The day after Oscar’s craziest, shocking moment ever, questions still linger about why “La La Land” was announced best picture when “Moonlight” was the true winner.
L.A. Times’ film critic Justin Chang comes to the conclusion that the two movies’ fortunes were inextricable and the you-couldn’t-have-scripted-it finale oddly enough made sense.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck at the Oscars: A bromance for the ages
What can be more special than attending the Oscars? Attending the Oscars with your best friend, if these images of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are anything to go by.
Affleck and Damon have been attending the Academy Awards on and off since they both won original screenplay for “Good Will Hunting” back in 1997.
And at the 89th Academy Awards Affleck and Damon were together, yet again, and their friendship was captured backstage, in the crowd and all over the Oscar show.
The duo showcased their chemistry when they took to the stage to present the award for directing.
Even younger brother, and now Oscar winner, Casey Affleck was brought into the Matt and Ben embrace.
Really, this side hug speaks for itself.
Then there was the big “Moonlight” surprise.
Let’s hear it for friendship everyone.
Compare the fashion sketches behind your favorite Oscar gowns to the red carpet reality
The best picture gaffe may have dropped jaws inside the Dolby Theatre on Sunday, but before the show, these are the dresses that turned heads on the red carpet.
Stylist Petra Flannery Instagrammed this concept illustration of the beaded Givenchy Haute Couture gown “La La Land” star Emma Stone accepted her lead actress award in. The hand-embroidered gown reportedly took 1,700 hours to make.
Another of the night’s standout looks was this custom-made blue velvet Alberta Ferretti number worn by “Hidden Figures” star Taraji P. Henson.
Check out our collection of fashion looks and their real life counterparts here.
Warren Beatty calls on motion picture academy president to ‘publicly clarify’ Oscar snafu
Two days after the Oscars, still facing questions about the best picture snafu in which he unwittingly found himself embroiled, Warren Beatty called on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to “publicly clarify” what exactly happened.
In a statement released Tuesday to the Associated Press, the actor declined to comment further on the fumble in which he and fellow presenter Faye Dunaway mistakenly named “La La Land” the best picture winner rather than “Moonlight.”
“I feel it would be more appropriate for the president of the Academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, to publicly clarify what happened as soon as possible,” Beatty said.
Beatty’s statement follows one issued Monday by the academy, apologizing for the mistake and saying that PricewaterhouseCoopers – the accounting firm that handles the Oscar envelopes – has “taken full responsibility for the breaches of established protocols that took place during the ceremony.”
Indeed, just hours after the ceremony, PricewaterhouseCoopers issued its own statement apologizing for the fact that “the presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope.”
Since then, The Times and other outlets have reported extensively – if not exhaustively – on the events that led to the Oscars gaffe.
The academy did not immediately respond to The Times on Tuesday to weigh in on Beatty’s statement.
Boone Isaacs has not yet commented publicly in any detail about the best picture bungle. But speaking with the New Yorker at the Governors Ball shortly after the show ended, she seemed as mystified as everyone else.
“I just thought, Oh, my God, how does this happen?” Boone Isaacs said. “How. Does. This. Happen.”
Backstage peek: Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome embrace backstage after ‘Moonlight’s’ best picture win
Very few media outlets get backstage positions for their photographers at the Academy Awards, but the L.A. Times has enjoyed such access for many years now. Here, you’ll get a peek at actors, actresses and filmmakers as they let their guards down, like Ashton Sanders, above left, and Jharrel Jerome embrace after “Moonlight” was (eventually) named best picture.
PricewaterhouseCoopers managing partner Brian Cullinan, above right, was one of only two people responsible for handing presenters the correct envelopes. It was Cullinan who gave Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the incorrect envelope for best picture.
Hello, you two! Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux head to the stage.
“Moana’s” Auli’i Cravalho, who performed “How Far I’ll Go” during the show, is all smiles backstage.
Mahershala Ali and Ryan Gosling share a moment after “Moonlight” was named the Oscar winner for best picture.
We’ve also compiled a gallery focused on the historic, crazy best picture debacle.
After the Oscars, Calvin Klein celebrates ‘Moonlight’ cast in new men’s ad campaign
Turn your attention away from the best-picture envelope mishap at the Oscars on Sunday and check out the new black-and-white men’s underwear campaign from Calvin Klein, celebrating the Academy Award-winning “Moonlight.”
The ads are already causing a commotion on the Internet, leaving many to possibly swoon after seeing photos of Oscar winner (and shirtless Calvin Klein model) Mahershala Ali and Trevante Rhodes (wearing briefs).
Calvin Klein’s new spring 2017 underwear campaign, honoring the actors of “Moonlight,” the first LGBTQ film to win best picture at the Academy Awards, will run as print advertisements and appear on billboards. The campaign could broaden visibility and appeal for the indie movie, which was made on a shoestring budget.
In a post-Oscars move, Calvin Klein unveiled the underwear campaign Monday. In the photos, the older actors of “Moonlight” are dressed in what appear to be dark T-shirts and pants as well as in underwear.
The campaign shows Ali as well as actors Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Rhodes (the latter smiling and posing in black briefs in a club chair).
On a side note, the fashion label dressed four “Moonlight” cast members — Naomie Harris in a white strapless sequin dress; and Rhodes, Sanders and Hibbert (who played lead character Chiron at different ages) in tuxedos — for the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday.
In a news release Monday, Raf Simons, Calvin Klein’s new chief creative officer, called the underwear campaign an “acknowledgement of remarkable actors who are revealing something important of being a man today in what they do.”
For decades, Calvin Klein has been known for its provocative advertisements and assortment of underwear models with Hollywood ties, including Mark Wahlberg, Djimon Hounsou, Justin Bieber, Mehcad Brooks, Kellan Lutz and Antonio Sabato Jr.
According to the news release from Calvin Klein, the new campaign with the “Moonlight” actors was shot by photographer Willy Vanderperre and styled by Olivier Rizzo.
Brie Larson and Emma Stone’s Oscars hug shows us that friendship is magic
When Emma Stone won the Academy Award for actress in a leading role, Brie Larson was among the first people to congratulate the “La La Land” star in person.
“You know what’s better than winning? Watching your friends win,” said Larson on Twitter and Instagram of the emotional moment above.
As the many different angles shot of this heartfelt scene made the rounds, many fans commented that the tearful hug was among the highlights of the 2017 Oscars. Friendship is beautiful.
You can also watch a video of the hug seen ‘round the world below.
Days before schmoozing at the Oscars, ‘Gary From Chicago’ got out of prison
Jimmy Kimmel and the Oscars are unlikely to win any awards for casting.
Turns out viral sensation “Gary From Chicago,” a.k.a. Gary Alan Coe, the first unsuspecting tourist Jimmy Kimmel introduced to front-row A-listers on Sunday night, was released from prison only three days before he was kissing Nicole Kidman’s hand and getting “married” to fiancee Vickie Vines by Denzel Washington.
FULL STORY: From prison to the Oscars, ‘Gary From Chicago’ writes his own Hollywood ending
“I spent this afternoon laughing and crying with Gary and Vicky,” public defender Karen Nash posted Monday on Facebook. “For those of you who missed it, I spent years working on Gary’s case. He got a life sentence for stealing perfume in 1997, and we finally won release this year. He got out on Friday, and was sight seeing with his lovely fiancé Vicky. If you watched the Oscars, you know the rest.”
The devil, of course, is in the details: It was a three-strikes conviction in 1997 on petty theft with violent priors, which included a 1985 robbery in Michigan, a 1982 robbery in Illinois and an attempted rape in 1978. That last one also put him in the Megan’s Law sex offenders’ database. Coe was resentenced earlier this year under California’s Proposition 36 and was released Thursday.
The couple, who were plucked off Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday by the folks setting up Kimmel’s stunt, were chatting up Chicago media on Monday, and the Chicago Bulls tweeted, “Gary from Chicago! We’ve got you covered if you want to come to a game!”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” dropped a planned bit with Coe from its Monday lineup, a spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune, after the show “made the creative decision to focus on other topics.”
Dwayne Johnson and Busy Philipps explain their reactions in the Oscars’ ‘Moonlight’ surprise crowd shot
Following the epic Oscars best picture mix-up on Sunday, a few high-profile seat fillers shared what it was like witnessing the historic gaffe firsthand. The People’s eyebrow made an appearance at the Oscars, as did Busy Philipps.
Here’s what the stars in our viral reaction shot had to say:
Dwayne Johnson (via Instagram):
“You can literally see my wheels spinnin’ on whether or not I should hit the stage and take down an Oscars producer who I thought went rogue and was trying to sabotage our final moment of the night as La La Land was accepting for Best Picture.”
“Seconds before this I saw out of the corner of my eye, the producer saying loudly, ‘NO IT’S MOONLIGHT, the winner is MOONLIGHT!’ as he walked up onto the stage. When he walked on stage, I remember sitting up and saying to [Lauren Hashian] ‘’What the ... he doing?’ She grabbed my arm and said, ‘Oh my God, they made a mistake.’ The rest was history.”
Actress Busy Philipps (via Instagram):
“Just woke up. 4000 of my closest friends have texted & emailed me about this picture. I’m so glad there’s visual evidence of what it was like to be sitting there in that moment. I MEAN!!!!”
According to Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel, he settled down next to actor and rival Matt Damon (whose mouth is agape in the photo) at the end of the show and Damon turned to Kimmel and said, “I think I heard the stage manager say they got the winner wrong.”
Incidentally, Kimmel, a notorious prankster, was accused of masterminding the whole incident.
“I was like, ‘Hey, no, I didn’t! I did not pull a prank!’” Kimmel said Monday on his late-night show. “If I’d pulled a prank, I wouldn’t have just had the wrong winner’s name on the envelope. There would have been a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon in there.”
Casey Affleck and Nate Parker: How Hollywood handles race, power and privilege
Brie Larson did not applaud, which sparked speculation that she wasn’t happy about Casey Affleck’s Oscar win for supporting actor.
The actress -- who won an Oscar last year for her portrayal of a survivor of rape -- stood unmoving as Affleck delivered his acceptance speech at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Larson hugged him as she handed him the Oscar, but some interpreted her stance during his speech as a silent protest of sexual harassment. Affleck’s Oscar campaign had been dogged by two 2010 civil suits involving allegations of sexual harassment, both of which were later settled.
With Hollywood’s renewed embrace of Mel Gibson after his public fall from grace, there is a question of which accusations of wrongdoing are too big for a career to overcome and whether those standards are applied equally.
In 2016, the Oscar hopes of “The Birth of a Nation” director and star Nate Parker were derailed after college rape charges resurfaced, even though he was found to be innocent.
Where one man triumphed, another faltered. How does Hollywood handle allegations of impropriety and how much do race, power and a willingness to play the game matter?
Times reporter Tre’vell Anderson tackled the question in a commentary after Affleck’s Golden Globes victory in January.
For the record: A previous version of this story misstated that Affleck was accused of sexual assault. Affleck was accused of sexual misconduct and harassment in two settled civil suits.
After two years of #OscarsSoWhite, what did Sunday night really tell us about the state of diversity in Hollywood?
At Sunday night’s Academy Awards, a last-minute fumble overshadowed a much larger, and more significant, event.
While everyone scrambled to absorb, and then deconstruct, the mistaken announcement of “La La Land” as best picture when “Moonlight” had actually won, a thousand conversations about errant envelopes threatened to take the spotlight off the historic nature of the night’s winners.
After two years of blistering criticism over back-to-back slates of all-white nominees, the motion picture academy spent the better part of last year attempting to broaden its membership and its sense of what it stood for as the public face of the movie business. Stung by last year’s #OscarsSoWhite furor, the group headed into the 89th Academy Awards hoping to turn the page on the diversity debate — and perhaps find a moment of redemption.
And the best picture debacle notwithstanding, that’s just what it did.
Did poor envelope design contribute to Oscar’s best picture disaster?
One of the most epic mix-ups in the history of the Academy Awards could have been the result of a faulty envelope design as much as bad backstage distribution.
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were there to present the last award of the night, the Oscar for best picture. However, instead of the envelope for best picture, they were given a second envelope for lead actress, which was won by Emma Stone of “La La Land,” causing Dunaway to announce that “La La Land” had won best picture, instead of “Moonlight.”
A new envelope design — red with the category embossed on the front in gold lettering — could have been a factor.
This was the first year since 2011 that Marc Friedland Couture Communications of Los Angeles did not design and print the Oscar envelopes.
Read MoreSEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
Watch all of the musical performances from the show
All of the original song nominees were performed during Sunday’s Academy Awards telecast, with Justin Timberlake performing “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from the movie “Trolls” kicking off the night.
During the show, Lin-Manuel Miranda set the stage for Auli’i Cravalho, introducing the “Moana” star with an original rap before she sang “How Far I’ll Go.”
John Legend pulled double-duty for “La La Land,” performing an arrangement of the film’s two nominated songs, “City of Stars” and “Audition,” and Sting took the stage for “The Empty Chair” from “Jim: The James Foley Story.”
Sara Bareilles performed a rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” during the Oscars’ “In Memorium” segment.
And if you’re still hungry for more Oscar music magic, you can see Timberlake’s performance here.
Jimmy Kimmel explains how Denzel Washington saved ‘Moonlight’s’ Oscar speech
In his first opening monologue after the Oscars, Jimmy Kimmel used the time to clear up what happened at last night’s Academy Awards. What really happened when the wrong movie was announced as best picture winner -- instead of “Moonlight” -- and how did the celebrities react?
After a confused Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced “La La Land” as the winner, the pick was shortly debunked. Kimmel, who was watching from the crowd next to Matt Damon, knew something was off.
“The audience is confused,” Kimmel said. “The people standing around me are confused. I assume everyone at home is confused, and I’m probably supposed to do something because no one’s doing anything.”
After the mix-up was fixed, it wasn’t a stage hand but Oscar winner (and nominee of the night) Denzel Washington who signaled to Kimmel to get out of the way and let “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins take the stage for his thank-you speech. Good job, Denzel!
Kimmel also addressed the popular notion that the mix-up was a prank he had orchestrated. No, definitely not, he said, and if he had done such a prank, “there would’ve been a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon inside.”
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
Motion picture academy issues apology for ‘mistakes that were made’ in stunning Oscar snafu
A day after one of the most genuinely shocking moments in Oscar history – the incorrect announcement of “La La Land” instead of “Moonlight” as this year’s best picture – the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released an official message apologizing to the filmmakers, presenters and viewers alike for the snafu.
The statement follows apologies by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm responsible for handling the Oscars voting tabulation and winners’ envelopes, for its role in the fumble at the climax of Sunday night’s show.
Read the academy’s statement below:
“We deeply regret the mistakes that were made during the presentation of the Best Picture category during last night’s Oscar ceremony. We apologize to the entire cast and crew of ‘La La Land’ and ‘Moonlight’ whose experience was profoundly altered by this error. We salute the tremendous grace they displayed under the circumstances. To all involved — including our presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the filmmakers, and our fans watching worldwide — we apologize.
“For the last 83 years, the Academy has entrusted PwC to handle the critical tabulation process, including the accurate delivery of results. PwC has taken full responsibility for the breaches of established protocols that took place during the ceremony. We have spent last night and today investigating the circumstances, and will determine what actions are appropriate going forward. We are unwaveringly committed to upholding the integrity of the Oscars and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”
The many reactions when ‘Moonlight’ surprise won best picture at the Academy Awards
It was a wild night at the Oscars.
If this is your first time looking at the Internet since yesterday, here’s the short version of what you missed: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were handed the wrong card and erroneously announced “La La Land” had won best picture when, in fact, “Moonlight” had won that honor. Here’s the long version of what happened.
The Times photographer Al Seib was backstage at the exact moment the crowd learned that there had been a mistake. This is what it looked like.
Emma Stone, a deleted tweet and the failure of a failsafe: Tracking the Oscars’ best picture blunder
The envelope debacle that stole the spotlight from “Moonlight” at the end of the 89th Academy Awards ceremony sparked enough fury and fervor to cement the incident among the great Hollywood dramas of all time.
How did this happen? Who dropped the ball? What did the “La La Land” producers know and when did they know it? Was there a second set of envelopes from the grassy knoll? (Kind of.) Is this Hollywood’s Zapruder film and, if so, who is Babushka Lady?
We watched and rewatched, fast-forwarded, rewound and froze frames. We observed the players and talked to some people backstage before, during and after the slow-motion wreck. We look forward to the documentary, which will surely win an Emmy. (Or will it?)
Dustin Lance Black responds to Tarell Alvin McCraney saying the Oscar-winning ‘Milk’ writer inspired him
In accepting his award (along with director Barry Jenkins) for best adapted screenplay for “Moonlight” on Sunday night, Tarell Alvin McCraney paid homage to another gay Oscar winner whose triumph inspired him the way he hoped his would inspire others.
“I remember sitting back somewhere watching Dustin Lance Black accept for ‘Milk’ and thinking maybe one day that can be me,” he said backstage, Oscar in hand. “And here I am.”
Black, who nabbed his Academy Award in 2009 for original screenplay and wrote the LGBTQ rights miniseries “When We Rise,” premiering tonight on ABC, responded Monday in a statement exclusively to The Times:
“‘Moonlight’s’ wins sent a message of inspiration and hope to so many last night, including me. I welled up every time it was honored. Every acknowledgement it received inspired me to work harder and to do better. So, if in some small way I helped encourage Tarell along his magnificent journey to create this masterpiece, well, that’s the compliment of a lifetime.”
The film, about a poor black boy growing up in the projects of Miami grappling with his sexuality, is the first LGBTQ tale to win the best picture Oscar. McCraney hopes its success will encourage Hollywood to tell more stories like it, he continued backstage.
“The hope that we have today about telling stories is that those people, the ones who we’re leaning on to make those stories, were watching and found a platform that they saw they could stand on,” he said. “I hope that the storytellers up here and their proud journey can imprint on someone out there watching that they too can stand here too, and also tell their stories daringly and as intimately as possible.”
More about Tarell Alvin McCraney and the play that became “Moonlight”
Movies like ‘Moonlight’ don’t win the Oscar for best picture — until they do
Movies like “Moonlight” don’t win the Oscar for best picture.
Movies about the conflicted desires of young gay men, captured with quiet tenderness and exquisite intimacy, don’t win the Oscar for best picture. (Just ask “Brokeback Mountain.”)
Movies that tell modest coming-of-age stories, light on dramatic incident but rich in emotional rewards, don’t win the Oscar for best picture. (Just ask “Boyhood.”)
Movies that subtly examine some of the social and psychological burdens that weigh heavily on too many African Americans today — poverty, parental abandonment, drug addiction and mass incarceration — don’t win the Oscar for best picture.
Movies about black life that are not overtly about slavery don’t win the Oscar for best picture.
It’s hard to overstate just how culturally, economically, institutionally and statistically improbable an outcome “Moonlight’s” best picture Oscar win represents.
All the red carpet fashion you need, in two minutes
While award shows are obviously about the golden statues given to all the night’s honorees, the fashion is really all people care about. Because of course, no one wants to be on the dreaded worst-dressed list.
Check out a time-lapse of the Oscars’ red carpet to see your favorite celebrity working it... or not.
#OscarsSoWhite creator: ‘The wins that happened last night were not because of #OscarsSoWhite’
After two years of consecutive #OscarsSoWhite controversies, does Sunday night’s best picture victory for “Moonlight,” among other wins for actors and filmmakers of color, represent a major breakthrough for the issue of diversity in Hollywood? Or could it ultimately prove to be just a blip?
We spoke to writer and activist April Reign, creator of the #OscarSoWhite hashtag, about what Sunday night’s Oscar show says — and doesn’t say — about the current state of inclusion in the film industry.
After two years of all-white nominees in the acting categories, what was your main takeaway from Sunday night?
April Reign: My main takeaway was that when quality films are made that reflect the diversity of experiences in this country, people will go to see them. They will receive critical acclaim and, in some cases, they will win what is considered the highest award in the film industry.
