Promotional image for ‘The Shape of Water’
A look at the 2018 Oscars
By Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist
The Academy Awards show this year managed to be fun and exciting while addressing serious issues in an informative way.
After the Time’s Up movement began with many women making allegations that Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed and abused them, it seemed possible that a lot of people were going to talk about the movement during the Oscars this year. Also, films are starting to be more diverse with films like Wonder Woman, Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time being released.
This year was the 90th edition of the awards show, and Jimmy Kimmel hosted it again. He did many things similar to what he usually does on his show Jimmy Kimmel Live. He offered a jet ski and a trip to a resort to the person who read the shortest acceptance speech, and he actually gave these prizes to the person who won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for Phantom Thread, Mark Bridges. Also, Kimmel and various people surprised an audience at an advance screening of A Wrinkle in Time—the host gave them popcorn, candies, and hot dogs, and he asked someone in the audience to introduce the next presenters. He was even able to fit in one or two Matt Damon jokes; he apologized to the servicemen and servicewomen because a scene of Damon in Saving Private Ryan was shown during the tribute to the troops, and at the end of the evening apologized to Matt Damon for “running out of time” to feature him in the ceremony—as Kimmel and Damon have had a longstanding (joke) feud.
The film that won Best Picture this year is The Shape of Water, and it also received the most wins, with four awards. Along with Best Picture, the film won Best Director for Guillermo del Toro, Best Production Design, and Best Score. The awards were also a win for Canada because it was filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, and it was made with a Canadian crew.
Dunkirk won three awards including Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing. It sounds great because the audio effects make it feel like that you are in Dunkirk when the action is happening.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri received two awards, including Best Actress for Frances McDormand and Best Supporting Actor for Sam Rockwell. Darkest Hour also got two awards, including Best Actor for Gary Oldman and Best Makeup. Some of the other films with two awards are Blade Runner 2049 and Coco.
Allison Janney was given Best Supporting Actress for I, Tonya. In screenplays, Get Out won Best Original Screenplay for Jordan Peele’s script, and Call Me by Your Name won Best Adapted Screenplay for James Ivory’s script. McDormand ended her acceptance speech as if she was introducing a product, with a phrase that will hopefully cause more people to be involved in the film industry: “I have two words for you: Inclusion rider.”
Inclusion rider is a clause that can be put in an actor’s contract when they are preparing for a film in which the actor can ask a studio to hire certain groups of people—such as 50 per cent women—to make a film. In another show of standing up for social justice, Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, and Annabella Sciorra talked about Time’s Up and introduced a segment about films being more diverse, encouraging more people from marginalized groups to be involved in the film industry.
While the Academy Awards this year had the lowest ratings in its history, it was still an exciting and very diverse show.
