The 90th Academy Awards are tonight! Who will survive and what will be left of them? Do you care? Does anyone? I do, because NOW pays me to!
To that end, I hung out with Mark Wigmore and Kate Taylor on Toronto’s Jazz FM’s Arts Toronto to talk about the awards landscape and what might happen in the context of the MeToo and Time’sUp movements. (We taped this a couple of weeks ago, before the whole Seacrest thing got rolling.) And I’ll be live-tweeting the awards right here, so you can watch me lose my mind in real time as Jimmy Kimmel forces another dumb concept on hundreds of millions of viewers.
Honestly, if anything comes close to the casual excoriation that John Mulaney and Nick Kroll delivered yesterday at the Spirit Awards, I’ll be shocked. (Did you miss that? Catch up right here. You’re welcome.)
Anyway, just remember that — as with any awards show — it’s all bullshit, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. Like what you like. Live your life.
If you’ve seen the alternate ending, any thoughts on whether that would have done anything to Get Out’s chances at winning the top prize tonight? (I’m assuming it will get the consolation prize of best original screenplay, but I’d be happy if it won. Just watched it for the third time and still finding new things in it.) Agree that Kaluuya should win best actor (and McDormand will deserve her almost-certain win). I’d love to see Get Out, which stands an outside chance, or Baby Driver, which doesn’t, win the big prize.
Well, now that we all know THE SHAPE OF WATER was the big winner, no, I don’t think it would have made any difference. (I agree with Peele, though; the other ending was too cruel. Chris earns his win. )