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      Laverne Cox on a Year as the Red Carpet Host of ‘Live From E!’

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      LOS ANGELES — Don’t get her wrong. Laverne Cox loves Joan Rivers.“Joan is for me the originator of everything,” Ms. Cox said. The comedian, who died in 2014, was the first host of “Live From the Red Carpet,” now called “Live From E!,” and perhaps the best-known red carpet commentator in history.Ms. Rivers could bite with the strength of a diamond-collared toy poodle, drawing blood that only sometimes splashed back on her. She’d scream and curse and fire off jokes about celebrities’ bodies and outfits. There was scorched earth all over the trails she blazed.“But I’m not Joan, there’s only one Joan, and the times are very different, too,” said Ms. Cox, 50, wrestling with whether she wanted to use the phrase “political correctness,” or if that was too dated. “It would be a tricky time for Joan.”Ms. Cox, the current star of E!’s red carpet show, doesn’t bite like that. She considers herself a nerd, particularly when it comes to the craft of acting — casually citing Chekhov in conversation, and once reciting a Macbeth monologue on air, egged on by Denzel Washington, while producers urged her to wrap it up.She skews more “fan girl” (her words) than “Fashion Police,” the former E! talk show with segments including “starlet or streetwalker.” Ms. Cox did make appearances as both a “Fashion Police” guest and subject. Giuliana Rancic, who preceded Ms. Cox as the network’s red carpet host, once praised her during a Screen Actors Guild Awards recap. “I love Laverne Cox,” she said, “and I don’t want to say anything bad.” Then she called her dress “hideous.”Generally, the red carpet no longer nurtures this kind of discourse. There has been a shift, over the last decade, from seeing famous people as wealthy elites deserving of mockery to just-like-us humans deserving of compassion. E! hiring Ms. Cox, whose first show as host was in December 2021, seems to be part of this shift.Laverne Cox at a “Live From E!” rehearsal on the champagne carpet, before Sunday’s Academy Awards. Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times“We were looking for a fresh voice and fresh perspective, particularly somebody who could be both a Hollywood insider and a fan,” said Cassandra Tryon, the senior vice president for live events for NBCUniversal television and streaming (NBCUniversal owns E!). “It’s like moving from a journalistic interview to a host of a party, and everybody wants to talk to the host.”The strategy, according to the network, has been working. While awards shows have struggled with viewership, the Grammy Awards’ live carpet telecast in February drew about 1.1 million viewers — the most for any E! program since 2020 (surpassing a season premiere episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”).“It is a craft too, by the way, to be a host,” Ms. Tryon said, sitting in a room at the Hollywood Roosevelt, where the courtyard becomes an E! set during the Oscars. It was the eve of what she called the network’s Super Bowl.Oh, the humanity.“I feel nervous,” Ms. Cox said toward the end of rehearsals late Saturday afternoon. Outside of the Dolby Theatre, plastic still covered the champagne-colored carpet and mummified a jumbo Oscars statue facing the E! cameras.She had spent five hours on Friday reviewing and reworking questions for the nominees and presenters. There was a thick stack of cue cards for every name — some confirmed to stop and speak to Ms. Cox on the carpet, others more wishful. (“We always prep Cate” — Blanchett, that is — “and she never stops,” Ms. Cox bemoaned to her producers.) A card could have four questions, but once cameras start rolling, only one or two may make it to air.During rehearsal, she not only read her scripted lines, but she also practiced asking questions to stand-in actors playing Colin Farrell, Lady Gaga and more. Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesThe Oscars carpet is a particularly overstuffed carpet; E! doesn’t get a platform here, unlike at some other ceremonies. Which means there is a steady torrent of people — attendees, staff, photographers, publicists, assistants — jostling behind Ms. Cox as she works.Her interviews must be quick, to maximize the number of high-profile guests featured during E!’s three-hour broadcast, which jumps between Ms. Cox’s carpet interviews and a group of commentators at the Hollywood Roosevelt, or stationed on a nearby rooftop.Ms. Cox has an earpiece and at least two people cuing her on-site: a stage manager and a supervising producer named Sam Bellikoff, the creator of the cue cards and master of pronunciations (“Ana de Armas,” “Banshees of Inisherin”), who sometimes sits at Ms. Cox’s feet, tapping her leg. (One piece of E! interviewing wisdom imparted by Ms. Tryon: Skip asking people how they’re feeling, since everyone asks that, and the answers are often generic.)In explaining what she’s trying to accomplish as a host, Ms. Cox pointed to a Grammys interview with Machine Gun Kelly, in which he admitted to lacking “self-love,” in the context of losing awards. Ms. Cox told him: “Ultimately, there’s nothing outside of us that can make us love ourselves more. It has to come from inside.”That moment epitomized her desire to “create space for people to come and be themselves,” she said. “It can be frivolous. It can be silly.” She has no problem screaming as if she’s about to faint, casually asking her co-hosts for “tea” or referring to her interview subjects as just “girl.”“But it can also be deep,” she said. “What does it mean to be human?”