I think if one saw all nine nominees for best picture, it was clear that “Moonlight” deserved to be nominated — and for me personally, it was the best film that I saw in 2016. But I’m also incredibly encouraged about what happened in the lesser-known categories: adapted screenplay and best documentary and even the nominations that we had of black people in cinematography and editing.
All that said, it’s just one night out of 90 nights of lack of representation of marginalized communities and, even with all of the wins [Sunday] night for films that reflect the black experience, #OscarsSoWhite remains relevant because there are still so many stories from traditionally underrepresented communities that need to be told.
What went through your head when it was initially announced that “La La Land” had won best picture?
I was disappointed, just because “La La Land” didn’t stay with me the way “Moonlight” did. “Moonlight” was such a beautiful film, it almost could have been a silent film and you could have just watched it and still taken something away from it. “La La Land” was a return to nostalgia and it was sort of a self-congratulatory film for Hollywood. I think there’s a place for all different kinds of films in different genres, but it wasn’t one that I would say, “I need to see that a second or third time,” like I did with “Moonlight.”
Then we had the snafu and things changed and I was elated because what I thought was the best film actually won. You know, it’s all personal and subjective and people can make arguments about all nine of the films and I absolutely get that. But for me, just as a moviegoer, I thought it was the best film of the year.
Had “La La Land,” in fact, won best picture, what is your sense of what the social media reaction and the conversation around the diversity issue might have been Monday?
There was some of that. In those 30 seconds, I was watching it happen on Twitter and people were angry.
And we’re going to have that every year. I already have people in my mentions saying the win for “Moonlight” was just as “rigged” as the 2016 presidential election was, or “Moonlight” only won because of affirmative action.
That’s the difficult thing for me moving forward, that every time a person of color wins, there’s going to be someone — and unfortunately some publications, not just some random trolls — that ask whether this was just some quota thing or whether it was deserved. And I think that’s unfortunate because I think it really downplays all of the effort and the hard work and the talent that goes into all of these performances.
Nobody questioned whether Emma Stone should win an Oscar or whether Meryl Streep should win an Oscar. But people always question whether a person of color should, and that’s just unfair.
We’ll never know how the votes broke down, but do you think the steps that the academy took last year to invite its largest, most diverse class ever has somehow turned the tide, or could this year ultimately just be a kind of one-off?
I think it remains to be seen. I think the influx of 683 invitees was helpful for everyone, both those who were already members and for new members, to say, “Let’s look at this process and make sure that we’re doing the very best that we can.”
But it’s very important to me that we make sure to say that the wins that happened last night were not because of #OscarsSoWhite.
Viola Davis deserves every award ever, in every category. Mahershala Ali’s gripping, haunting performance was the best that I saw last year, so he was fully deserving. And all of the movies that were nominated and won were in production or pre-production for years before January 2015 when I created the hashtag.
So it really remains to be seen what happens, let’s say, three or four years from now, if Hollywood really is going to make a significant change in commitment to financing and distributing and supporting — because those three things are not always synonymous — films that represent all marginalized communities.
[Sunday] was a great night, but it was one night out of many.
‘Moonlight’ director Barry Jenkins and ‘La La Land’ producer Jordan Horowitz: Mutual admiration society post-Oscars
In response to a question posed late last night, what do you say to someone who just won an Oscar you thought was yours, the answer is “congratulations.”
After “Moonlight” writer-director Barry Jenkins and “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz connected at the Governors Ball, Jenkins took to Twitter to share that he was still processing the extraordinary circumstances surrounding his film’s best picture win. Like many Oscar-watchers, the overwhelming feeling for Horowitz was of admiration.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
And, with a tweet posted a few hours later, the feeling is mutual, which is encouraging given the two are bound to be linked in Oscar history forever.
Why the Oscars still matter, from the Academy Awards’ red carpet
Ahead of Sunday night’s historic ceremony, The Times took to the red carpet to ask celebrities attending the over-the-top event about its importance -- especially with calls for greater diversity and inclusion still in the air. Everyone from “Moonlight” director, and now Oscar-winner, Barry Jenkins to “Elle’s” nominated lead Isabelle Huppert shared their thoughts:
“Everybody looks to the filmmaking community to reflect the role they live in. The Oscars, theoretically, is the best of that reflection.” - Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
“It celebrates creativity and it celebrates art, and that’s not exactly something lucrative when you start off in the beginning... So to celebrate people putting their heart and soul into something despite the odds against them, I think that is important.” - Allison Schroeder, “Hidden Figures”
“To celebrate this art form, which is so influential, is a good thing. It gives people an opportunity to maybe be aware of films that they otherwise wouldn’t.” - David Oyelowo, “A United Kingdom”
Justin Timberlake, the Oscars’ photo-bomb extraordinaire
When he isn’t opening the Academy Awards ceremony or crooning for his fans, Justin Timberlake showcases his Jennifer Lawrence-caliber knack for photo-bombing.
On Sunday, the “Trolls” star memorably crashed — er, trolled — two key red carpet moments.
The former NSync frontman upstaged his wife, glittering Jessica Biel, during her red-carpet photo-op with a wacky stand-in behind her.
He also shoe-horned himself into his “Friends With Benefits” costar (and eventual Oscar winner) Emma Stone’s interview amid ABC’s live pre-show festivities with a face worthy of “The Shining.”
Having experienced it firsthand, Biel appeared to apologize for her husband’s behavior. Apparently, he can’t stop the feeling.
The best picture twist ending was embarrassing for the academy but may be good for the Oscars
Not since a Chicago newspaper headlined “Dewey Defeats Truman” has there been a massive public screw-up on the order of what happened at the Oscars on Sunday night. But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody some good, and the huge embarrassment for Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may turn out to be a good thing for the Oscars.
For if having a debacle like presenters announcing the wrong winner before millions of viewers in 225 countries does nothing else, it proves the lasting watchability of live television.
Yes, even in this age of presumed digital safeguards, everyone got to see the “La La Land” entourage troop joyously on stage and then retreat in disarray in the face of the equally shocked “Moonlight” folks when the error was discovered. Truly, if surrealist Luis Buñuel had had a writing credit on the program, he could not have done it any better.
Meryl Streep’s eyes say it all: Look at the Oscar crowd’s faces during the ‘Moonlight’ mix-up
Understandably, the unscripted best picture gaffe (there’s that word again) confounded home viewers. But it also flabbergasted the high-profile names inside the Dolby Theatre. Los Angeles Times backstage photographer Al Seib caught the moment on camera Sunday night.
Here’s the audience reacting to the reveal that “Moonlight” was indeed the best picture winner, not “La La Land.” Times photographer Seib, a veteran of the Oscars ceremony, captured the epic react shot. Below are some close-ups from his snapshot.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
And yes, Matt Damon and Meryl Streep were all of us in that moment.
Michelle Williams, left, and Busy Philipps look stunned.
Dwayne Johnson raised an eyebrow. Meryl Streep raised both. That’s Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs over Johnson’s shoulder.
Here’s Matt Damon with his jaw dropping to the floor.
Catch up on all of The Times’ Oscar coverage here.
The word ‘gaffe’ is having an Oscars moment
After the “La La Land”/”Moonlight” envelope mix-up at the Oscars, searches for the word “gaffe” spiked on the Merriam-Webster website, the company said Monday.
The term, in case last night’s brouhaha wasn’t explanation enough, means “a mistake made in a social situation” or “a noticeable mistake,” the dictionary company said.
Merriam-Webster said Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe blunder caused the same search term to soar in 2015.
The Times, incidentally, did not use the word on its front page the Monday after the Academy Awards, though it does appear in a couple of headlines online.
Donald Trump Jr. trolls Hollywood over Oscars In Memoriam gaffe
Despite Jimmy Kimmel’s prediction that Donald Trump would tweet his reaction to the Oscars “in all caps during his 5 a.m. bowel movement,” the president has yet to serve up any reaction to the night’s many barbs aimed at him.
But one of his sons, Donald Trump Jr., has weighed in.
No doubt irritated by Hollywood’s repeated bashing of his father, the younger Trump issued a tweet Monday morning trolling the film industry over the Oscars In Memoriam gaffe, in which the wrong photo was used for the late costume designer Janet Patterson.
Steve Harvey wonders whether Warren Beatty will need security, like he did after Miss Universe gaffe
It’s a great day to be Steve Harvey — even if Jimmy Kimmel did blame him Sunday night for the Oscars’ huge best picture mistake.
Harvey, who infamously named the wrong winner for Miss Universe 2015 — it was Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach, not Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutiérrez — surrendered his televised-gaffe throne on Sunday night, and early Monday morning he was celebrating and dishing.
“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, I am free at last,” Harvey said on his KJLH-FM morning show after the wrong movie was announced as best picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday night.
The comic and TV host talked about the death threats he got after the Miss Universe show and mused at one point about whether Warren Beatty, who presented the award along with Faye Dunaway, would need security because of the error. Harvey did.
One difference between the two mistakes: Harvey couldn’t read what was on his card, which he said looked different than what he’d seen in rehearsal. Dunaway did read what was on the card Sunday night — but Beatty had been given the wrong one.
Oscars In Memoriam tribute included image of an Australian producer who is still alive
Australian producer Jan Chapman says she was “devastated” when she saw her image used in the Oscars’ 2017 In Memoriam segment in place of a picture of her “friend and long-time collaborator” Janet Patterson, who died in October 2015.
“I had urged her agency to check any photograph which might be used and understand that they were told that the Academy had it covered,” Chapman told Variety in an overnight email.
“Janet was a great beauty and four-time Oscar nominee and it is very disappointing that the error was not picked up.”
Four-time Academy Award nominee Patterson’s name and profession — costume designer — were correct. Variety has a photo of both women with director Jane Campion.
The photo of Chapman that was used erroneously was taken at the Australian Film Institute’s 2010 Inside Film Awards in Sydney, where Patterson won best production design for “Bright Star.” A photo-service caption on that image incorrectly identified Chapman as Patterson, who had a production designer credit on that film as well as on “The Portrait of a Lady.”
Patterson didn’t do much press. “I’m not interested in schmoozing ...,” she told the New York Times in 2010. “Success for me is a personal thing. You could divide the world between people who need the outside to tell them and people who need their inner voice to speak. I’m for the latter.”
“She’s not here anymore, but she lives on through those beautiful clothes and images,” Nicole Kidman said after Patterson died. Kidman wore her fellow Aussie’s creations in “The Portrait of a Lady.”
In addition to that film, Patterson was nominated for Oscars for her work on “The Piano,” “Oscar and Lucinda” and “Bright Star.”
You can hear Patterson’s voice in an interview, below, that she did with Chapman around the release of “Bright Star.”
READ MORE: Oscar-nominated costume designer Janet Patterson dies>>
‘Moonlight,’ first LGBTQ best picture, sends ‘strong message’ to film industry, GLAAD president says
“Moonlight” won the best picture Oscar after a botched announcement threw the ceremony into chaos.
“Moonlight” is the first LGBTQ film to win the Oscar for best picture, a fact that GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis pointed out on social media Sunday night in congratulating the movie on its achievement.
“This sends a strong message to the film industry that it needs to embrace inclusive stories if it wants to remain competitive and relevant,” Ellis said.
In his acceptance speech, “Moonlight” writer Tarell Alvin McCraney dedicated his adapted screenplay Oscar win -- he shared it with director Barry Jenkins -- “to all those black and brown boys and girls and non-gender-conforming who don’t see themselves” in film.
Continuing the theme of inclusivity, supporting actor winner Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim to win an Academy Award for acting.
GLAAD also provided the blue ampersand pins seen on the lapels of McCraney and others on the “Moonlight” team and in the audience.
In his October 2016 review of “Moonlight,” Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan wrote, “Its story of aching loneliness, sexual longing and the despair of blasted lives, the emphasis it puts on the great difficulty and the equally powerful necessity of intimate human connection, the way it persuasively insists on the shared humanity of marginalized communities, makes it feel like a film we’ve been waiting for for a very long time.”
Yes, that Oscars ending really happened. And Jimmy Kimmel had some unforgettable moments too
Of all the things we expected from the Oscars this year, making us feel better was not one of them.
The last few major awards shows, after all, were not only about handing out trophies but a chance for honorees and presenters to voice their white-hot anger toward President Trump’s travel ban, his plan for a wall along the border with Mexico, and a divisive America they no longer recognized.
Sunday, however, the academy appeared to take a step back and counterbalance the political tension of the last few months by refocusing on what Hollywood does best — entertain.
Some of the levity was delivered via intentional stunts, such as candy and snacks dropping out of the ceiling attached to parachutes, while other moments — presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway naming “La La Land” the winner for best picture when it was in fact “Moonlight” — were not.
In one of the top moments of the evening before the show’s surprise ending, host Jimmy Kimmel ushered a group of stunned tourists who’d just disembarked from a Starline bus on Hollywood Boulevard into the Dolby Theatre mid-ceremony. Dressed in cargo shorts, baseball hats and carrying selfie sticks, they were introduced to gown- and tux-clad luminaries such as Nicole Kidman, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.
“Who’s your favorite actor?” Kimmel asked one of the dazed tourists.
“That man right there,” said the woman, pointing at Washington. The “Fences” star got up and hugged her before performing a mock wedding ceremony for her and her fiancé.
Steve Harvey tweets his first response to the Oscars best picture flub
If you thought Steve Harvey would stay quiet about the best picture mix-up at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, you don’t know Steve Harvey. He sent out an early-morning tweet mock-innocently asking of the Oscars, “What I miss?”
And never one to miss a great promo, he’s promising to share his response to the Oscars fiasco with listeners who tune into his radio show Monday at 8 a.m. EST. Because, as he tweeted about the flub that mistakenly gave “La La Land” the prize over true winner “Moonlight, “You know I have something to say.”
If the L.A. Times hadn’t broken an embargo in 1940, the Oscars envelope mix-up might have never happened
The 12th Academy Awards made history for a number of reasons.
The ceremony honored the films of 1939, a year considered by many to have produced some of the greatest movies of all time. Among the nominated works:
- “Wuthering Heights”
- “The Wizard of Oz”
- “Goodbye Mr. Chips”
- “Gone with the Wind
- “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”
Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an acting award, for her role in “Gone with the Wind.” And Judy Garland was officially introduced to her Hollywood peers when she won the academy’s Juvenile Award for “The Wizard of Oz.”
It was also the last Oscars ceremony for which the names of winners were released to the press, or anyone for that matter, before the onstage announcement.
Why did they turn to a secret system?
You have the Los Angeles Times to thank for that. The academy’s official history lays blame on The Times for breaking an embargo and publishing the winners in the paper’s evening edition before the ceremony was underway. Think of it as the era’s equivalent of a tweet that scooped everyone else.
As the academy’s website says, the premature publication took place “much to the Academy’s dismay” and made the winners list “readily available to guests arriving for the event.”
Not much suspense there. And this is an industry that knows not to give away an ending.
The next year, the top-secret winners envelopes -- like the one that went awry at this year’s Oscars -- were put into action. The Times’ report on the new system (see the clip here) pronounced it pretentious.
“No vestige of an authoritative pre-release was vouchsafed while the roll call of honorees went on until the midnight hour,” the paper said.
The details about how “La La Land” won, then lost, the best picture award to “Moonlight,” are still being sorted. But the consensus is that it started when presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were handed the wrong envelope.
Watch the moment when ‘La La Land’ is mistakenly announced best picture winner
‘La La Land’ and ‘Moonlight’ filmmakers embrace each other, and the surrealism of the night
What do you say to someone who just won the Oscar you thought was yours?
That improbable scene played out just before midnight at the Governors Ball, where “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz, “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins and “Moonlight” producer Jeremy Kleiner came together for the first time after their awkward stage moment several hours before.
“I feel so out-of-body right now,” Horowitz said.
Jenkins took out his phone and showed Horowitz a message pertaining to the envelope mix-up that led to all the confusion.
Then he snapped a selfie with Horowitz, the two men smiling. A genuine feeling of affection was apparent between them after all that had happened -- two movies, a juggernaut and an upstart, forever linked in Oscar history.
Jenkins shook his head in disbelief at the craziness of the evening, then gave a smile and a thank you to some well-wishers.
Kleiner, who had been talking to some people from his team nearby, turned to the pair and greeted them.
SEE PHOTOS OF THE BOTCHED ANNOUNCEMENT >>
“I wish you had your moment,” Horowitz said to the “Moonlight” producer, who barely managed a thank you in the Dolby Theatre confusion.
Kleiner then gave Horowitz a hug, which they held for a moment, the former offering Horowitz some encouragement in his ear.
“I love ‘La La’ and I love our film,” Kleiner told The Times a moment later. “Our film is about empathy and breaking barriers. Maybe the symbolism of that is a rebuke to what’s been happening in our country.”
Did tonight’s circumstances give him the same feeling as winning the traditional way? “It can’t,” he said with a shrug. “How can it?”
A few feet away, Horowitz continued to process the events. “I got to speak and I got to thank my wife.” he said, sounding as much like he was reassuring himself as anyone else. “I’d like to watch it and see what happened. I still don’t know if I can watch it,” he added ruefully.
He paused and took a deep breath.
“It’s an award. It’s just an award,” he said.
There are 10,000 ranunculus in the over-the-top Governors Ball floral decorations
Mark Held has provided the floral decorations for the Governors Ball for 25 years.
This year’s Governors Ball is blanketed almost entirely in white with just a few pops of red and gold — mostly from the 10,000 ranunculus, double tulips and orchids supplied by celebrity florist Mark Held.
PricewaterhouseCoopers issues statement after Oscars mistake robs ‘Moonlight’ of its moment
PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm responsible for the tabulation of the Oscar ballots and the envelopes announcing the winners, released a statement early Monday morning after a shocking mistake resulted in “La La Land” wrongly being announced as best picture:
“We sincerely apologize to ‘Moonlight,’ ‘La La Land,’ Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for best picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred.
“We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.”
A 2016 Los Angeles Times story explained that a set of envelopes containing the names of Oscar winners are kept on either side of the stage so that PricewaterhouseCoopers partners Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz can dispense them to presenters from whichever side they enter.
Meanwhile, at the Governors Ball...
An unreal, amazing moment for ‘Moonlight’s’ young cast
No one was more stunned by the now infamous reversal of fortune at this year’s Oscars ceremony than “Moonlight’s” stars. They were stunned to hear that their film, not season-long awards juggernaut “La La Land,” was the best picture winner after all.
Jharrel Jerome, who plays teenage Kevin opposite Ashton Sanders as Chiron froze in his seat before running onstage to join his cast and crew mates in the “it’s no joke, you won” chaos.
“I was right next to Ashton and we were holding each other real tight,” Jerome said at the Governors Ball, where director Barry Jenkins and best supporting actor winner Mahershala Ali both made their way to “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz to thank him for his gracious onstage
moment.
“They said ‘La La Land’ -- and I respected every film tonight that got a nomination, so any win was a win to us. But it was a little crushing,” Jerome admitted.
He said he was as shocked as everyone else when Horowitz stepped up to the microphone and announced there had been a mistake.
“At first I thought he was just being nice,” Jerome said. When it was confirmed that “Moonlight” had won, “Steve Harvey popped up in my head,” he laughed.
“I was stuck in my chair. I just couldn’t move because my nerves locked up. Everything that I’d dreamed of happened in that moment. It was such an overwhelming feeling.”
“I got on the stage and lifted up Alex [Hibbert], and I didn’t stop crying for 20 minutes. He’s 12 and Jaden [Piner]is 13,” he added of the film’s youngest stars, who spent part of the Oscars afterparty scrolling through their social media feeds as adults clinked champagne glasses and schmoozed.
“We have 12- and 13-year-olds who are in the film that just won best picture. And it was really all of our first film,” Jerome smiled. “For it to be here is just unreal.”
Director of ‘The White Helmets’ talks about shining a light on Syrian heroes
Netflix’s “The White Helmets,” about a group of first responders in Syria, is a film that pulses with meaning, said director Orlando von Einseidel backstage after snagging the Oscar for best documentary short.
