Film

The Good, The Bad And The Creepy Of The 2015 Oscars Or (The Unexpected Virtue Of John Travolta)

NPH in his tighty whities was actually one of the tamest moments of the night.

by Glenn Dunks  24 February 2015

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Love ’em or hate ’em, the Oscars were a thing that happened yesterday. While the award winners were a little predictable, there were still plenty of moments worth talking about.

Perhaps tellingly, few of them were about the films themselves.

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Taking Flight With Birdman

Despite challenges from The Grand Budapest Hotel, which won four awards, and Whiplash, which took home three statues, it was Birdman — please, let’s ignore that ridiculously cumbersome full title — that came out triumphant. It left Boyhood nearly empty-handed, with only one Oscar for Patricia Arquette’s performance (more on that later!).

Let’s face it though: it’s hardly surprising that Birdman won. Actors make up the largest portion of the Academy’s voters, and the entire film feels like a self-flagellating ego trip about the virtues of the craft, and that very specific world of actorly pain: earning millions upon millions for starring in vapid franchise pictures, and not being able to express oneself creatively. And now, after The Artist and Argo, that’s three years out of four wherein a film about movies has won the big prize. Never let it be said that voters aren’t narcissistic.

But while I personally wasn’t all that keen on the film, it does make a really out-of-the-ordinary winner; the win by Iñárritu makes it three years in a row of Best Director winners being people (well, men) of colour, after Ang Lee for Life of Pi and Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity. This backstage moment of Iñárritu’s though…?

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Talk Of The Town

Whiplash‘s JK Simmons’ started the night off with his odd speech for Best Supporting Actor, in which he told everyone to call their parents, as though he had dwindling stocks in a telecommunications company. Thankfully Patricia Arquette got the crowd excited when she won Best Supporting Actress for Boyhood and used her moment on the big stage to not only mention GiveLove.org, but also the issue of wage equality for women. Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez were into it, you guys!

Her backstage interview about the speech has, however, attracted some criticism: “And it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now,” she said, calling upon gay people and people of colour to take a stand for women’s equality. Without acknowledging the fact that these two minority groups of course also include women, as Slate note, the comments could be seen as an example of “privileged white women trying to become more privileged”.

Arquette has responded to these concerns this morning.

Elsewhere, winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Ida’s Pawel Pawlikowski from Poland, was played off by the orchestra… and just kept going. They eventually had to shut up and let him talk because he clearly wasn’t leaving any time soon. Julianne Moore paid touching tribute to the directors of her film, Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer: a gay male couple who were not at the ceremony as Glatzer has ALS and is confined to a wheelchair now having lost the ability to speak.

Not to be out done, Graham Moore, the screenwriter of The Imitation Game, took to the stage and announced that at age 16 he attempted suicide and hoped that the film and his win for Best Adapted Screenplay went some way in helping the weird stay weird. It was another powerful moment — but, as Slate note (again!), the speech conflated the experience of marginalised gay people with the experience of kids that don’t fit in, and was a little problematic as a result.

Common and John Legend gave the best speech of the night, after winning for their song from Selma. Speaking of the racism that is still commonplace in American society, the two discussed incarceration levels, voting rights, and the struggle for justice and equality. “We know that the voting rights, the act that they fought for 50 years ago is being compromised right now in this country today,” Legend said. “We know that right now the struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850. When people are marching with our song, we want to tell you that we are with you, we see you, we love you, and march on.”

Despite all of the controversy about Selma’s snubs across the nominations, it’s doubtful anybody will forget it.

And then there was the moment when, on their way to the podium, Common just completely left Oprah hanging. Dude, you do not leave Oprah hanging.

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Playing The Race Card

Neil Patrick Harris started the evening — literally in the first ten seconds — with a joke about how white this year’s set of nominees were. “Tonight we honour Hollywood’s best and whitest,” he said, referring to the controversy surrounding the nominations. Despite the obviously knowing wink to these issues of race, that didn’t stop the ceremony from having some awkward moments. Like when Harris picked Octavia Spencer, an Oscar winner for The Help, to be, well, the help. And then replacing her with a white, blonde seat-filler for laughs.

Or how about when Sean Penn, upon announcing Birdman’s big win, decided to crack a joke about “who gave this son of a bitch his Green Card?” And this was not too long after Iñárritu gave an impassioned speech about his home country of Mexico and the immigrant nation that allowed him to make Birdman.

Penn and Iñárritu have worked together before on 21 Grams, and the director didn’t seem to mind, but does that matter when the Academy are trying so hard to improve their image against accusations of racism and datedness? Also, remember when Sean Penn tied then-wife Madonna to a chair and beat her senseless? What a scamp!