“Thank you for sharing that,” Ms. Cox told Machine Gun Kelly at the Grammys in February, after he spoke about his need for validation.E!She interviewed Questlove, who won best documentary feature in 2022, at the Academy Awards on Sunday. E!Speaking to Questlove on Sunday about his next documentary — about Sly and the Family Stone and mental health in the Black community — Ms. Cox cited the phrase “post-traumatic slave syndrome,” coined by Joy DeGruy. “Where was the mental health after emancipation?” Ms. Cox said. Later in the show, she asked the director Sarah Polley about Rooney Mara’s use of a fart machine on the set of “Women Talking.” She whips between nuance and nuttiness.“In doing this job, I feel like the public has gotten to see a different side of me,” said Ms. Cox, who is best known for her role on “Orange Is the New Black,” which was on Netflix from 2013 to 2019, and earned her four Emmy nominations and two SAG ensemble acting awards. “It’s been a different way for me, hopefully, to highlight people’s humanity. As an artist, we’re arbiters of empathy and humanity. And I think it’s possible as a red-carpet host to also do that.”Yet it’s harder to do that in 60-second increments, in the heat of a celebrity battle zone, dodging Molotov cocktails of opulence and Ozempic.Speaking by phone on Monday, Ms. Cox said she felt “off” during the previous night’s broadcast, during which she completed 31 interviews (according to E!). She had some trouble breathing comfortably after choosing a particularly tight corset to wear with her Vera Wang gown (“ethereal Blade Runner,” she called the sea-foam-and-black look), and she noticed the Oscars guests seemed more weary, compared with their excitement at the start of the awards season.Ms. Cox between interviews (she did 31 of them) on Sunday.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesMs. Cox is handed cue cards with questions printed on them from a large alphabetized stack.Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times“I think I was frustrated with wanting to have deeper interactions and having so little time,” she said. “I’m always looking for connection. I’m always looking for something that feels authentic and unexpected.“There’s never enough time.”‘What story are you telling us with this look tonight?’If there’s one thing alone that will define Ms. Cox’s tenure as a red carpet host, it’s the way she has retooled the question “Who are you wearing tonight?”Backlash to that question began to swell in 2015, when celebrities including Reese Witherspoon drew attention to a campaign called #AskHerMore. After the #MeToo movement took off in late 2017, there was a call for interviewers, including Ms. Rancic and Ryan Seacrest on E!, to ask more substantive questions too.Yet Ms. Cox, a fashion enthusiast — she wore a vintage Mugler suit to her rehearsal Saturday — had no intention of eliminating the discussion of fashion. After she took over the hosting job, she asked attendees: “What story are you trying to tell with your look tonight?”The quality of answers vary. Sometimes they’re funny or thoughtful, and sometimes, as Austin Butler said of his Saint Laurent suit on Sunday night: “I don’t know what story I’m telling you. I just thought it was a beautiful tuxedo.” That’s fine with Ms. Cox, too. “The question for me is just an invitation to think differently about what we put on our backs,” she said.It is a question that has been applauded by the Representation Project, the organization behind the #AskHerMore campaign: “The way that she is approaching questions about fashion is a layer I’ve never seen on the red carpet,” said Caroline Heldman, the executive director. Ms. Heldman added that there is still work to be done. The Representation Project tracked four hours of red carpet coverage on Sunday night — two on ABC and two on E! — and found that women were still twice as likely as men to be asked about what they were wearing.A hair and makeup touch-up on the red carpet. Ms. Cox had “never worn anything like this Vera Wang dress before,” she said. “It’s good to take risks.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesBut the question is also rooted in Ms. Cox’s experience as a transgender woman. “My own relationship to fashion has always been an attempt to communicate to the world who I am,” she said. “Pre-transition, there was someone inside that was not reflected on the outside.”Generally, though, Ms. Cox said she appreciates that her identity and activism aren’t at the forefront of her hosting role: “What I do love about my job at E! is that, particularly as a host, I’m openly trans, but it’s not about me being trans.”Last month, at the Grammys, Ms. Cox was approached by Dylan Mulvaney, a TikTok creator who has been documenting her own transition, and who wanted to make a video with Ms. Cox. In the clip, Ms. Cox cautioned Ms. Mulvaney to “make sure you keep things to yourself — everything cannot be the public.”It was classic advice from Ms. Cox, who considers herself a private person. She referred to “having a cry” recently over not spending much time with her boyfriend, though when she was pressed for more details, she said she was “trying to keep him off the radar.”Ms. Tryon said E! considers Ms. Cox’s activism “as a plus” that gives her “a unique connection to celebrities.” That connection is the priority, Ms. Tryon said, along with “how to make it fun and light and safe for Laverne’s guests.”Ms. Cox said the only hesitation she had before taking the hosting job was whether it would make people in the industry, and in the public more widely, “forget that I’m also an actor,” she said. She is less worried about that now. Next week, she’ll travel to Georgia to begin work on a sitcom produced by Norman Lear. Her contract with E! runs through the end of 2023.But her appreciation for acting is not something that many in her E! audience — those watching the long hours of rapid interviews — are likely to forget. Often her questions and comments touch on the preparation and physicality and history of acting. She once got a note from her producers that said the audience didn’t like these craft questions, she said. It didn’t stop her.“I’m an actress,” she said. “I’m obsessed with craft.” More