“Right from the start this was about shining a very bright light on the heroes of our film, the White Helmets, Syrian rescue workers,” said Von Einsiedel, who previously won best documentary for 2014’s “Virunga.” “We [hope to] continue to magnify their voices.”
On the film’s absent cinematographer, Khaled Khateeb, who was denied entry into the U.S. due to what she said was “derogatory information,” producer Joanna Natasegara said they’d just spoken to Khateeb in the lobby.
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
“It’s been ameliorated because of the win. He’s thrilled because he, like us, wants the world to know about the White Helmets.”
On President Trump’s travel ban in general, she added: “We as filmmakers travel across the world and we don’t believe in building anything but compassion between people, and we’d never support something like the ban.”
When asked why the leader of the White Helmets wasn’t in attendance, Von Einsiedel said:
“He couldn’t come in the end because the violence in Syria has escalated. He does lifesaving work and he decided his time was better [spent] by staying there.”
Emma Stone still has a lot of thank-yous to do
To everyone who put their hearts and souls into this film, I’m going to find you all individually and I’m going to thank you, along with my friends, who I love so much, I’m going to hug the hell out of you when the feeling reenters my bod.
— ‘La La Land’ star Emma Stone, accepting the best actress Oscar
‘Moonlight’ actor Trevante Rhodes reacts to film’s ‘unique’ win: ‘I’m equally pissed off and happy’
It’s weird. I’m equally pissed off and happy. This is the Oscars. How can they mess that up? But still, it’s a win. Everyone was happy. It’s just very unique.
— ‘Moonlight’ actor Trevante Rhodes
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
Steve Harvey can now relax: He is no longer the biggest award show flubber
Move over, Steve Harvey: Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty now hold the “world’s biggest awards show snafu” award.
The “Bonnie and Clyde” costars were the unfortunate presenters who, reading from an incorrect card, mistakenly awarded “La La Land” the Oscar for best picture when “Moonlight” had won.
“This is very unfortunate what happened,” host Jimmy Kimmel said, attempting to contain the situation. “Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this.”
And indeed, it seemed a reprise of the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, when Harvey, the host, erroneously announced the winner as Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, over the pageant’s true winner, Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach.
Social media reaction was swift, with even the Miss Universe organization chiming in.
Unfortunately, unlike the Miss Universe pageant, the Academy Awards ceremony draws the biggest live audience in the U.S. after the Super Bowl. Dunaway and Beatty’s gaffe was seen live by tens of millions of viewers, and heaven knows how many others via online videos and, of course, Twitter.
‘Manchester by the Sea’ Oscar winners after best picture confusion: ‘Turns out, we actually won best picture’
“Manchester by the Sea’s” writer-director and its star -- Kenneth Lonergan and Casey Affleck -- took the stage in the press room, and for a moment there was a ripple of confusion that echoed the night’s earlier guffaw in revealing the best picture winner. The uncertainty surrounded who the first question was going to come from.
While the press room emcee sorted that out, Lonergan addressed the crowd.
“While we’re waiting, you guys, it turns out, we actually won best picture!”
Laughs all around.
On what it was like for Affleck -- who won the Oscar for best actor -- to return to Boston for filming, he said: “Well, I like to work there because I know it so well and it feels like home, so that’s a bonus. There’s a familiarity that helps the work.”
Then he added: “But Kenny writes with such authenticity … it was already on the page.”
When Lonergan, who won the Oscar for original screenplay, was asked about his thoughts on the Writers Guild of America talks and a possible strike, he said a strike “would be premature.”
“I’d like to see more negotiations for creative control for screenwriters,” Lonergan said. “The creative-control issue is still at the bottom for the screenwriter and it would be great if one day that could change.”
Affleck was asked about the evening’s Oscar speeches -- why there weren’t more political comments. “There were a few people who said things about the current global political situation and from the point of view of artists,” he said. “But I don’t know why more people didn’t -- it doesn’t entirely seem like an inappropriate place, given the current [climate].”
“Personally,” Affleck added, “I didn’t say anything because my head was completely blank from the shock of winning the award. But then I didn’t thank my children, and that’s something I’ll never, ever live down.”
“My daughter, who is 15, was extremely irritated that I mentioned her at all!” Lonergan joked. “You can’t win either way.”
Viola Davis: ‘At 51, I’m loving me’
Viola Davis, who is now one “G” from EGOT-ing, won an Oscar for her role in “Fences.”
Backstage at the Academy Awards, Davis shared her thoughts on winning big and maybe having a celebratory vodka.
What would Annalise Keating [her character from “How to Get Away with Murder”] say about your win?
Viola Davis: She would most definitely say I deserved this. And then she would have some vodka, and in that we are very similar.
How do you feel in this moment?
Davis: It’s not my style to wake up and go ‘I’m an Oscar winner. Let me go for a run.’ I’m good with it. I’ll have some mac ‘n’ cheese and go back to washing my daughter’s hair tomorrow night.
This is the first day in my life that I step back and I can’t believe my life. I grew up in poverty. [Tears up]. I grew up in apartments that were condemned and rat-infested. I just wanted to be good at something. So, this is sort of the miracle of God, of dreaming big and hoping that it sticks and lands. And it did. I’m overwhelmed.
What do you love about being a black woman?
Davis: Everything. I love my history, the fact that I can go back and look at so many stories of women who’ve gone before me that seemingly should not have survived, but they did. I love my skin, my voice. Sometimes I don’t love being the spokesperson all the time, but so be it. That’s the way that goes sometimes. At 51, I’m loving me.
Mahershala Ali on his historic win as the first Muslim to earn an Oscar for acting
The Times caught up with Mahershala Ali after his historic night as the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar.
“Regardless of theology, or however you see life, or relate to worshipping God -- as an artist, my job is to tell the truth and then try to connect with these characters and people as honestly and deeply as possible,” Ali said.
While Ali said that any specific spiritual practice is irrelevant, it can be a doorway to “more empathy for these people you have to advocate for.”
“I’m proud to own [being Muslim] and I embrace that. I just feel blessed to have had the opportunities that I have had.”
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
As for the onstage mix-up for “Moonlight,” Ali has a lot of respect for the musical that almost stole their light. “‘La La Land’ has done so well and resonated with so many people, especially in this time when people need a sense of buoyancy in their life and need some hope and light. That film has really affected people in a very different way than ‘Moonlight.’”
“When their name was read, I wasn’t surprised. I was really happy for them,” he said. “Then, when I saw security and people coming onstage and their moment was being disrupted, I got really worried. When they said ‘Moonlight’ had won, it threw me a bit. Well... it threw me more than a bit. I didn’t want to go up there and take it from somebody. It’s very hard to feel joy in a moment like that.”
However, in the end Ali can see the silver lining. “I feel very fortunate for us all to have walked away with best picture. It’s pretty remarkable.”
As for landing his Oscar-winning character in “Moonlight,” Ali jokes, “I’m glad Idris [Elba] and David Oyelowo left me a job.”
Naomie Harris, a star of Oscar-winning ‘Moonlight,’ thought she was the victim of a practical joke
Naomie Harris was sitting in the Dolby Theatre near her “Moonlight” costars when the confusion surrounding Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and the best picture winner broke out Sunday night. She had the same reaction as many of us did.
“I thought it was a practical joke,” she told The Times as she waited to enter the Governors Ball. “When I walked onstage I had an expression of -- well, I have no idea what kind of expression I had. Like a what-just-happened expression. I’m not sure I want to look at it.”
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
When stage managers came to the podium, it led to a moment of chaos -- and then a quick “Moonlight” acceptance speech that was overshadowed by the drama after “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the winner.
Does the reversal make the victory sweeter? Or did the circus surrounding the moment somehow diminish it?
“I’m not gonna say I think it’s a great thing we won this way,” Harris said. “I think it would have been great to have a [typical] moment.
“But let’s not forget what happened: This tiny, $1.5-million movie won best picture. And the night turned out to be incredibly varied with the winners. That’s all a good thing.”
Emma Stone would thank you to not blame the Oscars’ best picture mix-up on her
Emma Stone waltzed backstage with wide eyes and a sly smile after her win for best actress in “La La Land,” which came moments before a historic Oscar malfunction that led to the mistaken reading of that film for best picture instead of the rightful winner, “Moonlight.”
“Whoo, did you guys see that?” she asked as the press roared.
She said the now-notorious mix-up was incredibly surreal and added to the general dreamlike feeling she was already experiencing after her win.
“I was on such a buzzy plane backstage that I already felt like I was on another planet,” she said. “It was an incredible outcome, but a very strange happening for Oscar history.”
Then she grinned.
“Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time? Cool, we made history. Craziest moment.” she said.
Stone also made it very clear that she and her co-collaborators on “La La Land” were thrilled for “Moonlight” and Barry Jenkins.
“I ... love ‘Moonlight.’ God, I love ‘Moonlight’ so much. I’m so excited for ‘Moonlight’ — we are so excited for ‘Moonlight.’ I think it’s one of the best pictures of all time,” she gushed.
Adding a note of intrigue to the confusion surrounding just what exactly led to the best picture debacle, Stone said, “I also was holding my best actress in a leading role card, so I’m not sure what that was. Whatever story you’re hearing.”
Jimmy Kimmel talks Damon and doughnuts in aftermath of Oscars ‘nuttiness’
Jimmy Kimmel spoke to The Times backstage about what happened when the Oscars broadcast suddenly went off the rails with an unprecedented mistake.
“I saw something online... it was a screen grab that showed the best actress envelope. It’s funny, I was about to go on stage and do a bit with Matt Damon and a doughnut, but I said, ‘I think I have to go on stage,’ because otherwise our stage manager Gary [Natoli] was going to have to finesse it,” Kimmel said.
“There was a lot of nuttiness. It was kind of like a dispute over a boxing match. You didn’t know who won. You didn’t know who the winner was. But I have to say the producers of ‘La La Land’ were very gracious,” Kimmel remarked of the individuals who very suddenly learned they had not won best picture.
“Listen, it’s a TV show,” Kimmel concluded.
Barry Jenkins explains what happened onstage during the best picture ‘Moonlight’ mix-up
After the chaos of the Oscars best picture mix-up, The Times caught up with “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins.
Did the Academy offer him any explanation?
“No explanation,” Jenkins said. “I will say that I saw two cards and so things just happened. I wanted to see the card to see the card.”
In an odd twist, the best picture presenter, Warren Beatty, refused to show anyone the card before showing it directly to Jenkins. “Everybody was asking and he was like ‘No, Barry Jenkins has to see the card; I need him to know.’”
After Jenkins saw the official card with “Moonlight” printed on the paper, the director felt better about what happened.
“I will say that the folks from ‘La La Land’ were so gracious,” Jenkins admitted. “I can’t imagine being in their position and having to do that. I wasn’t speechless because we won. I was speechless because it was so gracious of them to do that. The card said: ‘Best Picture: Moonlight.’”
Jenkins refuses to be too negative about the confusion: “It’s unfortunate that things happened the way they did, but hot damn, we won best picture.”
How could the best picture mix-up happen? Duplicate cards await on both sides of the stage
After the Oscars’ big best picture mix-up Sunday, Emma Stone said backstage that she was holding her lead actress card when “La La Land” was incorrectly announced as best picture.
So how could Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway have been looking at that very same card, as the actor explained to the audience?
Turns out that for each category, there are two cards waiting in the wings, one on each side, as explained in a 2016 Los Angeles Times story by Valli Herman:
“In an undisclosed location, the partners tabulate votes and stuff two sets of winning envelopes, partly as another security measure and also to aid the show’s flow. Stationed with their signature briefcases on opposite sides of the stage, either [PricewaterhouseCoopers partners, Brian] Cullinan or [Martha] Ruiz can dispense envelopes to presenters. At the end of the evening, each accountant will have given out about half of the envelopes.
“And the third set? ‘There is no third “set” sitting somewhere that has the winning cards in the winning envelopes,’ Cullinan said. However, the remaining, unstuffed envelopes and nominee cards are shipped to a second secret location, just in case some disaster prevents access to the completed sets. After the ceremony, unused cards and envelopes are destroyed by an industrial document-destruction company.”
Warren Beatty makes his case in best picture mix-up
The Times exclusively spoke to best picture presenter Warren Beatty backstage after the history-making mistake that briefly awarded “La La Land” the honor instead of rightful winner “Moonlight” and the legendary director explained what happened onstage.
I looked down at the card and thought, ‘This is very strange, because it says best actress.’ Maybe there was a misprint. I don’t know what happened. And that’s all I have to say on the subject.
— Warren Beatty
Oscar shocker: ‘Moonlight’ wins best picture, but only after ‘La La Land’ crew to the stage
In a moment that will go down as one of the strangest and most shocking in Oscar history, “Moonlight” was named Oscar winner for best picture only after “La La Land” was announced first.
The room was in disarray as they sorted out the error.
Here’s how it went down:
Co-presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were on stage to present the award. After listing the nominated films. Beatty opened the envelope and then paused for longer than usual. He looked around and over at Dunaway, who then announced “La La Land” had won.
Producers and cast members from “La La Land,” the candy-colored big-screen romantic musical about two artists striving to fulfill their dreams, made their way to the stage to celebrate. They had begun their thank yous when the mistake was caught.
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
“La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz interrupted the celebration, calling attention to the discrepancy on the winners card in his hand.
At that point, Horowitz showed the card to the camera, which clearly indicated “Moonlight” had won. As the “Moonlight” crew made their way to the stage, Beatty stepped to the mic.
He explained that the reason it had taken him so long to read the card was because he was looking at something that said Emma Stone had won. At that point, he showed it to Dunaway, who announced “La La Land.” Beatty assured viewers that the error was unintentional and he wasn’t trying to turn the biggest award into a joke.
Beatty later elaborated on what happened on stage.
“I looked down at the card and thought, this is very strange, because it says best actress,” he told The Times. “Maybe there was a misprint. I don’t know what happened. And that’s all I have I have to say on the subject.”
Michael De Luca, one of the Oscar ceremony producers, was walking down backstage hallway towards the Governor’s Ball when he stopped to greet someone.
Asked if everything was OK, he responded: “It’s OK for some, but not OK for others. It’s not OK for the Academy. But it was great live television.”
In his review of “Moonlight,” L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan wrote, “So intimate you feel like you’re trespassing on its characters’ souls, so transcendent it’s made visual and emotional poetry out of intensely painful experience, it’s a film that manages to be both achingly familiar and unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
Both a salute to Hollywood and a love letter to Los Angeles, “La La Land” came into the Oscars with a record-tying 14 nominations. The film starts with a traffic jam that turns into an improbable song-and-dance sequence and goes on to follow its young stars as they meet amid disappointing professional moments.
In his review of the film, L.A. Times critic Justin Chang said, “The result is, by any reasonable measure, one of the loveliest things you will experience in a theater this year.”
Those onstage to celebrate what they thought was “La La Land’s” win were gracious as they learned they had not taken home the honor.
The other nominees were:
“Arrival”
“Fences”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Hell or High Water”
“Hidden Figures”
“Lion”
“Manchester by the Sea”
Here’s a complete list of winners and losers.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
Update: This article was originally published at 9:09 p.m. and has been updated numerous times.
‘Oh my god, he got the wrong envelope’ -- backstage during the Oscars’ best picture chaos
“Moonlight” won the best picture Oscar after a botched announcement threw the ceremony into chaos.
As the “La La Land” cast was taking the stage to celebrate, a stagehand in the wings said, “Oh ... Oh my god, he got the wrong envelope.” They walked back and forth repeating it.
Stagehands, actors, production crew and journalists were stunned. Oscars producer Michael De Luca was peering into his monitor, trying to figure it out. Champagne glasses sat on the table next to him. They had been poured moments earlier to celebrate a good show.
The academy doesn’t know what went wrong. Stage manager Gary Natoli came running past just now saying, “Warren is holding on to the envelope. He will not release it.”
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When host Jimmy Kimmel returned from off stage, De Luca told the show host, “Thanks for covering, man.” And Kimmel responded, “Yeah, but no one is going to remember that now. I don’t know what happened. We will analyze every bit of it.”
Meanwhile John Legend mused, “One wishes it was the right card. One wishes.”
Memo to hairstylists: Keep it short. Short hair and pixie cuts are big style winners at the Oscars
Michelle Williams has made it her signature, but the controlled pixie cut has made a comeback as the high-glam short-hair look that makes the most of cheekbones and dazzling earrings.
At the Academy Awards on Sunday, Viola Davis wore hers with elegant-but-casual side-swept bangs, while Janelle Monáe kept her short hair looking regal with a headband, and Ginnifer Goodwin gave her hair edge with super-sharp, super-short bangs.
Agents for Casey Affleck, Denzel Washington good-naturedly trash talk each other and consult psychics
One of the most competitive races of the night is Casey Affleck versus Denzel Washington for lead actor. The “Manchester by the Sea” and “Fences” stars were considered neck-and-neck heading into the Oscars ceremony, with their respective campaigners waging a fierce battle.
Not so their agents, who are close friends at WME Entertainment, where the competitiveness and, occasionally, trash talk, on behalf of their clients flows freely.
“One of us will go out and have a great night,” said Boomer Malkin, Affleck’s agent, as he stood near the bar of the Dolby Theatre during the ceremony about an hour before the award was to be announced.
“And will be forced into consoling” the other agent, said Andre Finkelstein, Washington’s representative.
Malkin admitted that relations have gotten a little heated around the office, but mostly have stayed civil. “I think everyone knows there’s no loser,” he said.
“Easy for you to say, since you’re winning [by a large margin]” Finkelstein said, alluding to Affleck’s victory on a number of major awards but not the SAG. He later added, “But we have the one that really matters coming into tonight.”
“Well, you do have Google on your side,” Malkin said.
Um, what?
“My wife asked Google who will win and it said Denzel. Apparently his performance is more ‘electric,’” said Malkin, referring to a Google Assistant bot she had jokingly queried.
Finkelstein parried back. “Yeah, but you have the psychic on your side.”
“Oh, that’s right,” said Malkin, noting a medium who told him at a party Saturday that Affleck would take the prize.
“So, he might win,” said Finkelstein of Malkin. “But he goes to psychics.
Elton John: ‘I’m glad we didn’t have Warren Beatty do the live auction’
Immediately after the climactic snafu for the announcement of this year’s best picture winner, “Moonlight,” Elton John took the stage at his 25th Academy Awards viewing party and fundraiser in West Hollywood for the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
“Wow!” the veteran English rocker said. “I’m glad we didn’t have Warren Beatty do the live auction.”
Barry Jenkins on ‘Moonlight’s’ surprise win: ‘To hell with dreams! I’m done with it because this is true’
Very clearly, even in my dreams this could not be true, but to hell with dreams! I’m done with it because this is true. Oh, my goodness. I have to say it is true, it’s not fake. We’ve been on the [awards show circuit] with these guys for so long and that was so gracious, so generous of them. My love to “La La Land,” my love to everybody. Man.
— Barry Jenkins, on “Moonlight” best picture win
Jimmy Kimmel reacts to the best picture mix-up
In an unscripted surprise, “Moonlight” was awarded the Academy Award for best picture after “La La Land” was erroneously announced as the winner.
Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel seemed regretful and a bit self-deprecating as the telecast wrapped up.
I knew I would screw this show up. I really did.
— Jimmy Kimmel
Warren Beatty explains how they incorrectly announced ‘La La Land’ as best picture
I want to tell you what happened. I opened the envelope and it said Emma Stone, ‘La La Land.’ That’s why I took such a long look at Faye [Dunaway] and at you. I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
— Warren Beatty, explaining how the wrong movie was announced as best picture
The ‘Moonlight’-’La La Land’ mix-up just broke the Internet
In perhaps the most unbelievable ending to an Oscar ceremony, “La La Land” was awarded the Academy Award for best picture, a mistake that was eventually corrected to honor the actual winner, “Moonlight.”
