch understanding has been implicitly condoned by the powers that be?"

ALSO:

• Visual Effects Society slams the Oscars for James Corden and Rebel Wilson's Cats VFX joke: "On a night that is all about honoring the work of talented artists, it is immensely disappointing that The Academy made visual effects the butt of a joke,” the Visual Effects Society said in a statement. “It demeaned the global community of expert VFX practitioners doing outstanding, challenging and visually stunning work to achieve the filmmakers’ vision.”
• Ricky Gervais calls out Oscars stars for getting political: "I have nothing against the most famous people in the world using their privileged, global platform to tell the world what they believe. I even agree with most of it. I just tried to warn them that when they lecture everyday, hard working people, it has the opposite effect. Peace."
• What the Oscars can learn from the Independent Spirit Awards: "Unlike Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes, Plaza infused bracing irreverence with charm," Judy Berman says of Aubrey Plaza hosting the Spirit Awards for the second straight year. Berman adds: "The Oscars have a more difficult task than the Spirits, to be sure, by virtue of their wider purview, much larger audience and history as the world’s definitive annual celebration of high-minded Hollywood filmmaking. It isn’t really ABC’s fault that the Academy nominated zero women directors to Film Independent’s three. And the show’s producers can’t exactly stop Joaquin Phoenix from rambling about cow’s milk and social justice, in favor of more entertaining bits like Oscar snubbee Adam Sandler’s goofy-voiced, gatekeeper-mocking Best Lead Actor speech on Saturday. The Academy Awards could, however, find a charismatic host who cares about movies and write gags that feel playful and fresh rather than safe and obligatory. They could, in other words, actually cater to the captive audience of film fans whom the telecast is, frankly, lucky to still retain."

ABC had wanted Eminem to perform at the Oscars for years

Robert Mills, ABC's vice president of reality TV and alternative programming, told Variety in an interview Monday that the network had long been interested in Eminem because it was looking to replicate Justin Timberlake's opening to the 2017 Oscars. “It’s something we’ve talked about for years,” said Mills. “Because that was one of the great film anthems of all time, and anthems all together. But it’s one that he never performed on the Oscars. After Justin opened the show with ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling,’ you saw how a number like that can really inject some energy into the show.” The breakthrough came this year because Oscars producer Lynette Howell Taylor produced A Star is Born, which featured a soundtrack released by Interscope, Eminem's label. “Lynette had a relationship with Eminem’s people and Interscope, and I think she’s the one who made miracles happen and got him out there,” Mills said. So why was Eminem's performance in the middle of the telecast instead of at the beginning? Because if Eminem had backed out at the last minute, producers would've easily been able to scrap the performance.

ALSO:

• Eminem on agreeing to perform "Lose Yourself" at the Oscars: "I kinda figured maybe since I didn’t get a chance to do it at the time, maybe it would be cool," he tells Variety. "Back then, I never even thought that I had a chance to win, and we had just performed 'Lose Yourself' on the Grammys with the Roots a couple of weeks before the Oscars, so we didn’t think it was a good idea. And also, back at that time, the younger me didn’t really feel like a show like that would understand me. But then when I found out I won, 'That’s crazy!' That to me shows how authentic and real that award is — when you don’t show up and you still win. That makes it very real to me."
• Eminem's "Lose Yourself" sees massive sales bump after surprise Oscars performance