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      The Daniels Win Best Director for ‘Everything, Everywhere All At Once’

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      Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won the best director Oscar for their poignant, warmhearted multiverse mash-up, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” on Sunday night, making them the rare set of paired directors to win the big prize.Academy officials said they were just the fifth set of director duos to be nominated. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins won for “West Side Story” (1961) and the Coen brothers won for “No Country for Old Men” (2007), though they later lost for “True Grit” (2010). Warren Beatty and Buck Henry also received a nod but not a statuette, for the 1978 comedy “Heaven Can Wait.”“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which premiered last April, was a hit with audiences and critics alike. Although the Daniels gleefully incorporate hot-dog fingers and everything bagels into their head-spinning, world-jumping movie, which they also wrote, the film is, at its core, about family and its many complications. It stars Michelle Yeoh as a laundromat owner at odds with everyone from the I.R.S. to her loving husband and rebellious daughter.The Daniels, as they are collectively known, came into the night as heavy favorites. Sunday’s win adds another honor to an impressive awards-season run for the Daniels, who also took top prizes at the Directors Guild Awards and the Critics Choice Awards.Both of the Daniels used their stage time to thank their parents.“Thank you for not squashing my creativity when I was making really disturbing horror films or really perverted comedy films or dressing in drag as a kid, which is a threat to nobody,” Scheinert said.“We are all products of our context. We are all descendants of something and someone. And I want to acknowledge my context,” Kwan added. “My immigrant parents, my father who fell in love with movies because he needed to escape the world and thus passed that love of movies onto me. My mother, who was a creative soul, who wanted to be a dancer, an actor and singer, but could not afford the luxury of that life path, and then gave it to me. My incredible brothers and sisters, who helped me survive the chaos of childhood.” More

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      ‘Naatu Naatu’ From ‘RRR’ Wins Oscar for Best Original Song

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      “Naatu Naatu,” the rollicking dance hit from the Indian blockbuster “RRR,” won the Oscar for best original song, beating out two songs featuring American pop megastars.It’s not the first Indian number to win the award — that would be A.R. Rahman’s tune for the British-made “Slumdog Millionaire” — but it is the first from an Indian production.In the Telugu-language film, set in 1920s colonial India, the song figures in a marathon dance-off that was filmed in front of the Mariinsky Palace in Ukraine before the Russian invasion. M. M. Keeravani, the song’s composer, used duffs, an Indian skin drum, for the main beats, adding in mandolins for the melody. The lyricist Chandrabose, who is known for his work in Tollywood, that is, Telugu cinema, has said he wrote most of the words in about an hour.“I grew up listening to the Carpenters, and now here I am with the Oscars,” Keeravani said in his acceptance speech, singing a rendition of the group’s song “Top of the World” but with lyrics about his joy at winning the award.What does “Naatu Naatu” mean? As Keeravani explained to The Times, “Naatu means ethnic: something we own ourselves, something completely unique, something that belongs to one’s own identity. That is Naatu. Naatu means country. It’s a song from the countryside. It’s about everything that happened in our own country, in our own village; something you cherish for life.”The Oscars ceremony included a performance of the song, with its rapid-kick choreography and roguish suspender snapping.The song beat others from “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Tell It Like a Woman.”Rihanna’s “Black Panther” hit, “Lift Me Up,” was also a front-runner for the award. The hymnlike ballad with a prominent string section was the pop star’s first solo song in years, drawing significant attention. On Sunday, the pop star’s performance ended with a standing ovation.For “Top Gun,” Lady Gaga performed “Hold My Hand,” an emotional power ballad. Written by Gaga and BloodPop, the song’s music video featured the pop star in classic “Top Gun” apparel: a white tank top, a dog tag necklace and aviator sunglasses.The nominated song from “Everything Everywhere” was “This Is a Life,” by the indie-rock band Son Lux, featuring Mitski and David Byrne. The song is played in the end credits, and the lyrics — “I choose you, and you choose me” — speak to core messages in the film.The original song nomination was the only nod for “Tell It Like a Woman,” which features seven short stories with female protagonists, some of them fictional and some inspired by true events. Written by Diane Warren, the song, “Applause,” would have been a major victory for the songwriter after 13 previous nominations in the same category and no wins. She did take home a Governors Award earlier in the season, the Oscar equivalent of a lifetime achievement honor. At that ceremony, held in November, she said, “I’ve waited 34 years to say this: I’d like to thank the academy!” More

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      Best Oscars Red Carpet Looks: Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett and More

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      Color was already a buzzword by the time the first stars showed up at the 95th Academy Awards, thanks to the new champagne rug that replaced the traditional red carpet.And as nominees and guests started to appear, so, too, did most every color of the rainbow: Angela Bassett arrived in purple and Dwayne Johnson in pink. Cate Blanchett went with blue; Sandra Oh with orange; and Fan Bing Bing with green. Rounding out the spectrum were gowns in yellow, worn by the costume designer Ruth E. Carter, and red, worn by the model Cara Delevingne.But it was white that might have emerged as the most popular shade of the night: Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Williams, Andrea Riseborough, Harry Shum Jr., Paul Mescal, Emily Blunt and Mindy Kaling all wore it. Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana DeBose, Zoe Saldana and Eva Longoria also wore white-leaning outfits, some of which sparkled because of liberal bedazzling.At an event that is basically the Olympics of dressing up, to ask who looked the best is something of a trick question because everyone looked glamorous. (One scroll through our full list of outfits from the carpet makes that clear.) The 21 looks that follow, though, had a little something extra — more polish or personality or panache (or all three) — that made them stand out more than most.Finishing this awards season strong and elegant.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCate Blanchett: The Most Restrained!The actress, who took on the role of an imperious orchestra conductor in the film “Tár,” reminded audiences that she is also a maestro of the (red) carpet when she arrived in a strong-shouldered velvet top from Louis Vuitton’s archives tucked gracefully into a trim silk skirt.Distinctive and daring.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDanai Gurira: The Most Updo!The square neckline on the actress’s gown projected strength. So did her gravity-defying hair — styled by Larry Sims — which Ms. Gurira said made her feel her most “African self.”Why wear an ordinary tuxedo?Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHarry Shum Jr.: The Most Asymmetrical!“East meets West” is how the actor described his custom tuxedo by Adeam, a label that traditionally makes women’s wear. The looser fit, asymmetrical lapel, navy piping and sash belt were all elements that made it more fun than your average penguin suit.Taking the shirtless trend to a new place.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesRiz Ahmed: The Most Subtle Pink!The actor’s Prada look, a black suit with a pink wool cardigan peeking out (and a bare chest peeking out beneath that), was perhaps best described as Batman meets Harry Styles.The only way to capture this dress properly was from the side.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHong Chau: The Most Party in the Back!A mandarin collar was a detail specifically requested by the Vietnamese actress for her satin Prada gown, which was adorned with a shimmering black train. The look, according to Ms. Chau, paid homage to her roots and to the brand’s 1997 show.More on the 95th Academy AwardsA24’s Triumphant Night: The art-house studio behind “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Whale” became the first studio in the history of the Oscars to capture the top six awards in the same year.Normalcy Reigns: After breathing a sigh of relief that the night went smoothly, our co-chief film critics discussed the academy’s carefully staged return to (fingers crossed?) a new normal.Oscar Fashion: Rihanna’s belly, Florence Pugh’s shorts and Cate Blanchett’s archival velvet brought new relevance to awards show dressing, our fashion critic says.After-Parties: Take a look inside the Governor’s Ball and Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, where the stars and filmmakers celebrated with moguls, musicians and models.Making it look easy.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesNicole Kidman: The Most Flowers!She might not have not been up for any Oscars this year, but that did not stop the actress from dressing (and posing) like a winner in a shiny black Armani Privé gown with giant flowers at the shoulder and the hip and a leg-revealing front slit.Sharper than a stealth bomber.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesJennifer Connelly: The Most Mach 10!The actress’s black Louis Vuitton gown had a gem-studded trapezoidal neckline that soared upward toward her jaw, like a runway lit up at night.A dress that is also a balancing act.