After Warren Beatty apologized for the mix-up, the Internet lost its collective mind. Here are just a few bewildered reactions to the news.
‘White Helmets’ creators on ‘shining a very bright light’ on Syrian rescue workers
Netflix’s “The White Helmets,” about a group of first responders in Syria, is a film pulsing with meaning, said director Orlando von Einsiedel backstage after snagging the Oscar for best documentary short.
“Right from the start this was about shining a very bright light on the heroes of our film, the white helmets, Syrian rescue workers,” said Von Einsiedel, who previously won best documentary for 2014’s “Virunga.” “We [hope to] continue to magnify their voices.”
On the film’s cinematographer, Khaled Khateeb, who was denied entry into the U.S. due to “derogatory information” and therefore couldn’t attend the Oscars, producer Joanna Natasegara said they had just spoken to Khateeb.
“It’s been ameliorated because of the win. He’s thrilled because he, like us, wants the world to know about the white helmets,” she said.
On President Trump’s travel ban, in general, she added: “We as filmmakers travel across the world and we don’t believe in building anything but compassion between people, and we’d never support something like the ban.”
When asked why the leader of the white helmets wasn’t in attendance, Von Einsiedel said:
“He couldn’t come in the end because the violence in Syria has escalated,” he said. “He does life-saving work, and he decided his time was better [spent] by staying there.”
Academy Award winner Colleen Atwood has designs on Edith Head’s record
With her win for “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” costume designer Colleen Atwood is making new records in Academy Award history.
With four Oscars for her film work, Atwood now is tied with Milena Canonero for most wins in the post-Edith Head era. Head had eight wins and -- a record that will likely never be broken -- 35 nominations (partly because nominations in Head’s day were given for color and black-and-white films).
With 12 costume design Oscar nominations, Atwood is ahead of Sandy Powell with 11 nominations and behind the late Irene Sharaff, who earned 15.
The card that changed everything at the 89th Oscars
“La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz holds up the winner’s card to the audience, revealing that it was “Moonlight” and not the mistakenly announced “La La Land.”
“This is not a joke, ‘Moonlight’ has won best picture, “ Horowitz said. “‘Moonlight.’ Best picture.”
As the confusion took hold of the stage the producer continued, “I’m going to be really proud to hand this to my friends from “‘Moonlight.’”
Shine on, Charlize Theron
In case you were wondering, jewelry certainly matters, especially at the Oscars.
With Furiosa-worthy earrings, Charlize Theron shows she’s so tough, even her earlobes can support a mine’s worth of diamonds.
Chopard supplied the gems, featuring a 25-carat pear-shaped D-flawless diamond and 26-carat heart-shaped D-flawless diamond, plus 4.55 carats of pear-shaped diamonds and 4.35 carats of brilliant-cut diamonds set in 18-karat white gold from the Garden of Kalahari Collection.
PHOTO GALLERY: OSCARS BEST AND WORST RED CARPET LOOKS >>
OMG, Emma Stone looks so beautiful
Memes aside, Emma Stone does look really great tonight.
Watch Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscars edition of ‘Mean Tweets’
Oscars nominees and past winners are not exempt from the wrath of the Twitterverse. Host Jimmy Kimmel demonstrates.
Oscar winner on how ‘La La Land’s’ cinematography so perfectly captured Los Angeles
Linus Sandgren, who marked the first big win of the night for “La La Land,” for cinematography, talked about the innate and unexpected charm of Los Angeles during a quick stop backstage with his statue.
“I think it’s a really beautiful, interesting mix of the urban gritty city and the beauty of nature,” he said. “It’s an incredible mix. Sometimes I drive home on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, and there are lots of telephone poles, but against this lovely sky and sunset. It’s remarkable.”
His favorite scene in the film is Emma Stone’s dream-like audition.
“It’s so simple — no colors, a bit dim, but it was quite complicated to do,” he said. “It can be more interesting to do simple scenes, and in this film, which is so bold all the time, that scene is so intimate.”
A year after #Oscarssowhite, a record-breaking night for black filmmakers and actors
A year after the #Oscarssowhite outrage dominated awards season, a record-breaking number of African Americans -- six in five categories -- left the Dolby Theatre with statuary. The previous record was three at the shows in 2010 and 2014.
Viola Davis won tonight for supporting actress in “Fences.” Mahershala Ali took home the statue for supporting actor in “Moonlight,” setting another record: the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar. Ezra Edelman, who is biracial, won best documentary for “O.J. Simpson: Made in America,” and Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney won for adapted screenplay for “Moonlight.”
UPDATE: One more win: After a false start with “La La Land,” “Moonlight” took home best picture.
‘Animated films don’t have to be just for kids,’ say ‘Zootopia’ creators after Oscar win
“Zootopia” co-directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore were bursting with pride backstage at the Oscars.
“With this film we got the idea to talk about bias with talking animals — we wanted animals to serve for stand-ins for all of us,” said Howard, adding, “we were surprised how timely the film became as the world started to blow up.”
Howard and Moore said the film turned increasingly political after the fraught presidential election.
Both were aware of the impact the film could have and worked with an expert on bias for two years. Thirteen versions of the film were made before it was finalized.
“When I watched movies and heard stories as a kid, I thought stories just entertained us, but as I got older I realized we were giving back,” said Moore.
“Animated films don’t have to be just for kids,” said Howard.
The win marked Disney’s fifth straight one in the category.
“Our studio employs artists from all over the world,” Moore said. “There’s no way we could make these movies without the talent of international artists.”
Emma Stone wins for ‘La La Land’
Emma Stone’s turn as an aspiring actress working in a coffee shop and going on humiliating auditions won her the lead actress Oscar.
Stone, whose character Mia shares an apartment with three other women and falls in love with a jazz pianist played by Ryan Gosling, was the one to beat. She had won most major awards and was considered a near lock in the category.
Other nominees included:
Natalie Portman, “Jackie”
Ruth Negga, “Loving”
Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Isabelle Huppert, “Elle”
‘Moonlight’ writer Tarell Alvin McCraney dedicates his Oscar win to those ‘who don’t see themselves ‘
This goes out to all those black and brown boys and girls and non-gender-conforming who don’t see themselves. We’re trying to show you you and us. So thank you, thank you, this is for you.
— Tarell Alvin McCraney, accepting the adapted screenplay Oscar with Barry Jenkins
Casey Affleck wins for ‘Manchester by the Sea’
Casey Affleck won the lead actor Oscar for his role in “Manchester by the Sea” playing a man overwhelmed by grief and guilt.
Affleck was the critics’ favorite who steamrolled through the early part of the awards season but then lost the Screen Actors Guild award to Denzel Washington.
In “Manchester,” Affleck’s character is named the guardian of his teenage nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges, in a breakout performance and a supporting actor nominee), after his brother’s sudden death. He emerges, if briefly, from his self-imposed sentence of solitary confinement and struggles to stick around a world with too many memories.
Other nominees include:
Denzel Washington, “Fences”
Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Ryan Gosling, “La La Land”
Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”
Jimmy Kimmel plays off Matt Damon and it’s one of the best moments of the night
The escalating rivalry between Jimmy Kimmel and actor Matt Damon was expected to heat up on Sunday and Kimmel did not disappoint.
The Oscars host capitalized on several opportunities to burn his arch-rival, who is attending this year’s ceremony as a producer for best picture nominee “Manchester by the Sea.” Kimmel took aim at Damon during his opening monologue, ribbing Damon’s massive flop “The Great Wall.”
“When I first met Matt, I was the fat one,” Kimmel said, before calling Damon “unselfish” for casting childhood friend Casey Affleck in “Manchester” instead of himself.
“Then he made a Chinese ponytail movie instead,” Kimmel quipped. “And that movie, ‘The Great Wall,’ went on to lose $80 million. Smooth move, dumbass.”
Another bit, featuring Kimmel walking the aisles, the host pretended that Damon tripped him.
But the best barb came after the “In Memoriam” segment and featured Kimmel reflecting on Damon’s 2011 film “We Bought a Zoo,” doting on his “effortful” performance.
When Damon and collaborator Ben Affleck were set to present the award for original screenplay, Kimmel introduced them as “Two-time Academy Award winner Ben Affleck and guest.”
As soon as Damon started speaking, the orchestra started cutting him off.
“I’m presenting, you can’t play me off,” Damon cried.
Then the camera cut to the pit where Kimmel was conducting the orchestra.
“Wrap it up. We want to go home,” the host insisted.
‘Gary from Chicago’ gets off a tour bus and steals the show
A group of tourists got the surprise of their lives when they ended up in the center of Hollywood’s biggest night.
Believing they were going to an exhibit, the tour-goers instead walked straight into the Dolby Theatre in the middle of the Academy Awards. Phones and selfie sticks in hand, the group shook hands with Oscar nominees, snapped photos with some of their favorite actors, and even touched Mahershala Ali’s Oscar.
Reactions to the segment were mixed on social media. Some viewers complained that it felt like Kimmel was mocking the working class. Others winced at how awkward some of it came across. But “Gary from Chicago” was a hit. He even got an invitation from his hometown team, the Chicago Bulls, for tickets to a home basketball game.
As Kimmel introduced Gary to the household-name entertainers near the front, the host quipped: “I feel like you’re ignoring the white celebrities.”
“I am, though,” Gary quipped.
Check out some of the reactions:
Halle Berry is still the only woman of color to win the lead actress Oscar
In 2002, Halle Berry made history. She was the first black woman to win the lead actress Oscar for her role in Marc Forster’s “Monster’s Ball.” In her acceptance speech, she dedicated the win to “the women that stand beside me, Jada Pinkett [Smith], Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox.”
“And it’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened,” she said. “Thank you. I’m so honored.”
But 15 years later, the door allegedly opened that night has not seen another woman of color enter it since. That’s not because lack of talent or nominations.
Since Berry’s win, eight women of color have been nominated in the category, from Salma Hayek (“Frida”) the year following to Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious”) in 2010. This year, Ruth Negga of “Loving,” is the eighth.
In total, in almost 90 years of the Academy Awards, only 16 women of color have been nominated in the lead actress category. See them all below:
- Dorothy Dandridge, “Carmen Jones”
- Diana Ross, “Lady Sings The Blues”
- Cicely Tyson, “Sounder”
- Diahann Carroll, “Claudine”
- Whoopi Goldberg, “The Color Purple”
- Angela Bassett, “What’s Love Got to Do With It”
- Fernanda Montenegro, “Central Station”
- Halle Berry, “Monster’s Ball”
- Salma Hayek, “Frida”
- Keisha Castle-Hughes, “Whale Rider”
- Catalina Sandino Moreno, “Maria Full of Grace”
- Penélope Cruz, “Volver”
- Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
- Viola Davis, “The Help”
- Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
- Ruth Negga, “Loving”
Regretful fashion misses at the Oscars
Ryan Gosling could wear anything and cut a striking figure but a ruffled tuxedo shirt? Really?
In an otherwise impeccably cut, shawl-collared Gucci tuxedo, he looks like a lounge singer.
Right -- “La La Land” and all. We get it. Still, he should have left the ruffles at home.
Um, what’s going on here in Dakota Johnson’s Gucci dress? It looks like a Medieval costume, which is fine for a Renaissance fair but not the Oscars.
She looks shrouded in all the fabric, the shoulder-padded sleeves, the gigantic waist-wrapping bow.
Leslie Mann usually looks sleek and elegant, but this voluminous Zac Posen gown in a weirdly unflattering yellow just overwhelms her.
She looks like she’s carting billowy bed sheets (albeit really expensive ones).
John Legend takes a trip to ‘La La Land’
Among the many things “La La Land” has been chastised for, the movie musical’s casting of two non-singers in Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone ranks pretty low on my list.
But that’s the criticism the Oscars seemed to push back on by having John Legend perform the movie’s two nominated songs, “City of Stars” and “Audition (The Fools Who Dream).”
So how’d he do?
Well, Legend certainly proved he’s a singer, flexing a vocal range that surpassed Gosling’s and Stone’s put together.
But to my ears this super-smooth crooner also milked the music’s emotion a bit more than was necessary, which made the songs feel kind of glib.
Damien Chazelle wins best director for ‘La La Land’
Damien Chazelle won the best director Oscar for his film “La La Land,” a candy-colored musical romance starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. At 32, Chazelle became the youngest person to win in the director category.
Last year, his film “Whiplash” was nominated for five Oscars, including best picture.
In an essay on musicals for The Times, Chazelle wrote, “I wanted to make a movie that would embrace the magic of musicals but root it in the rhythms and texture of real life. I wanted the dances to feel like honest extensions of the characters’ feelings. I wanted to make it seem as though breaking into song were the most natural thing in the world. I wanted to make a movie about how life feels when you’re in love and full of dreams in the big city. “
The other nominees were:
Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”
Mel Gibson, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Samuel L. Jackson made it through only 20 minutes of ‘La La Land’
Motion picture academy member Samuel L. Jackson sees all the nominated movies, but he admitted that he did not quite make it through all of this year’s nominees.
The movie everybody’s so hyped on, I only made it through 20 minutes. I mean, I like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
— Samuel L. Jackson
‘The art form is the pencil’: Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer of ‘Piper’ on their Oscar win
In their near identical tuxedos, Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer were the dynamic duo of humility and cool, backstage in the press room after winning animated short for Pixar’s rite-of-passage story “Piper.”
“It’s quite an honor,” Barillaro said, “and four of those [other] nominees, we’re so proud to have our names next to those colleagues. It’s nice to celebrate short films with them.”
About the technology that made the film possible, Barillaro added: “When you talk technology, the art form is the pencil … we ignored the world of realism and went for the artistic choices. A lot of the work was looking at classical paintings.”
Animating baby birds – grown up birds too – is tricky business. And Barillaro and Sondheimer stressed the research they did to prepare.
“The challenge as an animator is you need to understand something before you can animate it,” Barillaro said.
“We studied those birds and that really helped,” Sondheimer said. “For three long years!
‘Where’s the real food?’ It’s not inside the Dolby Theatre
Unlike the Golden Globes, which is centered on a boozy dinner, there’s no food or drink allowed inside the Dolby Theatre. Hence the emergency rations of candy that host Jimmy Kimmel has been dropping from the rafters to hungry stars.
The show’s producers planned a candystravaganza for the 89th Academy Awards after the Emmys scored a meme-able moment by having the “Stranger Things” kids pass out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the air.
But at the Oscars there isn’t a PB&J in sight -- only Junior Mints, Red Vines and other assorted candies to get guests through the long haul, passed out once every four commercial breaks to those inside the theater.
That means that nominees have to sneak out to the bar area to keep their blood sugar -- and their booze levels -- up.
Those looking to nosh, however, don’t have many options.
Most hobnobbers made a beeline for one of two open bars in the Dolby Theatre lobby as soon as the show began. Halfway through the show in the more intimate side bar, Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard had a mini “Empire” reunion while in line for drinks.
But as the night wore on, hungry bellies that had been starved for weeks to fit into tuxes and evening gowns drove guests to the lone snack table, where tiny bags of Japanese rice crackers and cookies provide the evening’s only sustenance. (This just in: They’re now out of rice crackers and have added small bags of trail mix.)
“Where’s the REAL food?” grumbled one well-dressed gentleman, surveying the limited spread.
“This is it, until the Governors Ball!” answered a cheery Oscars staffer. Then again, not every attendee gets a ticket to the official (and catered) Oscars after party.
He begrudgingly grabbed a bag of three miniature cookies and walked off -- toward the bar.
How Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Yale School of Drama application became ‘Moonlight’
The story of “Moonlight” began long before director Barry Jenkins’ involvement propelled the film to eight Academy Award nominations. In fact, it began in 2003 while then budding-playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney was applying to grad school.
As part of his application to Yale’s School of Drama, he wrote the play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.” But unlike the film it would eventually become, it played out in a circular motion with life happening for the youngest, middle and oldest versions of the character all at once. (Imagine a kid waking up and brushing his teeth, followed by his adolescent self and adult self doing the same actions.)
“I was trying to figure out what little me and middle me and grown me were doing that was the same and not the same,” McCraney said about the play’s structure and inspiration. “What patterns I was repeating, what is this life?”
The play came out of “a strange time, a time of endings and then new beginnings,” he said. He’d graduated from DePaul University in June with a degree in acting and his mother, who struggled with addiction when he was young and had suffered from AIDS-related complications for the prior 10-year period, died that July.
After enrolling, he put the “Moonlight” play on the shelf knowing that it could not be staged because he had written in visual cues, like cut to’s, that only film allows an artist to do. When he finally picked it back up and gave it to a film professor who told him to finish the script, McCraney responded: “It’s not done? Hm.” (He graduated in 2007.)
Jenkins, who eventually got his hands on the play through mutual friends in the Miami arts scene, was immediately struck by the way McCraney had depicted the mother-son relationship. “Because that happened to me [too],” he said.
Though Jenkins originally wanted McCraney to adapt the unproduced play for the screen, when the playwright won one of the prestigious MacArthur grants in 2013, he became too busy. Luckily, the two had shared enough of their expectations of each other for Jenkins to confidently adapt the play on his own. And though Jenkins is straight, the “Medicine for Melancholy” director said he wanted to maintain the queer voice of the play about the lived experiences of a black gay man written by the black gay man who lived it.
“I felt like the only way to do the translation and have it have the same power as Tarell’s work onstage was to preserve his voice,” Jenkins said. “There were certain scenes and experiences in the play that I had not lived.”
Years later, both Jenkins and McCraney are nominated for an Oscar for the adaptation, for the screenplay and story, respectively.
‘Moonlight’ wins adapted screenplay
Barry Jenkins’ script for “Moonlight” won for adapted screenplay. The movie about the coming-of-age of a gay black boy in a drug-infested Miami neighborhood was based on a stage play by Tarell Alvin McCraney.
Other nominees include:
“Lion,” by Luke Davies
“Arrival,” by Eric Heisserer
“Hidden Figures,” by Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder
“Fences,” by August Wilson
Justin Timberlake loves ‘La La Land’ but doesn’t spend much time thinking about former Mouseketeer pal Ryan Gosling
Justin Timberlake is cool with Ryan Gosling. He’s just not necessarily cool with always being linked to Ryan Gosling.
“Do you talk to people from high school?” he said, with a slightly jokey feistiness when chatted up at the Oscars bar.
JT and the jazzsplainer have been associated with each other ever since their days singing and dancing alongside buddies like future stars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in “The All New Mickey Mouse Club.”
“This is, like, middle school,” Timberlake noted of the series, which ran in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.”I have a kid. He has — what, two kids? You see things differently than you do then.”
The pair were thrust together again this year when Gosling starred in one of the most honored musicals in Oscar history in “La La Land,” including one for himself for best actor, and Timberlake notched an Oscar nod for his “Trolls” song “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”
It was one of two numbers that Timberlake opened Sunday’s show with. The other was a cover of Bill Withers’ R&B classic “Lovely Day.”
“I pushed for that,” Timberlake said, when asked how he persuaded producers to give him time for two numbers. “It just felt appropriate in this climate. And that’s all I’ll say about that.”
He was happy with his performance. “That really did feel like electricity,” he said. “I feel like the room was loose. I feel loose.”
Though Timberlake lost out to a “La La” number for original song, he said he had strong admiration for the Damien Chazelle film. “What Damien did, it’s nothing short of genius,” he said. “Some people believe it’s pastiche. I don’t.”
He added: “I know some people are also mixed on it. That’s the sign of a great movie.”
So would the actor-singer do a throwback musical himself, now that the zeitgeist has moved in that direction?
“I would [do a musical],” he said. “But I wouldn’t do that — it can’t be done any better.”
‘Manchester by the Sea’ wins for original screenplay
Kenneth Lonergan won the Oscar for original screenplay for his nuanced and devastating “Manchester by the Sea,” about a man coming out of grief-stricken solitude to deal with the loss of his brother.
Other nominees include:
“Hell or High Water,” by Taylor Sheridan
“La La Land,” by Damien Chazelle
“20th Century Women,” Mike Mills
The Lobster,” by Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos
Feels like the Internet is rooting against ‘La La Land’
Plenty of people expected Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” to sweep the Academy Awards like it did the Golden Globes. After all, it’s nominated in a whopping 14 categories.
But to the great glee of many Twitter users, by the second hour of the show “La La Land” had lost in some of the secondary categories to films like “Hacksaw Ridge” (for film editing) and “Hacksaw Ridge” (sound mixing).
But the night’s not nearly over and the big awards have yet to be announced.
Jimmy Kimmel multitasks tweeting at President Trump while hosting the Oscars
Jimmy Kimmel gave POTUS a shout-out live from the Oscars audience on Sunday night. Hey, Sean Spicer said a few days ago that President Trump would be busy with the nation’s governors during the show, but maybe he’d check Twitter?
At the time of this posting, POTUS hadn’t tweeted anything in response. Then again, 3 a.m. on the East Coast is still nearly seven hours away.
Scarlett Johansson sang on an Oscar-nominated original song too!
Scarlett Johansson, the presenter for original song at the 89th Academy Awards, is an actress well known for her box-office might.
Thanks in part to her recurring turn as spy-assassin Natasha Romanoff (a.k.a. Black Widow) in the Marvel cinematic universe, Johansson is the top-grossing Hollywood actress of all time. In fact, she was the top-grossing actor of either gender in 2016, according to Forbes.
But when she’s not busy portraying a super-skilled superhero with a dark past, an accidentally super-powered human who reaches a higher state of consciousness, an evolving computer operating system or a cybernetic being combating cyberterrorists for a secret Japanese defense force, Johansson is a musician whose vocal prowess has taken on everything from Tom Waits covers to all-girl “super-pop.”
In fact, Johansson lent her voice to the 2013 Oscar-nominated song “Before My Time” from the documentary “Chasing Ice.” However, since original-song awards are presented to the songwriters, J. Ralph is the only person credited on the nomination.
Her other musical projects include her 2008 debut album “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” predominantly comprising reimaginings of Tom Waits songs, that was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio and featured collaborations with David Bowie as well as members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration.
In 2009, Johansson collaborated with Pete Yorn for “Break Up,” an album inspired by Serge Gainsbourg’s work with Brigitte Bardot.
Most recently Johansson teamed up with Holly Miranda, Kendra Morris and Julia Haltigan to form a currently unnamed band (at one time called “The Singles”). Their first song, “Candy,” an electro-pop jam released in 2015, also features Este Haim from Haim on the drums. You can listen to the track below.
‘White Helmets’ cinematographer was banned from traveling to the Oscars. Here’s his statement when the film won
“The White Helmets” cinematographer Khaled Khateeb, 21, could not attend this year’s Academy Awards because he was denied entry to the United States.
Khateeb, according to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by the Associated Press, was blocked by U.S. immigration authorities at the last minute.
The film, which focuses on the rescue efforts of Syrian Civil Defense volunteers, won the Oscar for documentary short. Director Orlando von Einsiedel, who accepted the trophy with producer Joanna Natasegara, read the following statement from Khateeb:
We’re so grateful this film has highlighted our work to the world. Our organization is guided by a verse in the Koran, ‘To save one life is to save all of humanity.’ We have saved more than 82,000 Syrian lives. I’ll invite anyone here who hears me to work on the side of life to stop the bloodshed in Syria and around the world.
— Khaled Khateeb
‘City of Stars’ from ‘La La Land’ wins original song Oscar
“City of Stars,” a duet between stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone from the musical “La La Land,” won the original song Oscar. The song’s music was written by Justin Hurwitz with lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
Pasek and Paul were tapped to write the lyrics for the songs in “La La Land” after pitching the opening lyrics to “City of Stars”: “City of Stars, are you shining just for me? / City of Stars, there’s so much that I can’t see.”
The win denied Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the landmark Broadway musical “Hamilton” and writer of “How Far I’ll Go,” entry into the exclusive EGOT club: winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
Other nominees include:
“How Far I’ll Go” (“Moana”)
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” (“La La Land”)
“The Empty Chair” (“Jim: The James Foley Story”)
“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” (“Trolls”)
‘La La Land’ wins original score
Justin Hurwitz won an Oscar for his score of “La La Land,” the film that came into the ceremony with a record-tying 14 nominations.
Other nominees included:
Mica Levi, “Jackie”
Nicholas Britell, “Moonlight”
Volker Bertelmann and Dustin O’Halloran, “Lion”
Thomas Newman, “Passengers”
Oscar winner and newest member of Bachelor Nation, Brie Larson, had Nick Viall over for a watch party
Brie Larson was in her seat when the tourists streamed into the Dolby Theatre, but she still doesn’t know whether they were legitimately plucked off the street.
“I dunno. They didn’t seem that fazed and they were so quiet,” argued her fiancé, Alex Greenwald.
“Yeah, but that’s how everyone was when ‘The Bachelor’ came to our house. Really quiet,” Larson replied.
Wait, Nick Viall crashed a viewing party at the Oscar winner’s place? Apparently so.
Though Larson is new to “Bachelor” watching, she and current bachelor Nick Viall connected through a mutual friend and he surprised her crew one Monday night this season.
“But no one said anything,” Larson explained, “Just like those tourists. So who knows.”
‘The White Helmets’ wins documentary short
“The White Helmets,” about first responders in Syria, wins best documentary short.
Other nominees:
“Extremis”
“4.1 miles”
“Joe’s Violins”
“Watani: My Homeland”
‘La La Land’ wins cinematography Oscar
Linus Sandgren, who made Los Angeles look like a place where magic hour lasts the entire day in “La La Land,” won for cinematography. It was the movies first big win of the evening.
Other nominees include:
Bradford Young, “Arrival”
Greig Fraser, “Lion”
James Laxton, “Moonlight”
Rodrigo Prieto, “Silence”
Don’t forget the true villain of ‘No Country for Old Men’: Javier Bardem’s hair
When Javier Bardem won the Oscar for supporting actor in 2008, he won for embodying true evil in the form of remorseless hitman Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men.”
But it would be a huge oversight to not give proper respect to the most chilling aspect of Bardem’s character: his bizarro pageboy that clearly left the cold-blooded killer with a “boy named Sue” ferocity that haunts our dreams.
So many people died in that movie, it’s a wonder he didn’t start with his barber.
Sting keeps it simple for ‘The Empty Chair’
The song is called “The Empty Chair,” but Sting didn’t even use one of those.
For a rendition of his and composer J. Ralph’s tender folk ballad from “Jim: The James Foley Story” — about the journalist killed in 2014 by members of Islamic State — Sting opted for a stripped-down approach at the Oscars, standing simply as he sang and played guitar.
The performance ended with a quote from Foley illuminated on a large screen behind Sting: “If I don’t have the moral courage to challenge authority ... we don’t have journalism.”
‘Sing’ wins live action short
Hungarian Kristof Deák’s “Sing,” about a prize-winning grade-school choir and a rule that doesn’t sit well with two of its young participants, won the live-action short documentary.
Other nominees include:
“Ennemis intérieurs,” Selim Azzazi
“La femme et le TGV,” Timo von Gunten
“Silent Nights,” Aske Bang, Kim Magnusson
“Timecode,” Juanjo Gimenez
The Oscar gold standard goes fashion forward on the red carpet
Gold glistens and makes any woman wearing it head to toe look like a million bucks -- or a living Oscar statuette
Trend-setting golden gowns dazzled on Jessica Biel, Dakota Fanning, Halle Berry, Michelle Williams and, with four tiers of gold-tinged fringe, Emma Stone in Givenchy Haute Couture.
PHOTO GALLERY: OSCARS BEST AND WORST RED CARPET LOOKS >>
Watch Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue to the 89th Academy Awards
Jimmy Kimmel took aim at Matt Damon, President Trump and Meryl Streep during his opening monologue at the Oscars on Sunday -- and admitted that he likely wouldn’t be Hollywood’s great unifier.
“I don’t have to tell anybody, the country is divided right now,” Kimmel said. “I can’t do that. There’s only one Braveheart here, and he’s not going to unite us.”
Watch the whole opening sequence above.
‘Hacksaw Ridge’ wins film editing
“Hacksaw Ridge” won the Oscar for film editing.
Other nominees include:
Joe Walker, “Arrival”
Jake Roberts, “Hell or High Water”
Tom Cross, “La La Land”
Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon, “Moonlight”
Some of the most awkward Oscar moments ever
Hollywood’s star players can’t always be in top form, especially at the Academy Awards, where many of these elites do or say something unexpected for one reason or another. While these moments sometimes work out just fine, there have been plenty of moments through the years that have been absolutely squirm-worthy.
At the 88th Academy Awards, host Chris Rock caused many people to cringe when he introduced three kids of Asian decent as the representatives from PriceWaterhouseCoopers in charge of tallying the Oscar votes.
“They sent us their most dedicated, accurate and hard-working representatives,” said Rock. “Please welcome Ming Zhu, Bao Ling and David Moskowitz.”
When the joke didn’t quite land, Rock added “If anybody’s upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids.”
Viewers were outraged by Rock’s joke that played on Asian stereotypes, which came across especially tone-deaf in a year with heightened sensitivity about race in relation to the Academy Awards.
Another thoroughly awkward moment came earlier in the show when Rock introduced Stacey Dash as the new director of the academy’s minority outreach program.
The joke relied on the audience understanding Dash’s outspoken opinion that BET and Black History Month should be done away with in the name of true equality.
Unfortunately for Rock the average Oscar viewer seemed unable to recognize Dash (who herself seemed to be unaware that she may have been the butt of the joke). But the joke also didn’t seem to land among the in-house guests, who seemingly understood the reference.
‘Jungle Book’ wins for visual effects
Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones and Dan Lemmon won Oscars for visual effects for “Jungle Book,” based on the celebrated 1894 story collection by Rudyard Kipling that details the exploits of an Indian boy named Mowgli, raised by wolves and thus able to speak with animals.
Legato has won previously for “Hugo” and “Titanic.”
Other nominees include:
Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington and Burt Dalton, “Deepwater Horizon”
Stephane Ceretti, Richard Bluff, Vincent Cirelli and Paul Corbould, “Doctor Strange”
Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff, “Kubo and the Two Strings”
John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”
Viola Davis’ moving Oscar speech captivates backstage as well
Charlize Theron put her arm around Shirley MacLaine as the two actresses stood backstage and watched as Viola Davis won the Oscar for best supporting actress. “Oh my God, oh my God,” Theron said as she embraced a teary Davis as Davis, resplendent in a red gown, stepped into the wings and dried her eyes with a tissue.
Here are just a few of the places you may have seen Riz Ahmed lately
If it seems as though actor Riz Ahmed is everywhere lately, it’s because he is.
Presenting at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony is just the latest gig for Ahmed, whose career has taken flight in the last 18 months.
Ahmed starred in HBO’s critically acclaimed miniseries “The Night Of” and appeared in “Jason Bourne” as well as “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”
In addition to these star turns, Ahmed has also logged appearances on HBO’s “Girls” and Netflix’s “The OA” in recent months.
Ahmed, also known as Riz MC, even scored a spot on “The Hamilton Mixtape” performing with K’naan, Snow Tha Product and Residente on “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done).”
Maybe next year, Ahmed can host the Oscars himself.
Full statement from foreign-language film winner Asghar Farhadi, who refused to go to the Oscars in protest
Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi boycotted the Oscars to protest President Trump’s executive order banning travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S.
The “Salesman” filmmaker sent two prominent Iranian Americans to the Academy Awards in his stead. Engineer Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian in space, and former NASA director for solar system exploration Firouz Naderi accepted the foreign-language film Oscar on Farhadi’s behalf.
Here is the complete statement from Farhadi read by Ansari.
It’s a great honor to be receiving this valuable award for the second time. I would like to thank the members of the academy, my crew in Iran, my producer Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Cohen Media, Amazon and my fellow nominees in the foreign-film category.
I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight. My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.
Dividing the world into the “us” and “our enemies” categories creates fears. A deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression.
Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others. An empathy which we need today more than ever. Thank you.
On Friday, all five directors of the nominated foreign-language films released a statement condemning nationalist politics and dedicating the prize to those who fight against them.
Gael García Bernal takes aim at Trump’s wall
As a Mexican, as a Latin American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I am against any form of wall that wants to separate us.
— Gael Garcia Bernal, speaking onstage as a presenter
Movie or TV show? Either way,”’O.J.: Made in America” is an Oscar winner
Is it a movie or is it a TV show? Either way, “O.J.: Made in America” is now an Oscar winner.
With a running time of nearly 8 hours, Ezra Edelman’s probing documentary about the former NFL star turned notorious murder suspect made history as the longest film to win in the category.
Broadcast in five episodes on ESPN, it’s also the first television series to win an Academy Award for documentary, a milestone that will further blur the increasingly indistinct line between film and the medium once considered inferior, television. (And fuel testy Twitter debates between territorial film and TV critics.)
Films dealing with race dominated the documentary category this year. Other nominees included “13th,” Ava DuVernay’s look at mass incarceration, and the James Baldwin documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro,” directed by Raoul Peck.
In a nod to these themes, Edelman dedicated his win to Nicole Simpson, Ron Goldman and their families, but also to “the victims of police violence, police brutality, racially motivated violence and criminal injustice,” he said. “This is their story as well as Ron and Nicole’s. I am honored to accept this award on all of their behalfs.”
‘La La Land’ wins production design
“La La Land” won an Oscar for production design, its first of the evening.
Other nominees include:
Patrice Vermette, Paul Hotte, “Arrival”
Stuart Craig, Anna Pinnock, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”
Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh, “Hail, Caesar!”
David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, “La La Land”
Guy Hendrix Dyas, Gene Serdena, “Passengers”
Snacks (and piercings) abound behind the scenes at the Oscars
During the first commercial break, only a few stars dared to leave their seats so early in the show.
Gael Garcia Bernal ran to the bathroom, but Jamie Dornan and Scarlett Johansson each posted up at a bar.
The actress was sporting a whopping 10 earrings in her left ear -- that we could count, anyway -- and insisted to a friend that they were all real. “Oh, I’ve been getting piercings for a longgg time.”
Unlike at the Golden Globes, which are centered on a boozy dinner, there’s no food or drink allowed inside the Dolby. This means that during commercial breaks, nominees have to sneak out to the bar area to get champs.
Those looking to nosh, however, don’t have a lot of options: There are only miniature cookies and Japanese rice crackers up for grabs.
‘Zootopia’ wins animated feature
Disney’s “Zootopia,” about a female rabbit who defies her haters, doubters and a class-divided society to become a police officer, won the Oscar for animated feature.
The film, from co-directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore, explores the kinds of social inequities — gender, racial and class bias — they saw unfolding during production in the national conversation as police killings of African American men sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
Other nominees include:
· “Kubo and the Two Strings”
· “Moana”
· “My Life as a Zucchini”
· “The Red Turtle”
Viola Davis thanks Denzel, God and the graveyard for her Oscar win
Supporting actress winner Viola Davis scored her first Academy Award on Sunday for her role in “Fences.” The Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning star has been nominated for Oscars twice before -- for “The Help” and “Doubt” -- and also earned a lead actress Tony Award for her role when “Fences” was on Broadway in 2010. That’s a Grammy short of EGOT-ing.
“There’s one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered. One place. And that’s the graveyard,” said a tearful Davis in her acceptance speech.
People ask me all the time, ‘What kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?’ And I say exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition. People who fell in love and lost. I became an artist and thank God I did because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.
— ‘Fences’ star Viola Davis, supporting actress Oscar winner
Davis thanked “Fences” playwright and screenwriter August Wilson, who “exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.” She also thanked director and co-star Denzel Washington, who received a rousing round of applause when she addressed him with “O, Captain! My Captain!”
“Thank you for putting two entities in the driving seat: August and God. And they served you well.”
‘Piper’ wins animated short
“Piper” won the Oscar for animated short.
Other nominees include:
“Blind Vaysha”
“Borrowed Time”
“Pear Cider and Cigarettes”
“Pearl”
Why ‘Moonlight’ deserves to win the best picture Oscar
“Moonlight” deserves to win the Oscar for best picture.
That may be a crass, clunky thing to say about one of the least self-important American films in recent memory, but then not all truths can be conveyed as gracefully and eloquently as they are in director Barry Jenkins’ beautiful movie.
So at the risk of bluntness, it bears repeating: “Moonlight” deserves to win the Oscar for best picture.
This is not an opinion that will cause much consternation among critics, many of whom have hailed Jenkins’ film as the year’s best. But it may come as a surprise to those who don’t see the greatness in a lyrical, intimate portrait of a black boy named Chiron whose early years in Miami are shaped by his crack-addicted mother, a drug-dealing father figure and a childhood best friend who becomes his first love.
It sounds, on paper, like the sort of eminently worthy, socially responsible indie drama we see often at festivals like Sundance and Toronto, where low-key, downbeat slices of life are assumed to be a dime a dozen. (“Moonlight” premiered at Telluride and Toronto last fall.)
In truth, we aren’t used to seeing movies as boldly, intelligently specific in their concerns as “Moonlight,” and we certainly aren’t used to seeing them done this well.
Costume queen Colleen Atwood’s fourth Oscar was Harry Potter’s first
Juggling J.K. and the Jazz Age, costume genius and Oscar perennial Colleen Atwood won her fourth award for costume design on Friday night for “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”
Amazingly, it was the first for a Rowling-based movie; none of the seven “Harry Potter” movies, which starred some of Britain’s finest actors and swept millions into a magical world of witches and wizards, won an Oscar in any category.
And though “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” the Harry Potter prequel about a writer’s adventures among witches and wizards, was awash in violence, xenophobia and political revolt, backstage in the press room Atwood was nothing if not calm and composed.
Clutching her gold trophy, in a simple black dress, she surveyed the room from the small stage, answering questions with a slip of a smile on her face.
But when it was brought to her attention that none of the Harry Potter films had won Oscars until now, she was “shocked,” she said. “I didn’t realize that – that’s shocking! Because there’s so much artistry in the Harry Potter movies. I think that maybe because this movie is set in the 1920s, which kind of keys off a different visual sense, might be the obvious [reason it won], but I can’t believe it never won [before].”
And with that, as calmly as she appeared on stage, she exited, still clutching her trophy to her chest.
A shout-out to mom that tugged the heartstrings. Kevin O’Connell thanks his late mother Skippy
Kevin O’Connell had been nominated for an Oscar 20 times before. He’d always gone home without the statuette.
When he heard his named called Sunday along with Peter Grace, Robert Mackenzie, and Andy Wright for their sound mixing work on “Hacksaw Ridge,” O’Connell had no hesitation on who to thank.
In 2002, when was a 14-time nominee without a win, O’Connell told The Times about how he got his start,
His mother, Skippy, worked as a secretary for the head of the sound department at 20th Century Fox. O’Connell had previously tried to break into the industry as a projectionist at 20th Century Fox Studios. But, only 18, he failed the extensive test to qualify for a union.
So he joined the L.A. County Fire Department. From our 2002 piece:
One day, he came home from battling a brush fire in Sylmar; his hands and face were burnt, and his arms were chewed up by yucca plants. He’d lost an alarming amount of weight. He was 19. His mother took one look at him and said, “This is killing you; let me get you a job.”
He said in his short acceptance speech that she told him the only thank you she needed was for him to work hard.
“‘You can work really hard, and someday you can win yourself an Oscar, and you can stand on the stage, and you can think me in front of the whole world,’” he said. “Mom, I know you’re looking down on me tonight, so thank you.”
No alien bleeps, bloops or pew-pews: How ‘Arrival’s’ Sylvain Bellemare won the sound editing Oscar
Sylvain Bellemare has won the sound editing Oscar at the 89th Academy Awards for his work on “Arrival.” Ahead of the ceremony, Josh Rottenberg talked with Bellemare about his work:
IN A TYPICAL SCI-FI MOVIE about extraterrestrials, there are certain kinds of sounds you’d expect to hear: electronic bleeps and bloops, whooshing spaceships, the slithering of slimy aliens, some pew-pew-pew laser blasts.
But as anyone who’s seen it will tell you, “Arrival” is not a typical sci-fi movie about extraterrestrials.
To help create a unique aural feel for the film — the story of a linguistics professor (Amy Adams) who is recruited by the military to help communicate with mysterious alien visitors — director Denis Villeneuve turned to a longtime friend and frequent collaborator, sound editor Sylvain Bellemare. The atmospheric, emotionally stirring soundscape Bellemare crafted has now earned him his first Oscar nomination.
A native of Montreal, Canada, the 49-year-old Bellemare had never worked on a big science-fiction film before, nor had he been part of a Hollywood studio production. But he’d certainly seen enough movies about aliens to know how easy it would be to slip into tired clichés.
“So many films have been done and so many people have brought their ideas over the decades, so it’s tough to imagine that you can do something different,” Bellemare said by phone from Montreal on a recent morning. “But at least you can believe you can.”
Villeneuve had a specific mandate for the kind of sound palette he wanted for “Arrival.”
“The simple approach was that all the sounds in the film needed to come from really natural, organic sources, instead of going to electronic or processed sound,” Bellemare said.
To create the voices of the aliens, known as heptapods, sound designers Dave Whitehead and Michelle Child blended various sounds including birds, camels, pigs and a Maori flute. The sound of the egg-shaped heptapod spacecraft as it moved through the sky was made by manipulating recordings of shifting rocks and ice.
Lin-Manuel Miranda set up Auli’i Cravalho for a powerful ‘alley-oop’
He said he was here just to help out — and he was right.
On the red carpet before the Oscars, “Moana” composer Lin-Manuel Miranda told The Times that his role in a rendition of the movie’s “How Far I’ll Go” was merely a supporting one.
“My performance is entirely created to support Auli’i Cravalho, who is 16 years old and one of the most incredible young performers I’ve ever seen,” the actor and songwriter said. “So really it’s an alley-oop.”
As promised, Miranda appeared onstage for only a few seconds (despite his marquee billing), rapping a brief introduction before passing the ball to Cravalho, who then dunked the thing in a major way.
If she can sing as assuredly as she just did at 16 — and before an estimated TV audience of 100 million people — she won’t need anyone else to set her up for long.
‘The Salesman’ wins foreign-language film
Iran’s “The Salesman,” directed by Asghar Farhadi, won the Oscar for foreign-language film. The film, a domestic drama of morality and revenge, has garnered added attention since Farhadi, a previous Oscar winner, declared he would not attend the ceremony in the wake of the Trump administration’s travel ban.
Farhadi won for 2011’s “A Separation.” In “The Salesman,” a husband and wife working as actors on a Tehran production of “Death of a Salesman” find themselves coping with a violent assault, the details of which are beyond their cultural comfort to discuss.
Other nominees include:
“Toni Erdmann,” Germany
“A Man Called Ove,” Sweden
“Tanna,” Australia
“Land of Mine,” Denmark
‘Suicide Squad’ wins an Academy Award, the Internet responds: ‘The Oscars will never be able to makeup for this.’
DC and Warner Bros.’ summer tent pole can now be referred to as “The Oscar-winning ‘Suicide Squad.’” That’s because the comic-book film took home the Academy Award for makeup and hairstyling Sunday.
Makeup artists Giorgio Gregorini, Alessandro Bertolazzi and Christopher Nelson accepted the award on behalf of the film and dedicated it to “all the immigrants.” Still, the uplifting gesture did not overshadow the film’s new epithet.
Here’s a sampling:
Viola Davis on the ‘snot-dripping, leaving-poop-and-pee-on-the-floor moment’ that won her the Oscar
When people tell Viola Davis that they have a favorite scene from “Fences,” she knows where they’re going. It’s that scene where her loving, long-suffering character, Rose, learns from her husband that he’s seeing another woman, a woman who’s now pregnant. And he’s not going to stop seeing her.
Devastated, Rose nearly collapses and then vents her hurt and anger. Between camera coverage and close-ups, Davis performed her long monologue 23 times for the film.
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
Here’s what Davis told me about the scene:
“My whole theory about that speech is that it would be every woman’s speech if they’ve been in a marriage for a long time and their husband came home and said, ‘You know, I got another woman pregnant.’ Because there’s not one woman who hasn’t sacrificed a hell of a lot for her marriage. We’re the sacrificers.
“I always say that there’s one moment in a person’s life that is no-holds-barred, lack-of-vanity, absolutely traumatizing. It could be when a parent dies. It could be a really bad breakup where you have the snot-dripping, leaving-poop-and-pee-on-the-floor moment. Those are the moments you try to forget as much as possible because they are not our shining moments. They are moments that are purely animalistic where you’re operating out of instinct.
“I truly believe what Marlon Brando says — there are times when you’re in conversation with someone and you’re fighting for your life. And that’s this scene. Rose is fighting for her life. Her life is her husband and her son. That’s her purpose. He’s taken that all away.”
Mahershala Ali is the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar—ever
Mahershala Ali took home the first Oscar of the night, securing the best supporting actor trophy for his role as Juan in Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight.”
Ali is the first Muslim actor in history to win an Academy Award. He spoke movingly of his faith while accepting the SAG award for supporting actor for “Moonlight” last month.
“My grandma would want me to button up,” he said, after taking the stage, buttoning up his jacket. “I want to thank my teachers, my professors, my so many wonderful teachers.” He went on to talk about what they taught him and realizing that this moment wasn’t about him. “It’s not about you. It’s about these characters. You are a servant. You’re in service to these stories and these characters and I’m so blessed to have had an opportunity. It was about Juan, it was about Paula. Cast and crew, such a wonderful experience.”
Viola Davis wins for ‘Fences’
Viola Davis won the supporting actress Oscar for her role as Rose Maxon in “Fences.” Davis, who reprised her Broadway role, plays a woman navigating life with her overbearing husband in an adaptation of the play by August Wilson, directed by Denzel Washington.
With her nomination for “Fences,” Davis became the first African American actress to have scored three Academy Award nominations. She was nominated in 2009 for her performance in “Doubt” and again in 2012 for “The Help.”
Other nominees include:
Naomie Harris, “Moonlight”
Nicole Kidman, “Lion”
Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures”
Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”
Janelle Monáe adds a touch of fashion drama to the Oscars in her Elie Saab dress
We expected Janelle Monáe to make a grand entrance, and she didn’t disappoint on the Oscars carpet. Her sheer black tulle Elie Saab was adorned with a profusion of feathers and beads and a skirt worthy of Queen Elizabeth a couple of centuries ago. Only Monáe could carry off all this. And wear it with a crown by Jennifer Behr.
But it echoes a similar, if not sleeker, Elie Saab that Halle Berry wore to the Oscars in 2002 when she won for lead actress for “Monster’s Ball.”
And here is Berry on the 2017 red carpet wearing a gorgeous Atelier Versace that crisscrosses her in black tulle. She accented it with a thick head full of wayward curls. To put it simply: It’s a fun look.
50 shades of silvery gray rock the Oscars
Adorned in platinum, silver and several shades of gray, the nominees walking the Oscar red carpet mirrored the day’s gray skies, but took the neutral up a notch with loads of feathers, sequins and beads. Who shimmered in silver? Nominee Octavia Spencer in Marchesa, director Ava DuVernay in Ashi Studio of Beirut, actress Olivia Culp in Marchesa for Stella Artois and Matt Damon’s spouse, Luciana Barrosa.
‘Hacksaw Ridge’ wins for sound mixing
Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace win for “Hacksaw Ridge.”
Other nominees include:
Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye, “Arrival”w
Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee and Steve A. Morrow, “La La Land”
David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”
Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Mac Ruth, “13 Hours”
‘Arrival’ wins for sound editing
‘Arrival,’ a film about aliens visiting Earth, wins for sound editing.
Other nominees include:
Wylie Stateman and Renée Tondelli, “Deepwater Horizon”
Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan, “La La Land”
Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman, “Sully”
‘Captain America’s’ Chris Evans is the reigning best bang for the buck actor
2017 Oscar presenter Chris Evans is many things: the big screen Captain America, an ally of the LGBT community and even an avid Patriots fan. He is also Hollywood’s top actor when it comes to box office returns.
For two consecutive years Evans has topped Forbes’ Best Actor for the Buck list, meaning he has the highest box office payoff for his salary. While he may currently be busy sparring with white supremacists on Twitter, in 2016 Forbes calculated Evans earned studios an average $135.80 at the box office for every $1 he was paid.
Evans, of course, plays Steve Rogers in Marvel’s blockbuster superhero films. Kicking off with 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” Evans’ tenure as the super-serum enhanced soldier has included two additional solo films on top of his appearances in ensemble “Avengers” films.
Evans beat out fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe actors Chris Pratt (who plays Peter “Star-Lord” Quill in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films), Scarlett Johansson (who plays Avenger Black Widow) as well as Robert Downey Jr. (who plays “Iron Man’s” Tony Stark) to top the list.
‘O.J.: Made in America’ is now the longest film to ever win an Oscar
At 7 hours and 47 minutes, the Oscar nomination for “O.J. Simpson: Made in America” sparked a controversy about the fine line between a movie and a TV show. Though the documentary was aired in five parts on ESPN, it was released in theaters, making it Oscar-eligible.
In total, the documentary runs for 467 minutes. The previous longest winner, at 431 minutes, was the Russian adaptation of “War and Peace” which won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1969.
‘It’s pretty gnarly in there’: A star-studded peek behind the curtain at the Oscars
The hallway backstage was filling up shortly before the show. Security guards listened to their earphones.
Shirley MacLaine followed Alicia Vikander into the green room. Javier Bardem sipped a drink.
Meryl Streep chatted near a black curtain. Dakota Johnson, wearing a champagne-colored gown, ducked into the hallway bathroom. She emerged moments later with both a grimace and a grin: “it’s pretty gnarly in there.”
Two men in tuxes and wearing white gloves stacked Oscar statuettes on lighted shelves in the wings.
The red carpet erupts in cheers for Emma Stone
Lead actress nominee Emma Stone was greeted by cheers and applause as she made her way down the Oscars red carpet.
Stone, nominated for her portrayal of aspiring actress Mia in “La La Land,” is considered the front runner in her category.
TAKE A LOOK AT EMMA STONE’S RED CARPET FASHION THROUGH THE YEARS >>
‘O.J.: Made in America’ wins documentary Oscar
The 467-minute “O.J.: Made in America” wins best documentary Oscar.
Other nominees included:
“Fire at Sea”
“I Am Not Your Negro”
“Life, Animated”
“13th”
Jimmy Kimmel lobs a few zingers at Trump but keeps it lighthearted in Oscars monologue
“I want to thank Donald Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?”
That was one of many quips that Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel lobbed at President Trump during his opening monologue at the 89th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday.
While Kimmel’s approach was lighthearted and mild, his monologue included jokes about the Oscars’ issues with diversity among its ranks and nominees, and the recent policies by Trump that many in Hollywood have said are discriminatory.
“In Hollywood, we don’t discriminate based on where they’re from. We discriminate against them based on their age and weight,” quipped Kimmel.
Kimmel’s job was cut out for him opening an awards show in a year that’s been politically charged and included celebrities speaking out publicly against Trump’s policies. Last year, Oscars host Chris Rock riffed mostly about race issues in Hollywood.
Kimmel chose to tease Meryl Streep, whose Golden Globes speech ripped into Trump’s divisiveness and subsequently drew a derisive tweet from the president about her being “overrated.”
After picking up on that and calling her early work mediocre and accusing her of “phoning it in,” Kimmel called for a round of applause that turned into a standing ovation on the occasion of Streep’s record 20th nomination.
He concluded with a grin: “We’re gonna have fun tonight. Nice dress. Is that an Ivanka?”
Inside the insane (non-official) Oscars gift bag: $40,000 trips, diamonds and custom crayons
The opulent Oscars gift bags of 2017 include diamonds, crayons and a private mansion stay.
The (unofficial) Oscar’s swag bag is insane.
Lash Fary, who assembles the non-official Oscars gift bag, believes, emphatically, that “more is more” and fills his bags accordingly. There are things for kids: Customizable Crayola crayons, a children’s book, an electric scooter. There are less expensive items: A $2.99 protein bar, ChapStick, a CPR kit.
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
And there are a lot of things for supposed body improvement: weight-loss formulas, a plate that helps with portion control, seat mats designed to eliminate cellulite.
Plus a private stay at a mansion, a trip worth $40,000.
Fan-cy.
Jimmy Kimmel congratulates Oscar nominees, some of you may get tweeted at by the president!
Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel kindly reminded all the nominees that the president was (probably) watching and tweeting.
Some of you will come up onto this stage and give a speech that the president of the United States will tweet about in all caps during his 5 a.m. bowel movement tomorrow morning.
— Jimmy Kimmel, Oscars 2017 Host
Justin Timberlake knows what Denzel Washington likes
Justin Timberlake opened Sunday’s Academy Awards with a typically spirited performance of “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” his Oscar-nominated song from the animated movie “Trolls.”
But just in case anyone thought the former teen-pop star didn’t belong among the grown-ups at the Dolby Theatre, Timberlake fleshed out the song with a bit of “Lovely Day” by the veteran soul great Bill Withers. (Worth nothing: The tunes’ bass lines are crazy similar.)
“I know you know this, Denzel,” Timberlake said as he pointed to Denzel Washington in the audience — I guess because the “Fences” actor and Withers are both black men?
Maybe later Sting will quiz Viola Davis about Aretha!
‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ wins for costume design
Colleen Atwood won for “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”
Other nominees include:
Mary Zophres, “La La Land”
Madeline Fontaine, “Jackie”
Consolata Boyle, “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Joanna Johnston, “Allied”
Hey, Karl Lagerfeld, Meryl Streep is wearing Elie Saab
Meryl Streep, nominated tonight for a record-breaking 20th Oscar, wore Elie Saab Haute Couture.
The choice was more notable than usual because of a public he-said-she-said between the acclaimed actress and the famed Chanel couturier Karl Lagerfeld in the days before the ceremony.
Lagerfeld, speaking to Women’s Wear Daily, accused the Oscar-winning actress of reneging on her request that the French design house produce a gown for her.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
The creative director claimed that Streep dropped Chanel because her team “found somebody who will pay us.’ ”
Streep wasn’t having it, saying that the designer “defamed me, my stylist and the illustrious designer whose dress I chose to wear, in an important industry publication.”
“[T]he story was picked up globally, and continues, globally, to overwhelm my appearance at the Oscars on the occasion of my record-breaking 20th nomination, and to eclipse this honor in the eyes of the media, my colleagues and the audience.”
Her camp said that it was against her morals to accept payment for wearing a dress.
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
The fracas also became a punchline during Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue.
“Nice dress by the way. Is that an Ivanka?” Kimmel said, referring to President Trump’s daughter’s fashion line, which has also been in the news.
The “Florence Foster Jenkins” star wore a custom midnight blue satin ensemble by Elie Saab. The Lebanon-based design house described the outfit as having long sleeves and off-the-shoulder collar, teamed with a slim ankle trouser.
‘Suicide Squad’ wins for makeup and hair
Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson of “Suicide Squad” won.
Other nominees include:
Eva von Bahr and Love Larson, “A Man Called Ove”
Joel Harlow and Richard Alonzo, “Star Trek Beyond”
Jimmy Kimmel co-opts Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ for the Oscars
In a serious moment near the start of his Oscars monologue, host Jimmy Kimmel took the words right out of President Trump’s mouth.
Saying he wasn’t the guy to bring everyone together again, Kimmel suggested something he thought might work.
“If every person watching this show — there are millions and millions of people watching right now — and if every one of you took a minute to reach out to one you disagree with, someone you like, and have a positive, considerate conversation — not as liberals or conservatives, as Americans — if we would all do that, we could make America great again, we really could,” Kimmel said.
“It starts with us.”
Mahershala Ali wins for ‘Moonlight’
Mahershala Ali’s turn as a Miami drug dealer who takes a fatherless young boy under his wing won him the supporting actor Oscar.
Ali also won numerous prizes for his role in the film, including a SAG Award and National Society of Film Critics Award. This is his first Oscar nomination and win.
Other nominees were:
Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water”
Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”
Dev Patel, “Lion”
Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals”
For Oscars super fans, the red carpet is the place to be
Rows upon rows of Oscars super fans crowd into the red carpet bleachers every year to watch celebrities make their way into the Academy Awards.
Adam Shaw, an Army public affairs master sergeant, was one of the luckiest fans with an enviable seat, front row smack dab in the center of the bleachers. It was a prime pic-snapping, celeb-cheering position.
Dressed in uniform, Shaw was one of a group of 40 soldiers who were invited to watch arrivals at the Oscars. He said he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bring his wife.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
“Quite honestly, I don’t really have a favorite,” he admitted with a grin. “I want to see the Rock. Is he going to be here?”
Around the corner as the end of the star-studded red carpet led into the Dolby Theatre, Coreena Boothroyd, 20, was in a throng of college students with their iPhones out, snapping pics and cheering for passing A-listers.
“I’m excited to see Brie Larson,” said the aspiring screenwriter, who was one of 22 film students who flew in from Elon University in North Carolina for the Oscars. “I love Andrew Garfield... and I like Emma Stone.
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
“I liked ‘Hidden Figures’ and I can’t wait to see ‘Moonlight,’ ” added Boothroyd, also a fan of “La La Land,” craning her head down the carpet for a glimpse of Garfield. “But I won’t be mad no matter who wins.”
Even Ava DuVernay’s gown is making a statement tonight
Director Ava DuVernay hand-selected her gorgeous Ashi Studio gown as a statement against President Trump’s Muslim ban.
Jimmy Kimmel has never been to the Oscars before this year, but he has crashed the Governors Ball
Jimmy Kimmel may be the host of the 89th Academy Awards, but he wasn’t always on the official guest list.
Back in 1995 when Kimmel was working on the “Kevin & Bean” show, he spent the day of the Oscars trying to crash the official post-show party.
Kimmel, along with “Kevin & Bean” co-host Kevin Ryder, showed up at the Governors Ball dining room at noon that day and camped out for hours hoping to sneak into the party.
“I was wearing a tuxedo I had probably borrowed from my father-in-law, who outweighed me by 50 pounds,” Kimmel recalled to The Times’ Glenn Whipp. “I’m sure it was immediately obvious that we had no business being there.”
When security asked the pair to leave as the Oscars were ending, Kimmel dashed to a pay phone to call in to the radio station and asked a producer to read him a name from the show’s credits. While he failed to convince security that they were guests of the show’s producer Gil Cates, the duo made their way in when a sea of official guests headed to the entrance.
If getting into the party wasn’t enough of an achievement, Kimmel recalls that John Travolta went and got him and Ryder dinner.
“I think he could sense our fear of being thrown out,” said Kimmel.
Just don’t call ‘Manchester’ a Trump movie
“Manchester by the Sea” may not have the same woke sensibility or charged issues as some of the other best-picture nominees. But some behind the Kenneth Lonergan-Casey Affleck collaboration say it has plenty of social relevance just the same.
“It’s what’s going on in the country right now — a story of working-class white people,” said Amazon Studios head of marketing and distribution Bob Berney as he entered the Dolby Theatre on Sunday.
The film, released by Amazon and Roadside, has captured attention for its story of everyday people going through some extraordinary circumstances in coastal Massachusetts — the kind of people Hollywood doesn’t always depict.
But conflating that group with Trump voters would be a mistake, Lonergan said.
“It’s about working-class guys on boats, yes, but in a part of the country where a lot of people voted for Hillary Clinton,” Lonergan told The Times as he waited to enter the Dolby.
“That’s not a contradiction,” he added. “A lot of working-class people vote for Hillary Clinton. A lot of working-class people vote for Democrats.”
Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel sees you, Matt Damon
There were music videos, late-night stage-crashing, ultrasound cameos and seat assignment defacing. Now Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel is preparing to take his feuding shenanigans with Oscar winner Matt Damon to the next level.
“Dead man walking the red carpet,” Kimmel wrote in a pre-show tweet.
In the image he shared, Kimmel appeared to be reworking Sunday’s script to include a quip or two (or three) about his longtime frenemy. Damon, who is nominated as a producer of best picture nominee “Manchester by the Sea,” is seen giving a red carpet interview as Kimmel looks on.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
The gag started in the early days of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” when, in an effort to liven things up, Kimmel pretended that they didn’t have enough time to interview the A-lister. He doggedly kept it going complete with occasional “revenge” appearances by Damon.
Not surprisingly, the feud took on a life of its own -- with Damon ribbing Kimmel for losing the Emmy race when he was hosting the Emmy Awards in September -- and is now expected to be a highlight of Sunday’s show.
‘Moonlight’s’ Trevante Rhodes has seen the film 20 times. He’s ‘happy, but sad’ tonight
Why is “Moonlight” important?
The film is important because it helps you feel, the film is important because it teaches you, the film is important because just ... everything, I don’t know. This is film, it’s hard to explain but film is everything.
Are the Oscars important?
I have to say they are because I’m here, but it’s an amazing thing to have a film that we love like “Moonlight” be appreciated and received the way it is. So in that regard, the Oscars are amazing and important because it helps to elevate films that we care about. That’s why it’s important.
How do you feel to be at the end of this remarkable journey?
I love the film. I love everything about the film. I love the people, I loved the experience. I wish it could go on forever because again, I do love it. I saw it again two days ago and I still cried. I’ve seen it like 20 times. It’s really special and I know everything isn’t that special, but I’m appreciative to have had it, I’m appreciative of what it is and the things that came from it. So I’m sad. Happy, but sad.
‘Moonlight’s’ Barry Jenkins reveals what he’s doing after the Oscars
I’m going to Mexico. I’m going to the Yucatán.
— Barry Jenkins
On the red carpet, Nicole Kidman sparkles from head to toe
Nicole Kidman, nominated for actress in a supporting role for “Lion,” wins best-dressed ear lobes with dangling red-and-pink stones encircled by diamonds.
Her Armani Privé dress is perfection as well. It’s form-fitting, sleek and in a pale shade that complements the earrings.
OK, maybe she picked the dress first, but the earrings are the stars of the look.
On the red carpet, Nicole Kidman sparkles from head to toe
Nicole Kidman, nominated for actress in a supporting role for “Lion,” wins best-dressed ear lobes with dangling red-and-pink stones encircled by diamonds.
Her Armani Privé dress is perfection as well. It’s form-fitting, sleek and in a pale shade that complements the earrings.
OK, maybe she picked the dress first, but the earrings are the stars of the look.
Actor David Oyelowo on the growth of political discussion -- and of background noise
The “Selma” star weighed in with an opinion at the Oscars red carpet.
More people are getting comfortable talking politics. Is that a good thing?
I think it’s a good thing if you actually have something to say. I think, yes, there is a growth in political consciousness, but there’s also a growth in white noise and you’ve got to really sift through it to get to something of substance.
I don’t think everyone who has a platform is necessarily worthy of using it. But I think those that are, should, and that’s what makes this country great: freedom of speech.
Why do you think the Oscars still matter?
I think to celebrate this art form that is so influential is a good thing. It gives people an opportunity to be aware of films that they otherwise wouldn’t.
That’s one of the great things about any awards, but particularly the Academy Awards. Smaller films that are made for smaller budgets, “Moonlight” being a case in point. A film made for $1.5 million, if it didn’t have this kind of recognition, probably a lot less people would see it.
On the red carpet, here are two ways to stand out in Armani Privé
Here is Isabelle Huppert, nominated for lead actress for “Elle,” looking elegant, if a bit too sedate, in Armani Privé. The Repossi ear crawlers add some sparkly edge, though.
And then there’s Emma Roberts, also in 12-year-old Armani Prive look, carrying off a mere sliver of a lacy black bodice without looking tacky. In fact, she looks stunning in the gown.
Sony exec: ‘Fake news’ will give Asghar Farhadi the Oscar
Sony Pictures Classics executive Tom Bernard is not one to hold his tongue.
And he’s really not likely to shy away when it comes to the subject of the foreign-language film race, in which Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman” has lately eclipsed Maren Ade’s ”Toni Erdmann” as the front runner.
German submission “Erdmann” appeared to be coasting to a win when Farhadi, who is Iranian, said he would be boycotting the Oscars to protest President Trump’s travel ban. That turned the tide for the director, leading to coverage -- and a potential voting shift -- that didn’t sit well with Sony Pictures Classics.
“It’s fake news that will give Asghar the Oscar,” Bernard told The Times as he walked in to the Dolby Theatre on Sunday afternoon. “The media has made the foreign race about a vote against Trump and not about the films.”
Bernard, whose Sony Pictures Classics released Farhadi’s “A Separation” several years ago, said he didn’t blame the director for the development.
“He made one statement. Then the media went and blew it up,” Bernard said.
The executive wasn’t just bold on the question of the foreign-language film category. He had strong feelings about the leading actress category, too.
“Elle” star Isabelle Huppert is considered a longer shot to win against Emma Stone from “La La Land.” But Bernard feels confident about the upset.
“I think Isabelle’s got it,” he said of the veteran actress. Asked why specifically, he offered a simple assessment. “She’s done the work.”
Ava DuVernay and Chrissy Teigen are Oscars red carpet besties
Teigen’s sleek white-and-gold Zuhair Murad gown provided the perfect counterpoint to DuVernay’s voluminous gray Ashi Studio turtleneck dress, right on-trend with the night’s long-sleeved theme.
In Dior, Kirsten Dunst offers a fresh take on old-school sartorial drama for the red carpet
Kirsten Dunst’s black dress is simply magnificent. We’re loving the old-school glamour of the strapless black gown -- the wasp waist and the slightly shorter front hem with a train in back.
It’s Dior channeling classic Christian Dior. And what’s the bonus? This one has pockets; just our kingdom for an evening dress with pockets.
Lin-Manuel Miranda on how ‘The Little Mermaid’ changed his life
I’m standing here because I saw ‘Little Mermaid’ when I was 10 and it changed my life. I couldn’t believe they broke into a Caribbean tune in the middle of a Disney movie. And here I am with a nominated tune for a Disney movie. How ... cool is that?
— Lin-Manuel Miranda
Director of Oscar-nominated documentary says the current White House looks down on ‘diversity and difference’
Roger Ross Williams, director of Oscar-nominated documentary “Life, Animated,” took a moment to talk about the importance of diversity while on the red carpet.
“Film has to reflect the real world,” Williams said. “In this political climate, where diversity and difference is looked down upon by the administration, by the President, it’s important that we have a voice.”
Williams also has a leadership role in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of three documentary branch governors. He plans to use his power to promote more diversity in Hollywood.
“I think it’s time for Hollywood, it’s time for the Academy to step up and fill that gap. It’s not coming from the White House, it’s not coming from Washington, it has to come from us,” Williams said. “And as governor I hope that I can play a big role in pushing diversity forward.”
It’s Take Your Mom to the Oscars Day for Lucas Hedges and Dev Patel
The 89th Academy Awards were a family affair on Sunday. The go-to Oscars date for a few first-time nominees came in the maternal variety.
Like Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper before them, “Manchester by the Sea” supporting actor nominee Lucas Hedges got a sweetly embarrassing smooch from his mother, poet and actress Susan Titman, for all to see, “Moana” original song nominee Lin-Manual Miranda was accompanied by his mother, Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, and “Lion” supporting actor nominee Dev Patel was joined by his mom, Anita Patel.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
Mahershala Ali looks sharp in monochromes from day to ‘Moonlight’
The “Moonlight” and “Hidden Figures” star opted for all black at the Academy Awards tonight, a deep departure from his all-white (with black accents) look at the SAG Awards. Check out all of Mahershala Ali’s red carpet looks here.
Hosts Elton John and David Furnish arrive at the EJAF Oscars viewing party
Hosts Elton John and husband David Furnish have arrived at the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s 25th annual Academy Awards Viewing Party in West Hollywood Park.
“It’s our silver anniversary this year. David and I haven’t reached that milestone yet,” the singer told reporters on the event’s white carpet. He was in Burberry, while Furnish wore Saint Laurent.
“We started at a small restaurant on Maple Drive, raised $300,000 and thought, ‘That’s not bad. Let’s try that again,’” John said.
At the 2016 viewing party, $6.2 million was brought in for EJAF.
Low temps, long sleeves at the Oscars
Leading ladies led a trend for long sleeves on the Oscars red carpet. Isabelle Huppert of “Elle” and model/cookbook author (and wife of John Legend) Chrissy Teigen showed how to make the look alluring by sporting sheer fabrics loaded with sparkling embellishments.
Oscar nomination of sound mixer on Benghazi movie ’13 Hours’ is pulled
Citing a violation of campaign regulations, the motion picture academy announced Saturday that it has rescinded the Oscar nomination for sound mixer Greg P. Russell from “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”
“The decision was prompted by the discovery that Russell had called his fellow members of the sound branch during the nominations phase to make them aware of his work on the film, in direct violation of a campaign regulation that prohibits telephone lobbying,” the academy said in a statement.
The remaining sound mixers from “Benghazi” — Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Mac Ruth — will remain as nominees.
‘Moonlight’ composer Nicholas Britell wasn’t sure his unconventional chopped and screwed score would work
What inspired the film’s chopped and screwed score?
We were talking, and initially I was feeling the poetry of the film. I was trying to channel that idea of poetry into music and then Barry [Jenkins, the director of “Moonlight”] told me about how much he loved chopped and screwed music.
We just had this idea where like, what if I wrote and fully recorded my music, my classical orchestral music, and then what if we chopped and screwed it as like a second part of the process? That’s one of those things where I think it sounds cool, but you don’t know if it’s going to work, you know? And what’s cool with film music is you don’t know until you put it up against the picture if it’s right. You really don’t know. And what was amazing was as we started doing these explorations, it totally worked. It felt like it was part of the movie. It felt like it was a way of evolving the music along with Chiron’s own personal journey, and that was really exciting. And certain places we would do different experiments.
What’s cool with film music is you don’t know until you put it up against the picture if it’s right. You really don’t know.
Some of the tracks are bent so far down that they’re just like a rumbling, like during the schoolyard fight, some of them are actually more like cellos that I would bend and they sound kind of like basses. It’s always different... most of the cues have some element which is evolved in some way.
Last month, you did a live orchestration to accompany the film. What was it like to do a live orchestration while the film is going on?
That was unforgettable for me. It actually took a long time to prepare for that. I worked on it for almost three months, because with the chopping and screwing, some of that is actually not playable on the instruments. You take a violin and you bend it and then you get it to a range where the violin can’t play it. So I spent a lot of time figuring out how do we do it live because when you’re playing with it live you want it to be live. So there were places, for example, where I would have a violin that I bent to sound like a bass so we’d have a bass play it. So I would sort of reassign some things.
Why do the Oscars still matter?
I think it’s very special for there to be a celebration that is really a celebration of the arts. It’s a celebration of people’s artistic work, and especially in the world today, I think it’s something that’s really important that people have an opportunity to showcase what they’ve done and also for the audience to respond to those works. So I view it as, all the people here are artists in their own way. Every department of the film, these are real masters of their craft. So I think it’s wonderful that there are these celebrations.
Blue ACLU ribbons make a statement on the Oscars red carpet
Academy Award attendees on Sunday made activism a must-have red-carpet accessory.
Those blue ribbons affixed to the formal attire worn by model Karlie Kloss, original song nominee Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Loving” nominee Ruth Negga and “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins represent the American Civil Liberties Union’s new “Stand With ACLU” initiative.
By wearing the pin, the celebrities are showing their support “for the rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to everyone in the United States,” the ACLU said in a statement.
“I’m wearing an ACLU ribbon because they’re fighting incredible fights right now for American ideals,” Miranda said.
Ahead of Oscars, Ava DuVernay honors Trayvon Martin on anniversary of his death
Before Sunday’s Oscars celebration, director Ava DuVernay and other stars are donning hoodies to honor Trayvon Martin on the fifth anniversary of his death.
DuVernay, who’s nominated for documentary feature for her film “13th,” tweeted a photo of herself holding up a gray hoodie, similar to the one Martin was wearing when George Zimmerman shot and killed him, emblazoned with “TRAYVON” in black letters.
And DuVernay wasn’t alone in her support on social media.
Emma Roberts supports sustainable fashion by wearing a 12-year-old Armani gown
Emma Roberts’ red-carpet ensemble shows that “sustainable fashion” doesn’t necessarily mean “made out of recycled soda bottles.”
Roberts, one of the stars on this year’s red carpet raising awareness of sustainable style through Suzy Amis Cameron’s Red Carpet Green Dress program (another is Priyanka Rose), turned out wearing an Armani Privé gown from the designer’s first Privé collection, which debuted in Paris in January 2005.
It’s a spaghetti strap couture dress embroidered with cream crystals and waves of small white jet beads featured in a two-tiered skirt. The plunging bodice is made of jet and black crystal teardrops, and the look is finished off with a black satin cummerbund.
Saving the planet -- one vintage garment at a time.
Taraji P. Henson brings Hollywood glam and elegance to the red carpet
This may be the best that Taraji P. Henson has ever looked on a red carpet. Elegant and sexy in custom Alberta Ferretti, she looks like a cross between a Hollywood siren and a John Singer Sargent portrait.
We’re loving the bib of diamonds, by Nirav Modi, around her neck and wish more stars swathed themselves in jewels on Oscar night.
Jackie Chan brought two pandas to the Oscars
Jackie Chan managed a plus-two for the red carpet -- he showed up with two toy pandas, one boy and one girl, wearing UNICEF pins.
The martial-arts icon is a goodwill ambassador for the charity, and he’s been taking stuffed pandas Chan La and Chan Zy on the road for years now.
Keepin’ it wavy at the Oscars
Loose, sexy waves that recall the Golden Age of Hollywood make a statement on the Oscars red carpet. They’re also weatherproof on a windy and rainy day.
Ruth Negga looks positively regal in rubies
Sure, it’s still early in the game to handicap the red-carpet arrivals, but lead actress nominee Ruth Negga (“Loving”) is our first serious contender for the evening’s best-dressed list.
SEE RUTH NEGGA’S RED CARPET LOOKS FROM THIS AWARDS SEASON >>
In addition to a red Valentino gown with lace detail, Negga, who worked with stylist Karla Welch this awards season, made her entrance wearing a headpiece, earrings and rings by L.A.-based jewelry designer Irene Neuwirth featuring Gemfields responsibly sourced Mozambican rubies.
The look, as one comment on Twitter put it, is “regal AF.”
We couldn’t agree more.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
Trump supporters rally against ‘Hollywood elites’ ahead of the Oscars
A small group of President Trump supporters rallied Sunday in Hollywood in advance of the Academy Awards.
The group held its demonstration outside the Metro station near the corner of Hollywood and Vine, not far from the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars ceremony will be held.
About a dozen protesters carried signs, Trump banners and American flags, chanting such slogans as “Celebrities don’t speak for us” and “Hollywood, don’t divide us.”
The protest was called by the San Fernando Valley for Trump Celebration group, which said it believed “Hollywood elites” were trying to divide America.
‘The White Helmets’ director: ‘People from the Middle East and film can help change that narrative’
In politically fraught times, film becomes a more important tool than ever when it comes to exposing audiences to realities unlike their own.
Those individuals behind Netflix’s Oscar-nominated documentary short “The White Helmets,” a film about volunteer rescue efforts in war-torn Syria, are well aware of how vital film is to giving people insight into what’s happening on the other side of the world.
Director Orlando von Einsiedel said Sunday afternoon that he thinks that film is uniquely positioned to create understanding.
“There is so much misunderstanding about Muslims and people from the Middle East and film can help change that narrative,” he said during a moment on the red carpet.
“Film is a window and can create empathy,” added producer Joanna Natasegara.
“This is such an incredible platform to shout loudly,” Von Einsiedel said.
A reminder that the ‘Moonlight’ kids are already the best part of this awards season
The cast of “Moonlight” had plenty to celebrate Saturday night after the film took the top prize at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.
The film’s young stars showed all the adults how it’s done by tearing up the dance floor at the Spirit Awards after-party. Alex R. Hibbert and Jaden Piner, of course, have already stolen the hearts of many during this awards season.
Just look at the joy on Trevante Rhodes face when he encountered his co-stars on the SAG Awards red carpet back in January.
Leading actress nominee Ruth Negga arrives wearing what’s sure to be this year’s Oscar must-have accessory
Capping an incredible spike in donations and new memberships, the American Civil Liberties Union has made its way onto the Academy Awards’ red carpet.
Ruth Negga, who’s nominated for best leading actress for her work in “Loving,” was among the stars sporting the tell-tale blue ribbon in support of the ACLU.
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
SEE RUTH NEGGA’S RED CARPET LOOKS FROM THIS AWARDS SEASON >>
Make your 2017 Oscars picks on the L.A. Times ballot
Although the official voting period for the 89th Academy Awards closed on Feb. 21, it’s not too late for you to fill out your own ballot for Sunday’s main event.
In how many of its 14 nominations will “La La Land” come out on top? Will “Moonlight” ride its momentum from Saturday’s Spirit Awards win to claim best picture or will SAG Award winner “Hidden Figures” take the prize? Will Meryl Streep have another chance to make another winning acceptance speech?
Need a little help? You can take a look at Times awards columnist Glenn Whipp’s predictions here.
Cast your ballot, save your picks and share them with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure to check back later to see how well you fared with your predictions.
The Los Angeles Times is live from the Oscars red carpet
The Los Angeles Times is live on the red carpet at the 89th Academy Awards, where Hollywood is braving a chilly afternoon on its way into the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland.
Follow The Times’ crew all day on social media for news you won’t see on TV from the red carpet, the show, backstage and the after-parties.
From Kendrick to Aretha, hear the ‘Moonlight’-inspired mixtape
Going into Sunday’s Oscars with eight nominations and a wave of critical acclaim, “Moonlight” has inspired its own mix-tape.
Created by OG Ron C and the Chopstars, “Purple Moonlight” riffs on the film’s soundtrack by remixing it with a “chopped not slopped” (or “chopped and screwed”) overhaul. Slowing down songs such as Goodie Mob’s “Cell Therapy” and Aretha Franklin’s “One Step Ahead,” the mix-tape also throws in tunes (Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” Erykah Badu’s “Tyrone”) that would have worked well in the film.
Listen to the soundtrack above.
Judging from “Moonlight” writer-director Barry Jenkins’ Twitter account (fair warning: coarse language ahead), he’ll be doing exactly that tonight — assuming his hands aren’t full of Oscars.
And proving that stars are just like us, check out how Jenkins spent his Oscar morning.
Red carpet alert: Keep your eyes peeled for the ‘nambas’ of ‘Tanna’ group
If you’re looking for some serious standout style on this evening’s Academy Awards red carpet, keep your eyes peeled for the attendees representing the Australian film “Tanna,” which is a nominee in the category of best foreign-language film.
PR representatives tell us the film’s two co-directors and three of its stars (all from the island of Tanna on Vanuatu in the South Pacific) are expected to hit the carpet in their usual native garb that includes traditional skirts and decorations made from local plants, rolled on rocks in the river, and dried and shaped by hand, as well as a “nambas,” a penis sheath made from the leaves of a local plant that we’re told resembles a banana tree.
Get ready for the Oscars Lin-Manuel Miranda-style: With karaoke
How would you prepare for a weekend that could see you winning your first Oscar? If you’re anything like Lin-Manuel Miranda, you’d sing a little karaoke with friends.
That’s exactly what the “Hamilton” mastermind did Thursday night, when he attended the premiere party of the Seeso series “My Brother, My Brother and Me” at an Echo Park bar and thrilled the crowd with a rendition of R. Kelly’s “Ignition (Remix)”.