And then there was the moment when Harris did a skit with black British actor David Oyelowo, the star of Selma, wherein he asked the acclaimed actor to make a joke about the all-black reboot of Annie. Let’s ignore the fact that Annie — starring Quvenzhané Wallis — was a hit, but shitting on one of the only films black girls have had made specifically for them? That’ll show ‘em!

David Oyelowo’s reaction, however? Priceless!

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Til Death Do Us Part

The saddest part of any Oscar ceremony, the In Memoriam package, is also usually one of the most controversial. The selection criteria for who does and does not get in is fraught with its own unique battle of industry politics, with many families having cried foul over the years. The likes of Peggy Lee, Corey Haim and more have all been left off over the years, and this year it was iconic film-noir star Lizabeth Scott, and red carpet legend Joan Rivers’ turn.

While it’s true Rivers wasn’t known as a movie star, she did appear in such films as The Muppets Take Manhattan, Spaceballs, and Iron Man 3, plus she wrote and directed a movie called Rabbit Test, which marked the feature film debut of both Michael Keaton and ten-time Oscar host Billy Crystal. Plus, you know, this:

The Academy have since responded to the outrage stating, “Joan Rivers is among the many worthy artists and filmmakers we were unfortunately unable to feature in the In Memoriam segment of this year’s Oscar show. She is, however, included in our In Memoriam gallery on Oscar.com.”

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Almost Everything Is Awesome

The less said about that superfluous Lady Gaga tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music the better, right? I mean, even Julie Andrews was hella confused by it.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was the performance by John Legend and Common of their song ‘Glory’ from Selma. The rousing performance late in the proceedings was on point with poignancy, relevancy, and just good ol’ fashioned musical talent.

It’s easy to make jokes about how the Oscar stage has never had so many black people on it at once, or mock how much Chris Pine was blubbering afterwards, but let’s just focus on the music.

Okay, now we can look at Chris Pine blubbering.

And Oprah wiping away David Oyelowo’s tears.

If the political nature of ‘Glory’ was too much, then how about ‘Everything is Awesome’? The nominated song from The Lego Movie was performed by Tegan and Sara with The Lonely Island (and a cameo from Will Arnett’s Batman), with all the hyper-coloured wonder of the movie.

Their best trick may have been handing out Lego Oscars — a call back to their snub for Best Animated Feature — through the crowd, since the morning after has been full of photos with celebrities holding their fake statues with all the prized joy of a real thing.

Oprah was certainly loving it.

Julianne Moore was seen with her Oscar at the Vanity Fair post-show party mingling with Emma Stone, who was still clutching the brick statue she was given during the ceremony (much to Edward Norton’s delight).

Even Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, and Bradley Cooper were getting in on the act, as seen in this photo by The Lego Movie’s director Chris Miller.

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Glom Gazingo

He may have returned to the Oscar stage to atone and poke fun at last year’s odd “Adele Dazeem” flub, but Travolta still brought the weird. Introduced by Idina Menzel as “Glom Gazingo”, he quickly came out and distressed the star by touching her face in an icky — one website labelled it “travolting” — way.

Personally, my favourite meme of the night once again belonged to Travolta after he was caught leering at Benedict Cumberbatch rather curiously.

And then this red carpet moment when Travolta snuck up on Scarlett Johansson — a former co-star in A Love Song for Bobby Long — who didn’t seem to bat an eye at the hideous faux-haired lump that had mysteriously attached itself to her body. The Academy should either never invite him again or invite him every year in the hopes that he keeps getting weirder. He’s surpassed Nicolas Cage by now, surely, as the strangest super-famous dude in Hollywood.

John. What are you doing. [Images via NY Daily News]

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K.Stew’s Revenge

One of the best award show moments of the weekend didn’t even happen at the Oscars. Or even in America!

It was when Kristen Stewart — who wasn’t at the Oscars, but was thanked by her Still Alice co-star Julianne Moore in her speech — became the first American woman to ever win an acting prize at the Cesar Awards, France’s answer to the Oscars. She won for her role in Olivier Assayas’ The Clouds of Sils Maria in which she is indeed excellent opposite French acting royalty Juliette Binoche.

Her speech was typically weird and awkward and goofy and embarrassing and every reason why post-Twilight Kristen Stewart is so enjoyable.

What a boss.

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So in the end, the winners were not terrible. Neil Patrick Harris was trying hard, but the material was too safe even in his tighty whities, and fell flat with pretty much everyone. And, even when the ceremony tried to be inclusive, it kind of just highlighted how out of touch it really can be.

Regardless, the crazy after-party shenanigans like this wonderful, evocative image kind of make everything worthwhile.

And no matter what you thought of the show, I think we can all agree…

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance writer from Melbourne who is currently based in New York City. He tweets from @glenndunks