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesJanelle Monáe: The Most Statuesque!Orange is reportedly among the least worn colors on awards-show carpets. Fitting, then, that the singer and actress known for taking style risks chose a tangerine-colored skirt to complete her custom Vera Wang ensemble.She always goes for it.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesFlorence Pugh: The Most Doing It!Shorts? At the Oscars? If anyone could make them work it would be the English actress, who sported a black pair beneath a voluminous gray-white Valentino couture gown made more edgy by her mini bangs and septum ring.Can we have this dance?Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesPaul Mescal: The Most Flared (Pants)!The internet’s boyfriend looked refreshingly retro and ready for prom in his white Gucci dinner jacket, complete with a rose on the lapel, and flared black trousers.A shape shifter, Lady Gaga always surprises.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesLady Gaga: The Most Poker Faced!The singer and actress kept it relatively simple in a sheer black Versace gown straight off the runway. (Days before the Oscars, Gigi Hadid modeled the dress at the brand’s show in Los Angeles.) And instead of incorporating red meat into the look, she went with a red lip.Getting better and better every year.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAngela Bassett: The Most Purple!The actress’s snake-shaped necklace and soft wavy hair were two elements of a regal look that was anchored by a flowing Moschino gown in a purple shade that Ms. Bassett described as “the color of royalty.”Don’t let the sweetness fool you.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAllison Williams: The Most Killer!Like the A.I. humanoid robot she shares the screen with in “M3GAN,” the actress slayed the Oscars carpet in her sheer crystal-encrusted dress by Giambattista Valli, which she topped with a billowing pink satin coat.A winning shade.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDwayne Johnson: The Most Ballet!“Ballet pink” was how the actor described the color of his double-breasted Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket, which he said had a wool base that brought out the piece’s “masculinity.”She went all out with one leg and one arm out.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCara Delevingne: The Most Rosey!No red carpet, no problem. Thanks to the model and actress, who wore a scarlet one-shoulder Elie Saab dress with a high slit, the color was not totally absent from this year’s awards ceremony.Calm after the storm of “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesStephanie Hsu: The Most Spacious!“I am wearing Valentino Haute Couture and it is giving ‘taking up space,’” the actress said of her strapless ball gown, which she paired with simple — if not sparkly — jewelry and side-swept hair in loose waves.A look that says: Go your own way.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesSarah Polley: The Most Comfortable!Though the screenwriter and director of “Women Talking” may prioritize dressing practically — “I don’t ever like to be cold, and I don’t like my feet to hurt,” she said of her outfit on the carpet — her ruffle-trimmed shirt suggested that she appreciates playfulness as well.No risk of this dress blowing up over a subway grate.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAna de Armas: The Most Marilyn!It reportedly took 1,000 hours to make the petals that formed the skirt of Ms. de Armas’s silvery Louis Vuitton gown. In it, the actress looked as much like Marilyn Monroe, whom she portrayed in the film “Blonde,” as any others who have recently tried to channel the Old Hollywood icon.Oceanic.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHalle Bailey: The Most Disney Princess!Of the many princess dresses on the carpet, the singer’s poufy aquamarine Dolce & Gabbana gown arguably stood out the most. Why? Because of the buzz surrounding her role playing a Disney princess, Ariel, in the forthcoming live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”Schwing!Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHarvey Guillen: The Most Twirl!The shape of the actor’s brocade Christian Siriano suit jacket was matched only by his beautifully swirled hair shellacked into shiny waves.No matter where he goes, there he is.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesLenny Kravitz: The Most Lenny!The rock star showed up to perform at the Oscars looking as fine as ever in a low-cut satin Saint Laurent top with lots of necklaces layered over his exposed chest. When you have a working formula, as he does, stick with it.Stella Bugbee, Sadiba Hasan, Callie Holtermann, Madison Malone Kircher, Anthony Rotunno and Wilson Wong contributed reporting. More

