Once Upon A Time in Hollywood… Ain’t that the truth.

Oscar Winners 2020

The Best Picture upset (most had it as a serious contender, but a long shot as a winner due to the dual nomination with Best International Feature and that one being in the bag) can only be a good thing for the ceremony, a further strike against predictability (whether or not it was a response to Green Book and the ongoing campaigning over representation among nominees). While some are grumbling about dual Best Picture category wins, anyone familiar with the BAFTAs is more than used to that sort of thing. Most of the rest of the biggies, director aside (although, not unexpected), were widely expected, so it also means that, in an era where the race is scrutinised to death, that it hasn’t exhausted itself long before the ceremony.

And the ceremony? I only caught the highlights, very fortunately by the look of some of those musical numbers. Some decent Chris Rock gags (“Jeff Bezos is so rich, he got divorced and he’s still the richest man in the world"; “Marty, I gotta tell you, I loved the first season of The Irishman”). Bring back the MC, though. Don’t act like you don’t want one. Be honest that no one has the cojones to brave the Twitter storm; picking the right one can mean ratings, apart from anything else.

I picked 14 of the winners this time, fairly par for my slack course since I started recording my guesswork in 2013 (they go: 11, 16, 16, 15, 14, 16, 15).

Best Picture

Winner: Parasite (Kwak Sin-ae and Bong Joon-ho)

I guessed: 1917

“We never imagined this to ever happen.” Nor did 90% of the Oscar pundits. I’m relieved it wasn’t 1917, which represents Hollywood at its most unremarkable and self-satisfied (technical achievements aside).

Best Director

Winner: Bong Joon-ho (Parasite)

I guessed: Sam Mendes (1917)

Result! It also underlines that there was enough solidarity behind the Best Picture that it wasn’t merely a flukey result of the preferential vote (I also think Bong’s a much better director than he is a writer, but that’s true of 99% of directors who are directors first).

Best Actor

Winner: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)

I guessed: Joaquin Phoenix

What kind of medications is Joaquin on? Not ones you want to take just before you go up on stage. You certainly wouldn’t want to get into a staring match with him. That said, I can’t fault most of what he had to say.

Best Actress

Winner: Renee Zellweger (Judy)

I guessed: Renee Zellweger

Was Renee bored of all the awards by this point? She seemed to be forgetting her speech as she delivered it. One of those acting wins (others include Jeremy Irons, Jessica Lange, Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges) for a film no one bothered seeing.

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)

I guessed: Brad Pitt

Inevitable. Brad’s speechwriters deserve an award for their work this season.

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Laura Dern (Marriage Story)

I guessed: Laura Dern

Gushing with the best of them (“Some say never meet your heroes, but I say, if you’re really blessed, you get them as your parents”), but mentioning Bruce in an acceptance speech is always a positive.

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: Parasite ((Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won)

I guessed: Parasite

There’s discussion one whether Bong’s tally should count as equalling Walt’s (since International Feature goes to a country). I think it should. I mean, who’s taking the thing home?

Best Adapted Screenplay

Winner: Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

I guessed: Little Women

I had the winner as my interesting choice, because Taika threw out the book, rather than because it’s a good screenplay (it stinks). So Waititi’s officially part of the establishment now. He didn’t even take the piss in his speech.

Best Animated Feature

Winner: Toy Story 4

I guessed: Klaus

Outrageous that this merely decent fourquel won when at least two others were far superior. I guessed a Pixar win, only in the wrong category.

Best Cinematography

Winner: 1917 (Roger Deakins)

I guessed: 1917

I don’t know, you go an eternity of nominations without a sniff of a win, and then the statuettes won’t stop coming.

Best Production Design

Winner: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh)

I guessed: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

So Quentin’s film takes home two Oscars. Two more than Marty’s.

Best Costume Design

Winner: Little Women (Jacqueline Durran)

I guessed: Little Women

Greta has to make do with a win in the frocks department. Very gender-stereotyped, that.

Best Make Up and Hairstyling

Winner: Bombshell (Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan and Vivian Baker)

I guessed: Bombshell

Let’s be clear: this was not for the work done on Nicole Kidman.

Best Film Editing

Winner: Ford v Ferrari (Andrew Buckland and Michael McCusker)

I guessed: Parasite

Can’t argue with that.

Best Sound Editing

Winner: Ford v Ferrari (Donald Sylvester)

I guessed: Ford v Ferrari

See above.

