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      'Colette,' From the Video Game Medal of Honor, Wins an Oscar

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      “Colette,” which was featured in the virtual-reality video game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, took home the award for best documentary short.It was a night of firsts: First Korean actor to win an Oscar, oldest performer to win best actor, first woman of color to win best director.And, for the video game industry, its first Oscar recognition for best documentary short.The statuette was for “Colette,” a short film featured in the Oculus virtual-reality game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, which is also the first Oscar for Facebook. (It owns Oculus, the virtual-reality group that produced the documentary short along with EA’s Respawn Entertainment.)The 24-minute film, directed by Anthony Giacchino and produced by Alice Doyard, follows a survivor of the French Resistance, Colette Marin-Catherine, as she returns to Germany for the first time since the end of World War II to visit a concentration camp where the Nazis killed her brother, Jean-Pierre.“The real hero here is Colette herself, who has shared her story with integrity and strength,” Mike Doran, the director of production at Oculus Studios, said in a statement. “As we see in the film, resistance takes courage, but facing one’s past may take even more.”Medal of Honor, which is set during World War II and casts players as an Allied agent trying to outwit the Nazis, did not garner much acclaim as a video game. Many reviewers criticized it for its huge system requirements, which were largely the result of the inclusion of so much historical and documentary footage.But now that the film has won an Oscar — well, that might change a few minds. Or at least get it in front of the eyes of nongamers. You can watch “Colette” free online on Oculus TV or YouTube, or on the website of The Guardian, which later acquired and distributed the film.“We hope this award and the film’s reach means” that the memories of all of who resisted “are no longer lost,” Doran said. More

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      Anthony Hopkins Wins Best Actor Over Chadwick Boseman

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      We have an upset.Anthony Hopkins, who won a best actor Oscar almost three decades ago (not two decades as was reported earlier), received another on Sunday, denying the late Chadwick Boseman a prize many thought would go to him posthumously. In a twist this year, the best actor award was the last one of the evening, resulting in an abrupt end to the ceremony, given that Hopkins was not in attendance.Hopkins, 83, was rewarded for his towering performance as a London patriarch struggling with dementia in the drama “The Father,” which appeared to gain momentum with voters down the homestretch of awards season. He is now the oldest actor to ever win an Oscar.“It was easy,” he told The New York Times about playing the role. “Just so easy.”In a review for The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis wrote, “Hopkins has never been an especially physical actor — most of the magic happens above the neck — but here he pushes his capacity for small, telling gestures and stillness to distressing limits.” She added, “It’s an astonishing, devilish performance.”Hopkins won the Oscar for best actor in 1992 for his performance in “The Silence of the Lambs”; he was nominated two more times in the category, in 1994 (“The Remains of the Day”) and 1996 (“Nixon”). He has also been nominated for best supporting actor twice, though has never won.Boseman won the Golden Globe for best actor earlier this season for his performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” one of dozens of awards he garnered for the Netflix adaptation. But Boseman never got to see the film; he died of colon cancer at age 43 three months before “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” was released. More

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      Firsts and Breakthrough Wins at the Oscars

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      This year’s Academy Award nominees were historically among the event’s more diverse lineups: Seventy women earned nods across 23 categories, and nine people of color were nominated for their acting.Even before the winners were announced, there were several notable breakthroughs — including best actor nominations for Riz Ahmed, the first Muslim man to be so recognized, and Steven Yeun, the first Asian-American actor to be included in the category. And for only the second time in Oscars history, two Black women — Viola Davis and Andra Day — were in the running for best actress.And while a sweep of the acting categories by people of color did not materialize, there were plenty of other firsts:A Korean first: Yuh-Jung Youn is the first Korean actor to win an Oscar. It was the first nomination for the performer, whose turn as the wry grandmother in “Minari” also earned her SAG and BAFTA awards this season. “Maybe,” she said Sunday in her speech, “it’s American hospitality for the Korean actor.”Honors for aging winners: Anthony Hopkins, at 83, became the oldest actor to win best actor. He won for his performance as a man suffering from dementia in “The Father.” With Ann Roth’s victory for the costume designs in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” she has become the oldest woman to ever win an Oscar. She is 89.A directing breakthrough: Chloé Zhao, the filmmaker behind “Nomadland,” is the first woman of color to win — and to be nominated — for best director. She is just the second woman to win the category, following Kathryn Bigelow for “The Hurt Locker.” A makeup and hairstyling breakthrough: Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson, who worked on “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” are the first Black women to win this award (and to be nominated for it). “I know that one day it won’t be unusual or groundbreaking,” Neal said in her acceptance speech. “It will just be normal.”And finally, a losing streak: Glenn Close, nominated for supporting actress for “Hillbilly Elegy,” hit a less exciting milestone: After eight fruitless nods, she has tied the record held by Peter O’Toole for most acting nominations without a win. More