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      The Oscars TV Broadcast Is Becoming Increasingly Ordinary

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      A show that’s become a shrink-wrapped, anodyne exercise stuck safely to the script.To paraphrase Greta Garbo, give me back my slap.No, of course onstage assaults are unacceptable. But the 95th Academy Awards could have used a jolt of some kind as they wound their way through three and a half hours on Sunday night. There was a crisis team in place to handle the fallout from any unexpected catastrophes like Will Smith’s attack on Chris Rock at last year’s show, but there was nothing it could do about the ordinariness and sameness of the ABC broadcast.The audience in the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles roared for the early victories of sentimental favorites like Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (for best supporting actor and actress) and the late — very late — victories of the film’s writers and directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, and star, Michelle Yeoh. And their speeches were stirring. But at the end of the now endless awards season, we knew that they would be, and we had a pretty good idea what they would say.There is now, through no one’s individual fault, a consistently promotional, exhortatory, shrink-wrapped feeling to the Oscars. After the depredations of streaming video and Covid-19, no chances are being taken. Jimmy Kimmel, reviving the role of the solo Oscar host, got off some good lines in his monologue — the movies are still distinct from television because “a TV show can’t lose $100 million.” (Though in the age of Netflix and Amazon, is that true?) But on balance it was safe, with the sharp jibes reserved for easy targets who weren’t there, like James Cameron and Tom Cruise. (“L. Ron Hubba Hubba,” maybe the best line of the night.)Kimmel addressed Smith’s slap at length without really talking about it. He focused on what would happen in the extremely unlikely event anyone went rogue this year, pointing out performers in the audience whose screen characters were brutal enforcers — Pedro Pascal of “The Mandalorian,” Michael B. Jordan of “Creed III” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” It was an odd way to signal that violence was unwelcome.(Smith, last year’s best-actor winner, was replaced as a presenter for the lead acting awards by Halle Berry.)More on the 95th Academy AwardsA24’s Triumphant Night: The art-house studio behind “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Whale” became the first studio in the history of the Oscars to capture the top six awards in the same year.Normalcy Reigns: After breathing a sigh of relief that the night went smoothly, our co-chief film critics discussed the academy’s carefully staged return to (fingers crossed?) a new normal.Oscar Fashion: Rihanna’s belly, Florence Pugh’s shorts and Cate Blanchett’s archival velvet brought new relevance to awards show dressing, our fashion critic says.After-Parties: Take a look inside the Governor’s Ball and Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, where the stars and filmmakers celebrated with moguls, musicians and models.In current fashion, the show opened not with a production number but a film montage, in this case a series of behind-the-scenes clips from nominated films. The attempt to hook audiences by bringing them inside the process of filmmaking and award-giving was also reflected in the deconstructed see-through set.The win for “Navalny” for best documentary feature was an early highlight.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThis contemporary feint toward inclusiveness — if they can’t nominate more female directors, at least they can make viewers feel as if they’re getting an inside look — contrasts, for better and worse, with the glossy insiders’ party that the Oscars used to be.The surely unintentional effect, in a broadcast that sang the praises of the theater experience, is to make the movies feel smaller — more suited for the laptop screen and the Netflix interface. Winners don’t stick in the mind they way they used to. Did you remember that “Dune” took home six awards last year, twice as many as any other film? Or that “CODA” won best picture? (You’re welcome.)In this context, the purely promotional segments on Sunday — a long plug for the Academy museum, a creaky salute to Warner Bros.’ 100th anniversary — felt right at home but also, in their reinforcement of the show’s lumpen unremarkableness, more irritating than ever.And seemingly harmless attempts to signal virtue can backfire, as in Kimmel’s awkward and eventually condescending exchange with Malala Yousafzai.As always, there were moments that pierced the veil. The victory of “Navalny” in the documentary feature category, while its subject, the dissident Alexei Navalny, languishes in a Russian prison, was indelible. Julia-Louis Dreyfus and Paul Dano were polished and funny in their presentation of costume design; the award’s winner, Ruth Carter of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” movingly invoked her mother, who had just died at the age of 101, asking the actor Chadwick Boseman to look for her in the afterlife. Yeoh, given carte blanche to emote, showed that feeling could be conveyed in an acceptance speech that was largely polished and non-self-aggrandizing.David Byrne injected a welcome note of weirdness, if not musicality, in the performance of the best-song nominee “This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The production number “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR,” Lady Gaga’s unplugged performance of “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick” and Rihanna’s rendition of “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” were unimpeachably professional. But the musical highlight of the night was undoubtedly the snatch of the Carpenters’ “Top of the World” sung by the composer M.M. Keeravani when “Naatu Naatu” won best song.When Kimmel wasn’t forced to ad-lib, he and his writers were generally on point. A call for audience votes on whether Robert Blake should be included in the In Memoriam segment was slyly handled. (He wasn’t.) A joke about the editing of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol didn’t mention Tucker Carlson or Fox News but made its point.The good moments, however, couldn’t change my sense that the modern Oscars have become something more to be endured than enjoyed. If you wanted a glimpse of the zeitgeist on Sunday night, HBO (“The Last of Us”) and TLC (“MILF Manor”) were the places to look. More

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      Why Oscar Attendees Were Wearing Blue Ribbons

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      The Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro and the nominated actress Cate Blanchett were among several participants at the Academy Awards on Sunday who donned blue ribbons in support of refugees who fled their homes to escape war, conflict and persecution.As part of the #WithRefugees initiative, the United Nations Refugee Agency invited del Toro, Blanchett, best actor nominee Bill Nighy, “All Quiet on the Western Front” director Edward Berger and “Triangle of Sadness” star Dolly de Leon to wear the ribbons.Blanchett, one of the agency’s Goodwill ambassador, said that when she met with refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Bangladesh and Britain, she was struck by the similarities she shared with them rather than their differences.“What I love about film is the way it draws us into compelling human themes to uncover the connective tissue that binds us all,” Blanchett said in a statement.The pins were also present at the BAFTAs, where Colin Farrell, Daryl McCormack and Paul Mescal, among others, sported the ribbons. More

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      ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Is Big Winner at the Oscars

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      In the late 1960s, young cineastes shook up a moribund film industry by delivering idiosyncratic, startlingly original work. The moment became known as New Hollywood.When film historians look back at the 95th Academy Awards, they may mark it as the start of a new New Hollywood. Voters honored A24’s head-twisting, sex toy-brandishing, TikTok-era “Everything Everywhere All at Once” with the Oscar for best picture — along with six other awards — while naming Netflix’s German-language war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” the winner in four categories, including best international film.The Daniels, the young filmmaking duo behind the racially diverse “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” won Oscars for their original screenplay and directing. (The Daniels is an oh-so-cool sobriquet for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. They are both 35.) The film, which received a field-leading 11 nominations, also won Oscars for film editing, best actress and best supporting actor and actress, with Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis honored for their performances.“Ladies, don’t let anybody ever tell you that you are ever past your prime,” Yeoh, 60, said when accepting the best actress Oscar. “Never give up.” She was the first Asian woman to receive the award.Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023Quan’s win provided the Academy Awards with a hall-of-fame comeback story: After early success in movies like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” his acting career grew so cold that he turned to stunt work. “Dreams are something you have to believe in,” Quan said as tears streamed down his face and A-list attendees gave him a standing ovation. “I almost gave up on mine. To everyone out there, please keep your dreams alive.”Curtis was also in tears by the time she reached the fiery conclusion of her acceptance speech. “To all of the people who have supported the genre movies that I have made for all these years,” she said, “the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, we just won an Oscar together!”Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spread nominations remarkably far and wide this year. Two blockbuster sequels, “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” made the best picture cut. So did the little-seen art films “Triangle of Sadness,” “Women Talking” and “Tár.” Voters also made room for a musical (“Elvis”) and a memory piece (“The Fabelmans”). In some ways, spreading nominations widely reflected the jumbled state of Hollywood. No one in the movie capital seems to know which end is up, with streaming services like Netflix hot then not, and studios unsure about how many films to release in theaters and whether anything but superheroes, sequels and horror stories can succeed. Over the weekend, “Scream VI” was the top movie at the North American box office, with an estimated $44.5 million in ticket sales.First-time nominees filled 16 of the 20 acting slots, with new stars like Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”), Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”) and Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) honored for breakthrough roles.But first-time acting nominations also went to Hollywood stalwarts like Curtis, Yeoh and Brendan Fraser. To some degree, the inclusion of Quan, Curtis, Fraser and Yeoh was seen as redemption for Hollywood: All had somehow been cast to the side at some point over their careers.An overcome Fraser, who won the Oscar for best actor for his performance as an obese professor in “The Whale,” thanked Darren Aronofsky, the film’s director, “for throwing me a creative lifeline.”Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023The academy was also trying to balance old and new in the Oscars ceremony itself. The academy’s chief executive had promised a return to the polished, glamorous Oscar ceremonies of the past to recover from last year’s chaotic telecast, when an angry Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Chris Rock. In a change from last year, when eight categories were scuttled to a nontelevised portion, all 23 Oscars were handed out live on air.As host, Jimmy Kimmel arrived on the Oscars stage by parachute, moments after a pair of “Top Gun”-style fighter jets flew over the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles at 345 miles per hour. He then breezed through a self-assured monologue that left the A-listers seated before him cheering in support. He teased Steven Spielberg — gently — for his lack of recreational drug use and Fraser and Quan for once appearing together in “Encino Man.” It was the kind of affable ribbing that once made Billy Crystal the king of the Oscar M.C.’s.The host Jimmy Kimmel arrived on the stage via parachute and breezed through his monologue.Todd Heisler/The New York Times“And if any of you get offended by a joke and decide you want to come up here and get jiggy with it? It’s not going to be easy,” Kimmel said, addressing last year’s slap without directly mentioning Smith. He then joked that people like Michael B. Jordan, the “Creed” star, and Pedro Pascal, who plays the title role in “The Mandalorian,” were prepared to intervene.“Seriously, the academy has a crisis team in place,” Kimmel said. “If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year — nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug.”As expected, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” received the Oscar for best animated feature, and “Navalny” was honored as best documentary. Less anticipated was Ruth Carter’s win for her “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” costume design. (Most awards handicappers had predicted victory for the “Elvis” costume designer Catherine Martin. Carter also won for “Black Panther” in 2019.)The #OscarsSoWhite outcries from 2015 and 2016, prompted by all-white slates of acting nominees, continue to reverberate at the academy, which has been trying to diversify its membership by race, gender and nationality. Nearly 50 percent of the academy’s most recent class of new members came from overseas. About 25 percent of the academy’s total membership of 10,000 now comes from outside the United States.But the academy was criticized this year for not nominating any women in the best director category. For decades, women and people of color were almost entirely excluded from the directing race. In 2021, for the first time, two women were nominated: Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), with Zhao winning. Last year, Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) won the Oscar for directing.This year, Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”) was left out even though her film was nominated for best picture. (Polley won for her adapted screenplay.) “I give up,” Patty Jenkins, whose directing credits include “Wonder Woman” and “Monster,” told Variety on Saturday about women being shut out of the category. “It’s still going to take a long ways to go. It’s going to take a lot more to really see truly more diverse awards.”The internationalization of the academy was on display among this year’s directing nominees. The Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) and the British-born Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) were honored. Joining them were Todd Field (Tár) and the Daniels. Filling out the best director category was Spielberg — a director who was once part of that New Hollywood crew and is now a Hollywood elder statesman with nine total nominations for directing, this one for “The Fabelmans.”The academy emphasized that the ceremony would feel modern — part of an urgent effort to make the telecast more relevant to young people. The 2022 show drew 16.6 million viewers, the second-worst turnout on record after the pandemic-affected 2021 telecast. If the Nielsen ratings do not improve, the academy faces a financial precipice: Most of its revenue comes from the sale of broadcasting rights to the show. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. (The most-viewed Oscars telecast was in 1998, when 57.2 million people watched “Titanic” win the trophy for best picture.)Rihanna performed her nominated song from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”Todd Heisler/The New York TimesBig musical stars, including Rihanna and Lady Gaga, sang their nominated songs; Lenny Kravitz performed during the “In Memoriam” segment. The best song Oscar went to “Naatu Naatu” from the Indian film “RRR.” The nominee pool for best picture had never before included more than one billion-dollar ticket seller, according to box office databases, and this year there were two. “Top Gun: Maverick” collected $1.5 billion, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” took in $2.3 billion. (Viewership tends to increase when popular films are nominated.)In another change, the red carpet was not red: Stars walked a champagne-colored rug, breaking with a 62-year tradition. The choice was made as part of an overhaul of the preshow spectacle, which, for the first time, was managed by members of the Met Gala’s creative team. In the days leading up to the Oscars, another in a series of rainstorms soaked Los Angeles, so much so that the academy sent an alert to the news media on Wednesday warning that it may “need to clear the carpet at a moment’s notice.” In the end, the weather cooperated, and it was a sunny 63 degrees. More