Naomie Harris, Octavia Spencer have a quick spa day before their Oscars red carpet stroll
Who wouldn’t want to relax before the start of the 89th Academy Awards?
Before their red carpet moments, Naomie Harris, nominated for best supporting actress for “Moonlight,” and Octavia Spencer, nominated in the same category for “Hidden Figures,” took some time for a break and a chance to relax before the parties, the red carpet, the awards show and the after-parties.
How perfectly La La Land.
Can you guess who wore these Oscar dresses?
If you’re looking for a style-centric time-waster in the run-up to the red carpet arrivals at the Dolby, we humbly suggest trying your hand at our Oscar Fashion Face-off Quiz.
This is a revamped and revised version of the quiz that debuted during last year’s Academy Awards coverage. We’ll spot you the dress, the silhouette — and a couple of hints — and all you need to do is pick the correct actress from three possible choices before the 20-second timer expires.
Good luck!
Emma Stone has been using the same glam squad for at least 7 years
Makeup artist Rachel Goodwin shared a throwback photo from seven years ago with Emma Stone as she helped the actress prepare for her very first Academy Awards show.
Stone, of course, is among this year’s lead actress nominees for her portrayal of aspiring actress Mia in “La La Land.”
TAKE A LOOK AT EMMA STONE’S RED CARPET FASHION THROUGH THE YEARS >>
Will anti-New York Times tweet ‘Trump-bump’ the Oscars?
An ad for the New York Times, scheduled to run during Sunday night’s Oscars, has already drawn the ire of President Trump. The 30-second spot, which focuses on the nature of truth, was released online after the New York Times and other outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, were barred from a White House press briefing. As if on cue, the president responded with a derogatory tweet, calling the spot a “bad” attempt to save what he considers the paper’s “failing reputation.”
But if history proves any indicator, Trump’s response will simply draw more attention to the ad, the first the Times has run in more than 15 years.
So even though the president has said he won’t be watching the Oscars, he may have already provided the telecast a ratings bump.
Look for these ACLU, Planned Parenthood and GLAAD pins on tonight’s Oscar red carpet
Political statements message were out in force on the red carpet and beyond at 2017 Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica in Santa Monica, from the likes of “American Honey” actress Sasha Lane, who had a “Black Lives Matter” moment during arrivals and “Moonlight” writer-actor Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose pro-GLAAD lapel pin was visible backstage while he and director Barry Jenkins showed off their winning statues.
On Sunday morning, Brie Larson gave fair warning that it wouldn’t let up: Political statements would be made on the Oscars red carpet.
Even before the political climate heated up, Hollywood was been vocal in a visual way when the opportunity arose.
Fame and media attention intersect most intensely on the red carpet, be it at Sunday’s Academy Awards or premieres or film festivals in any given year. That makes the carpet a great place for Hollywood celebrities to broadcast their message du jour.
Click below to check out some political statements made on Hollywood’s awards and premieres red carpets in recent years.
A sneak peek at the Oscars stage: The Academy Awards stage goes Art Deco
One half expects the ghosts of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to swirl across the silver skyline rising inside the Dolby Theatre for Sunday’s 89th Academy Awards. The stage set glitters with more than 300,000 Swarovski crystals and is an homage to the sly and urbane musicals of the 1930s.
Production designer Derek McLane says the sets were inspired by the Art Deco and Hollywood Regency styles that resonated in films such as “The Broadway Melody” and “Top Hat,” the 1935 musical starring Astaire and Rogers. The stage evokes the sensation of wandering in a tux and tails through a metropolis on a starry, if misty, night. The award show’s producers, Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd, wanted a look that would summon the past with flair and elegance.
“They really felt that we ought to have something that was happy and delightful, maybe a little escapist so you could look at it and say, ‘This will be fun,’” says McLane, a trim man with a flop of hair and a scarf. He’s been the production designer on five Academy Award ceremonies. “There’s a little nostalgia, and it’s a real tribute to what’s fun about Hollywood.”
Oscar-shaped salmon, caviar and food, glorious food! Wolfgang Puck teases the delights of the Governors Ball
Can’t get into the Oscar’s afterparty, a.k.a. the fabulous Governors Ball? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Take a look at the food, glorious food that will be served right after the Academy Awards ceremony.
After months of SoulCycle classes, trips to the sweat lodge and scant carbohydrates, most of the stars who walk into the Governors Ball after the show are ready to indulge.
And if Emma Stone, Viola Davis or Ryan Gosling want to pig out post-Oscars, Wolfgang Puck will be prepared. The Hollywood staple — who is catering the fancy party for the 23rd consecutive year — unveiled his seemingly endless menu on Thursday. And there’s comfort food galore: Baked macaroni and cheese, chicken pot pie, lava cakes, lobster corn dogs, gold-dusted truffle popcorn, and baked potatoes with caviar.
The early view from the Oscars red carpet
Tre’vell Anderson hit the shuttle early to get into position on the dry-for-now red carpet. He’ll have dispatches throughout the afternoon.
Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel and Amy Schumer get Oscar-ready, each in their own unique manner
Justin Timberlake gave us a sneak peek at his musical performance for the Academy Awards ceremony, with a behind-the-scenes clip of his dancing warmup.
Meanwhile, his wife, Jessica Biel was prepping herself for pizza and Amy Schumer wandered the streets looking effortlessly chic in a pink comforter. Stars, they’re just like us!
Mahershala Ali’s perfect prize ending to a meteoric year: fatherhood
The envelope hasn’t been opened yet, but “Moonlight” star Mahershala Ali is already celebrating: The first time Oscar nominee is also a new dad.
Four days ago, he welcomed his first child, a baby girl, with wife Amatus Sami-Karim.
“It is its own award season,” Ali laughed to The Times earlier this month as the couple was on baby watch, “equally demanding of your presence.”
Ali’s exceptionally fruitful year saw his 16-year career skyrocket in 2016 with an Emmy nomination for his fourth season as “House of Cards’” Washington insider Remy Denton, and an acclaimed run on Netflix’s “Luke Cage.”
But it was his riveting turn as Juan, an empathetic drug dealer who takes a fatherless young boy under his wing in Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight,” that earned the Northern California native his first Oscar nomination and sent the actor on a whirlwind awards tour collecting one trophy after another, including the Screen Actors Guild award for supporting actor.
“It’s a wonderful thing to experience, compared to years past,” said Ali, acknowledging the progress reflected in a historically diverse Academy Awards field just a year after #OscarsSoWhite.
“I hope it inspires not only creatives but the studios to really invest in a range of ideas and narratives that feature people of color — in leading roles, or in parts that are critical to the arc of the stories.”
The soft-spoken Ali made a emotional statement this awards season on the SAG stage. Delivering a message of unity and acceptance just days after President Trump ordered a travel ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, Ali declared to the world, “I am a Muslim.”
“It was a very hard decision to make,” Ali said of his speech. “There’s nothing more personal than our ideology, and in some cases our theology. I’m an artist, and I want the space to be able to do my work and keep certain things private. But I felt a responsibility to shed light on how personal this position is for me, and perhaps draw a tie for everyone by personalizing the struggle within my own family of having a different point of view.
“I normally wouldn’t do that,” he added. “I’m not one to reveal a bunch of things about my personal life. I really just want to do this work. But I felt that was appropriate because I thought there was something there that I could offer people in what is a really challenging time, for Muslims and for everyone. And I took that opportunity very seriously. I was nervous about it but it felt necessary.”
And now, a few weeks after his personal declaration on stage at the SAG awards, Ali has revealed another private joy the first image of their daughter.
Oscar voters love happy endings (but ‘La La Land’ will probably still win)
[Spoiler alert: This post contains plot reveals from a bunch of old movies, and a newish one.]
Pundits use all kinds of metrics to predict the big winners at the Oscars. But there’s one that’s proved overwhelmingly indicative in recent years: The movie with the happy ending wins best picture really, really often.
Since 2000, the nominee with the unabashedly sweet finish has won in nearly two-thirds of all instances, 10 out of 16 years. In many of those years, the winning film defeated a close contender that didn’t have a happy ending -- “The King’s Speech” over “The Social Network,” “Argo” over “Lincoln,” etc.
Even in the outlying six years, the winner almost always had at least a partly happy ending, uplift mixed in with the sadness. Michael Keaton’s physical body may or may not have survived the end of “Birdman,” but he’s certainly in a better place, as Emma Stone’s gaze reminds us. Is it a happy occasion that Jeremy Renner is returning to Iraq at the end of “The Hurt Locker”? No. But he’s happy about it, and isn’t that all that matters?
There’s only one best-picture instance in the last 16 years with a pure downbeat ending: “Million Dollar Baby.” And even there, we knew it was coming about halfway through.
In short, there’s not been a surprise unhappy ending so far this century.
One reason for that seems pretty clear. A happy ending puts Oscar voters in a good mood. They leave the theater or turn off the screener with some warm feelings about the world and are thus more likely to remember or vote for a movie. No matter the hardship that came before, the tidy resolution makes everything OK, and thus makes a vote OK. (Also known as : the “Slumdog Millionaire” phenomenon.)
So where does that leave Sunday’s front-runner “La La Land”?
The ending of Damien Chazelle’s musical was certainly a surprise; if you didn’t hear about it, you didn’t know Seb and Mia didn’t end up together. Was it also unhappy? I’ve had this discussion with many friends. It’s certainly not unabashedly happy. But is it unhappy? You could certainly make the case. At the very least it’s melancholy. (Unhappy, of course, is not the same as unwelcome, as Chazelle has been convincingly reminding us this season.)
We’re not predicting a “Hidden Figures” upset as a result of all this. If it happens, though, look no further than the happy-ending theory. And if “La La Land” does win, it will make some unhappy history.
Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘feud’ with Matt Damon spills over to the Oscars
The long-running “feud” between Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel is alive and kicking at the Oscars.
For years the two have been battling it out publicly in the ongoing bit. There was the rather catchy music video Damon and Kimmel’s then-girlfriend (now ex) Sarah Silverman made revealing their affair. That led to a follow-up video from Kimmel and Ben Affleck revealing theirs.
Damon showed up to the Emmy Awards ceremony when Kimmel lost, and even more recently popped in at Kimmel’s ultrasound proclaiming that he was actually the father of Kimmel’s future baby.
Two days ago, the host for this year’s Oscars ceremony was seen defacing Damon’s seat card during rehearsals. Fingers-crossed that this means similar shenanigans from the two on stage tonight.
Read our full interview with host Jimmy Kimmel >>
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
Here’s who’s going to win all 24 Oscar categories
After six months of campaigning and cajoling and trying to get “City of Stars” out of our heads, the Oscars are finally here. So it’s time for some final predictions for today’s ceremony.
Ready?
“La La Land!” Repeat it nine times. Add the dynamic duo from “Fences” and sprinkle in a little “Moonlight.” And then cut to Meryl, clapping and crying.
So here we go, category by category. Let’s get started before the orchestra plays us off ...
Picture
Winner: We’ve pretty much covered this, right? A movie doesn’t earn a record-tying 14 nominations and not win best picture. If you want to get hammered on Oscars night, choose the words “La La Land” for your drinking game.
Director
Winner: Damien Chazelle, “La La Land.” Voters will want to reward the creative force behind the best-picture winner.
Lead actor
Winner: Denzel Washington, “Fences”
Alternate: Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
This feels like one of those times when the critics’ favorite who steamrolled through the early part of the awards season gets usurped by a more obvious, broadly appealing choice. (Think “Mystic River’s” Sean Penn besting “Lost in Translation’s” Bill Murray or “Birdman” prevailing over “Boyhood.”) Washington’s imposing work in “Fences,” acting with a capital A, is the kind of performance that usually prevails over inward turns like Affleck’s in “Manchester.” (Though not always — remember Mark Rylance won an Oscar last year for his lovely, understated performance in “Bridge of Spies.”) To put it another way, adding some historical context: Denzel is probably going to drink Casey’s milkshake.
A rainy red carpet forecast for Oscars as new storm moves into L.A.
Rain moved into Southern California on Sunday, but it’s decidedly lighter than downpours from the recent storms that battered the region.
Forecasters said the storm could send sprinkles over the Academy Awards this afternoon and evening in Hollywood. Oscars organizers have been preparing for the possibility of rain.
Overall, the storm is expect to generate less than a half an inch of rain in most areas, with the snow level falling to 4,000 feet.
Celebrities on the red carpet might want to bring a warm coat with their umbrella, as temperatures could put a chill on the festivities. Temperatures are expected to reach a high of 59 degrees by 2 p.m. Sunday, then drop.
The last time it rained at the Oscars was in 2015, when a sea of umbrellas could be seen on the red carpet as light rain swept across Southern California.
The rain ripped right through a tent (pictured right) and spilling onto the red carpet, ruining many an updo.
The Academy Awards’ top-secret, highly guarded red carpet isn’t actually red
There is only one Academy Awards and there is only one color of red used for the shows’ red carpet. Installers from Signature Systems Group talk about what it takes to lay down the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
As Tinseltown readies to tip-toe down the famous Oscar red carpet, they should probably know that what they’re stepping on isn’t actually “red.” It’s closer to burgundy and has been for the last 15 years.
The exclusive shade — called Academy Red — is supposed to flatter the A-list actors who are photographed and videoed walking on it. It’s a secret color, one whose precise specifications the show’s organizers won’t reveal for fear of copycats.
A deep dive into the meticulous act of creating the famous Academy Awards red carpet. >>
Meryl Streep’s response to Karl Lagerfeld over her Oscars dress is a real-life ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ sequel
The drama over Meryl Streep’s Oscar dress has escalated from a catty call-out to a total Streep throwdown. Karl Lagerfeld should know better than to mess with the 20-time Oscar nominee.
Days after Lagerfeld told Women’s Wear Daily that Streep would wear only a dress made by a fashion line that paid her to do so, the actress has fired back at the Chanel designer in a impassioned statement.
“Karl Lagerfeld, a prominent designer, defamed me, my stylist and the illustrious designer whose dress I chose to wear, in an important industry publication,” the 67-year-old said Saturday.
Furthermore, Streep said, the “controversy” — yes, she used this word in quotes — has become such a popular story that the news is getting more traction than her best-actress nod for “Florence Foster Jenkins.”
“[T]he story was picked up globally, and continues, globally, to overwhelm my appearance at the Oscars on the occasion of my record-breaking 20th nomination, and to eclipse this honor in the eyes of the media, my colleagues and the audience.”
Though it remains to be seen whom Streep will be wearing in front of the flashbulbs Sunday, it obviously won’t be Chanel. Lagerfeld said Chanel initially planned to dress Streep for the big night, but after sketching a gown and beginning production, he was told “Don’t continue the dress. We found somebody who will pay us.”
Streep’s camp responded to the WWD remarks Thursday, insisting that it was against her morals to accept payment for wearing a dress. Chanel followed up by saying the fashion house understood she was “considering options” from other designers, and that “when informed ... that Ms. Streep had chosen a dress by another designer there was no mention of the reason.”
That response clearly didn’t suffice for the star, who on Saturday said she still wants an apology from Lagerfeld and WWD.
“I do not take this lightly, and Mr. Lagerfeld’s generic ‘statement’ of regret for this ‘controversy’ was not an apology. He lied, they printed the lie, and I am still waiting.”
Everything you need to know about the Oscars
Pop the Champagne, shimmy into that gown and call the limo — it’s time for the Oscars, darling.
While the majority of us are more likely to call an Uber and cozy up on a friend’s couch in sweats to watch the ultra-glam event, that doesn’t change the fact that the 89th Academy Awards are Sunday.
What time does the show start? And on what channel?
The film industry’s marquee event, which will be hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, will air live on ABC starting at 5:30 p.m. Pacific.
Pre-show festivities, including “The Oscars: All Access,” will kick off on the network and online via live stream at 4 p.m. Pacific.
Who are the nominees?
Awards will be handed out in 24 categories during the telecast, and diversity is far more prevalent in this year’s class, with nonwhite actors nominated in every acting category. Meanwhile, Damien Chazelle’s musical, “La La Land,” dominated the nominations tally, pulling down 14, including for lead actor, lead actress, director and best picture. Here is the complete list of Oscar nominations
Natalie Portman will not be attending the Oscars
Walking the Oscars’ red carpet is a chore even under the best of circumstances. When you’re several months pregnant? Forget it.
At least, that’s what Natalie Portman is saying. The Oscar nominee, lauded in the lead actress category for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in the biopic “Jackie,” has announced she won’t be attending Sunday’s ceremony, citing her pregnancy. Portman is in her third trimester.
“I feel so lucky to be honored among my fellow nominees and wish them the most beautiful of weekends,” Portman said in a statement.
Portman was pregnant with her first child, her son, Aleph, when she won the Oscar in 2011 for “Black Swan.” Referring to her impending motherhood, she thanked choreographer Benjamin Millepied, now her husband, for giving her “the most important role of [her] life.”
Portman was nominated alongside Emma Stone (“La La Land”), Isabelle Huppert (“Elle”), Meryl Streep (“Florence Foster Jenkins”) and Ruth Negga (“Loving”).
ALERT: Beyoncé and Jay Z have joined Oscar season
IMPORTANT OSCARS ANNOUNCEMENT: Beyoncé is here.
There was plenty of star power in the room even before America’s entertainment king and queen arrived: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Salman Rushdie, Nicole Kidman.
But when Beyoncé and Jay Z strolled into the Weinstein Co.’s pre-Oscar dinner at 10:45 on Saturday evening, no one else seemed to matter. Just a few minutes after the famous couple entered the party -- flanked by half a dozen hulking bodyguards -- Harvey Weinstein made an announcement.
The studio head ran back up on the stage where Cynthia Erivo, Christopher Jackson and Corbin Bleu had just finished performing a handful of songs from the Broadway musical “In the Heights” to request the musicians redo the first five minutes of their act so that Bey and Jay could watch.
The performers must have been members of the Beyhive, because they immediately obliged.
So why were the soon-to-be parents of twins at the Montage Beverly Hills on Saturday night? Perhaps their cameo was due to the docu-series about Kalief Browder that Jay Z produced with the Weinstein Co., set to air on Spike TV next week.
Or maybe they’re just big fans of “Lion,” the company’s film vying for best picture. We tried to get close enough to the couple to ask which movie they’d be rooting for, but no such luck -- those bodyguards were blocking every potential angle.
At least we had another couple to admire: “Lion’s” Dev Patel and 8-year-old costar Sunny Pawar, whose adorable friendship has frankly been the highlight of our award season.
Though he fell asleep at the Golden Globes ceremony last month, Pawar seems to have the late-night party scene down by now. He and his dad left only a few minutes before Beyoncé and Jay Z, who only lasted at the party for about a half an hour.
Here is the complete list of 2017 Oscar winners and nominees
The winners of the 89th Academy Awards are being announced live from Hollywood now.
A quick recap: “La La Land” was the top nominee, notching a record-tying 14 nominations. “Moonlight” and “Arrival” followed with eight nods each.
Already, Mahershala Ali won for his role in ‘Moonlight.’ His win comes after back-to-back years in which the academy did not recognize any nonwhite actors. This year, each of the four acting categories feature at least one nominee of color.
Here is the list of nominees:
Picture
- “Arrival” | Review
- “Fences” | Review
- “Hacksaw Ridge” | Review
- “Hell or High Water” | Review
- “Hidden Figures” | Review | Interview
- “La La Land” | Review
- “Lion” | Review
- “Manchester by the Sea” | Review
- “Moonlight” | Review
Directing
- Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”
- Mel Gibson, “Hacksaw Ridge” | Interview
- Damien Chazelle, “La La Land” | Video
- Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight” | Video | Interview
- Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea” | Video
SEE THE COMPLETE LIST OF NOMINEES HERE >>
SEE ALL OUR PHOTOS FROM THE OSCARS RED CARPET >>
SEE PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE SHOW >>
Note: This post is being updated to reflect the winners.