A recap of this year’s exceptional Oscars
By Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist
The Academy Awards is one of the most talked-about entertainment events of the year, and 2017’s show was the most exciting edition in a very long time. For the past two months people have been debating over whether Moonlight or La La Land was going to get Best Picture this year. Now the winners have finally been announced, and everyone is still talking about it.
Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Academy Awards this year—his first time hosting the event—after doing its after show for the past decade on his show Jimmy Kimmel Live. He did a great job hosting the Oscars and it looked like watching his own show.
He surprised a tour group who thought that they were going to see an exhibit, and instead they got to go inside the Dolby Theater and attend the Oscars. The tour group got to talk to the stars and touch an Academy Award. Denzel Washington even agreed to be the best man at a couple’s wedding. Also, Kimmel gave the audience candies, cookies, and doughnuts through parachutes, and showed a special Oscars version of his famous segment Mean Tweets.
Even he and Matt Damon disputed during the ceremony (a long standing gag between the two) including Kimmel making jokes about Damon, Kimmel talking about how he was inspired by We Bought a Zoo, Damon tripping Kimmel, and Kimmel playing Damon off the stage when he and Ben Affleck were presenting Best Original Screenplay.
With all this excitement, the biggest moment of the ceremony was still when Best Picture was announced. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway presented the award to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde’s release. They did not know that they were handed the wrong envelope—they got the backup envelope for Best Actress, instead of the one for Best Picture. When Beatty opened the envelope, he hesitated and looked offstage for clarification. Next, he gave the envelope to Dunaway, who read “La La Land,” and for a few minutes, we all thought that La La Land had won Best Picture. Then, during the acceptance speeches, one of the producers of La La Land said that Moonlight actually got Best Picture and showed the correct envelope with the name of the winning film. The envelope that Beatty and Dunaway had received showed the words: “Emma Stone – La La Land.”
With Moonlight getting Best Picture, it continues a trend of the Academy giving Best Picture to a film that is a limited release. It shows that the Academy Awards are encouraging people to see art house films, which is a great thing. Some people think that the film that gets Best Picture should be a movie that is widely available to everyone, like La La Land. Jimmy Kimmel, after the announcing mishap, said that he wished they could give it to both films.
It is unusual that, while Moonlight got Best Picture, La La Land got the most awards. Many people are saying that Moonlight is the best film of all time. Other awards went to Emma Stone received Best Actress, and Casey Affleck got Best Actor for Manchester by the Sea. The Academy Awards showed diversity this year, with awards for supporting actor and actress categories going to Fences’s Viola Davis and Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali.