2021 Oscar Awards

Well, that was definitely a thing, wasn’t it? The 2021 Oscars pulled me in a number of different directions. Some of the awards I was most rooting for didn’t go my way, which was disappointing, but on the other hand, as I’ve been saying, the slate of movies this year was so good that I could rarely argue that the people/films who won instead weren’t just as deserving. While the ceremony was kind of all over the place, there were still some important wins to celebrate.

This was a stripped-down Oscars that was repeatedly touted as COVID-safe, which seemed at least partially correct to me. Personally, I was iffy about moving the smaller crowd (just the nominees and their guests, with staff and a small handful of extra presenters) into a smaller venue, but I appreciated people being set up at tables that were spaced apart, mostly four to a table and separated into pairs of nominees and their plus-ones. I appreciated that multiple venues were set up in different locations for people who didn’t want to risk traveling for the ceremony, and I’m glad that, even though very few in the crowd were wearing masks, those who chose to weren’t actively prohibited from wearing them. I still wouldn’t have wanted to set foot in there, but at least it wasn’t just a horrifying free-for-all.

I’m not sure how you do a ceremony with no host, no monologue, no Best Original Song performances, and only one needless bit and still go over three hours, but apparently the Academy has a rare talent in that department. It was a very earnest Oscars, with lots of tepid “fun facts” about how the nominees got their start in the industry or which movies inspired them in their youth. Much of the evening was kind of underwhelming, and I felt a little bad that the winners’ big night was at such a lackluster Oscars, but I recognize that they were kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. You want to celebrate the past year’s best movies, but there’s not a safe way to do the usual glamor and glitz, so you wind up with this in-between thing that never fully seems to take off.

Other than The Trial of the Chicago 7, all the Best Picture nominees snagged at least one trophy. Sound of Metal took home Best Sound Editing and Best Editing, with Mank picking up Best Production Design and Best Cinematography. Judas and the Black Messiah won Best Original Song and Best Supporting Actor for Daniel Kaluuya, while Promising Young Woman got Best Original Screenplay and Minari won Best Supporting Actress for Yuh-jung Youn. The big winner of the evening was Nomadland, which took home Best Picture, Best Director (with Chloé Zhao making history as the first woman of color and second woman ever to win that award,) and Best Leading Actress for Frances McDormand. The Father won Best Adapted Screenplay and later had the biggest upset (literally) of the night when Anthony Hopkins took home Best Leading Actor. It was a hard moment because, while I can’t deny how incredible Hopkins’ performance was, the ceremony had rearranged the order of the biggest awards, announcing Best Leading Actress and Actor after Best Picture in the clear expectation of giving Chadwick Boseman’s widow the final words of the night after Boseman’s posthumus Oscar win. Except it didn’t happen. And because Hopkins was in London, where it was like 4 in the morning, he’d gone to bed by the time the category was announced, so there was no final acceptance speech – just presenter Joaquin Phoenix accepting the award on Hopkins’ behalf and The End.

For other awards, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom won Best Costumes and Best Makeup/Hair, the latter of which featured the first Black women ever to win in that category. Since Another Round was the only Best International Feature nominee I saw, it was nice to see it win, and since I nearly teared up afresh just watching the brief clip they aired from Soul, I appreciated its wins for Best Animated Feature and Best Score. Tenet took home Best Visual Effects, and the winner for Best Documentary Feature was a film called My Octopus Teacher.

Despite the only-quasi-Oscar feel of the whole proceedings, there were still some lovely moments to be had. Emerald Fennell looking for guidance in an acceptance speech she wrote as a child was cute (it wasn’t much help, as it spent most of its time thanking Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell,) and Yuh-jung Youn delightfully used her win as an opportunity to ask Brad Pitt (who presented her award, and who was a producer on Minari) why they never met during shooting. It was wonderful to hear Zhao’s directing win announced by Bong Joon-ho, and she paid a beautiful tribute to the lessons her mother taught her in her speech. Daniel Kaluuya’s speech was a little bit of everything, ranging from earnestly honoring Fred Hampton to expressing amazement that his parents had sex and gave birth to him in the first place. For presenters, I really enjoyed the story Steven Yeun shared about his mother taking him to see Terminator 2 as a child, and it was great seeing Marlee Matlin present the documentary awards.