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      Anthony Hopkins Accepts Oscar, Paying Tribute to Chadwick Boseman

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      “At 83 years of age I did not expect to get this award,” Hopkins said of his best actor win in a video posted early on Monday morning.About four hours after he won best actor at the 93rd Academy Awards in an upset, Anthony Hopkins delivered his acceptance in a video from Wales, taking a moment to acknowledge the actor who had been widely expected to win posthumously, Chadwick Boseman.“At 83 years of age I did not expect to get this award — I really didn’t,” said Hopkins, who won for his role as a patriarch struggling with dementia in “The Father.”On Sunday night, Hopkins became the oldest actor to win the award, almost three decades after his first Oscar win in the category, for “The Silence of the Lambs.”The award provided a strange ending to the ceremony. When Boseman was awarded a Golden Globe for best actor earlier this year, the emotional acceptance speech given by his widow, Taylor Simone Ledward, was the emotional highlight of the night. Perhaps with that in mind, the Oscars switched the traditional order of categories this year so that the best actor award came last, after the best picture had already been awarded.Boseman, who had been widely expected to win, did not — and Hopkins was not present to accept the award in person or virtually, resulting in a stilted, anticlimactic ending.Chadwick Boseman, in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”David Lee/Netflix, via Associated PressSocial media erupted with indignation at the win, with many saying the award should have gone to Boseman for his role in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43 in August, months before “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” was released.“I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman who was taken from us far too early,” Hopkins said in his video, which was posted to social media.Posted in the morning in Wales, the video was short and sweet, with Hopkins thanking the typical cast of characters in the caption to his Instagram post: the film’s production company, his talent agency, his family.“Thank you all very much,” Hopkins said. “I really did not expect this.” More

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      Chloé Zhao Wins Oscar for Best Direct of 'Nomadland'

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      Chloé Zhao on Sunday became the first woman of color, first Chinese woman and second woman ever to win the Oscar for directing, capping off a historically impressive run of honors she has amassed this awards season for her work on the drama “Nomadland.”In accepting the award, Zhao recalled a phrase she had learned as a child that she said translated from Mandarin to “people at birth are inherently good.” “I have always found goodness in the people I met everywhere I went in the world,” she said. “So this is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves. And to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that. And this is for you, you inspire me to keep going.”This year’s Oscars marked the first time in its history that more than one female filmmaker was nominated for the best director in a single year. In addition to Zhao, Emerald Fennell scored a nomination for “Promising Young Woman.”Before this year, only five female filmmakers had been recognized in the director category. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the first and only woman to be named best director until Zhao won the category on Sunday.Earlier in the awards season, Zhao took home the top directing prize at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards and the Directors Guild Awards and she has won similar accolades from several other groups.“Nomadland” has also garnered wide praise and several honors. The movie tells the story of a widow who travels the country in a van and joins the itinerant work force while connecting with other Americans she meets along the way. Zhao adapted the movie from Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book of the same name and used several nonprofessionals in the cast, including people featured in Bruder’s book.Zhao, who adapted and helped produce “Nomadland,” was nominated for four Oscars in all: directing, adapted screenplay (which she lost to Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller of “The Father”), editing and best picture. More