Best Sound Mixing

Winner: 1917 (Mark Taylor and Stuart Wilson)

I guessed: Ford v Ferrari

I had the 1917 sound award in the wrong category.

Best Visual Effects

Winner: 1917 (Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler and Dominic Tuohy)

I guessed: 1917

James Corden. James Corden. James Corden. Will that banish him?

Best Original Score

Winner: Joker (Hildur Guõnadóttir)

I guessed: Joker

All women are superheroes? Yeah, lap that nonsense up. Hildur had sure been prepped too.

Best Original Song

Winner: Rocketman (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again, Elton John

I guessed: Rocketman

Elton’s second Oscar.

Best International Feature

Winner: Parasite (South Korea)

I guessed: Parasite

Wouldn’t it have been funny if hadn’t won this but still won Best Picture? No? Okay, then.

Best Documentary Feature

Winner: American Factory (Steve Bognar, Julia and Jeff Reichert)

I guessed: Honeyland

Everyone was saying American Factory, but I just wasn’t having it. Netflix got two Oscars, then.

Best Animated Short

Winner: Hair Love (Matthew A Cherry & Karen Rupert Toliver)

I guessed: Kitbull

The mistake of thinking, because you didn’t think much of something, it surely won’t win (Jojo Rabbit syndrome). Still, a flawlessly on-message speech, that one.

Best Documentary Short

Winner: Learning to Skate in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) (Carol Dysinger and Elena Andreicheva)

I guessed: St. Louis Superman

I should have gone with the received wisdom there too.

Best Live Action Short

Winner: The Neighbors’ Window (Marshall Curry)

I guessed: Nefta Football Club

I wouldn’t call anything in this category an upset, but I don’t think The Neighbor’s Window was generally predicted.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

You're not only wrong. You're wrong at the top of your voice.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
I’ve seen comments suggesting that John Sturges’ thriller hasn’t aged well, which I find rather mystifying. Sure, some of the characterisations border on the cardboard, but the director imbues the story with a taut, economical backbone.

You can’t climb a ladder, no. But you can skip like a goat into a bar.

Juno and the Paycock (1930)
(SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds. Juno and the Paycock, set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

To defeat the darkness out there, you must defeat the darkness inside yourself.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Easily the best of the Narnia films, which is maybe damning it with faint praise.

Michael Apted does a competent job directing (certainly compared to his Bond film - maybe he talked to his second unit this time), Dante Spinotti's cinematography is stunning and the CGI mostly well-integrated with the action.

Performance-wise, Will Poulter is a stand-out as a tremendously obnoxious little toff, so charismatic you're almost rooting for him. Simon Pegg replaces Eddie Izzard as the voice of Reepicheep and delivers a touching performance.
***

When I barked, I was enormous.

Dean Spanley (2008)
(SPOILERS) There is such a profusion of average, respectable – but immaculately made – British period drama held up for instant adulation, it’s hardly surprising that, when something truly worthy of acclaim comes along, it should be singularly ignored. To be fair, Dean Spanleywas well liked by critics upon its release, but its subsequent impact has proved disappointingly slight. Based on Lord Dunsany’s 1939 novella, My Talks with Dean Spanley, our narrator relates how the titular Dean’s imbibification of a moderate quantity of Imperial Tokay (“too syrupy”, is the conclusion reached by both members of the Fisk family regarding this Hungarian wine) precludes his recollection of a past life as a dog.

Inevitably, reviews pounced on the chance to reference Dean Spanley as a literal shaggy dog story, so I shall get that out of the way now. While the phrase is more than fitting, it serves to underrepresent how affecting the picture is when it has cause to be, as does any re…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

That Freud stuff’s a bunch of hooey.

Spellbound (1945)
Spellbound is something of a stumbling follow-up to Rebecca, producer David O Selznick’s previous collaboration with Hitchcock. Selznick was a devotee of psychoanalysis, and the idea of basing a film on the subject was already in the mind of the director. To that end, the producer’s own therapist, May Romm, was brought in as a technical advisor (resulting in Hitchcock’s famous response when she pointed out an inaccuracy, “My dear, it’s only a movie”).

So long, sky trash!

Star Wars The Saga Ranked
This is an update of my 2018 ranking, with the addition of highly-acclaimed The Rise of Skywalker along with revisits to the two preceding parts of the trilogy. If you want to be generous and call it that, since the term it makes it sound a whole lot more coherent than it plays.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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