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      Michelle Yeoh Makes Oscar History as First Asian to Win Best Actress

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      Michelle Yeoh won the best actress Oscar at Sunday night’s ceremony for her role as a beleaguered wife, mother and laundromat owner whose life is turned upside down when she is thrown into multiple parallel universes in A24’s genre-bending hit “Everything, Everywhere All at Once.” The victory makes her the first Asian star to win best actress in the 95-year history of the Academy Awards.“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” she said in accepting her award. “This is proof that dreams — dream big, and dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.”This was her first Oscar nomination and win after a venerated career that toggled between action-heavy roles (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and performances of regal self-containment (“Crazy Rich Asians”). Tonight, she beat out Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”), Cate Blanchett (“Tar”), Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”) and Ana de Armas (“Blonde”).Yeoh’s biggest competition came from Blanchett, who won the best actress trophy at the BAFTAs but saw her path to the winner’s circle narrow after Yeoh’s historic win at the SAG Awards, where she became the first Asian star to win the guild’s best actress prize for a film.All season long, Yeoh has spoken of the obstacles she and other Asian performers have faced in Hollywood. After the Oscar nominations were unveiled in January, she told The Times, “Of course, I’m over the moon, but I feel a little sad because I know we know there have been amazing actresses from Asia that come before me, and I stand on their shoulders.” She added, “I hope this will shatter that frigging glass ceiling to no end, that this will continue, and we will see more of our faces up there.”Here’s the full text of her acceptance speech on Sunday:Thank you. Thank you. For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof that dreams — dream big, and dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.I wouldn’t be standing here tonight without the Daniels [directors of “Everything Everywhere”], without A24, without my amazing cast and crew, without everyone who was involved with “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” I have to dedicate this to my mom, all the moms in the world. Because they are really the superheroes. And without them, none of us will be here tonight. She’s 84. And I’m taking this home to her. She’s watching right now in Malaysia, K.L., with family and friends. I love you guys. I’m bringing this home to you. And also my extended family in Hong Kong, where I started my career. Thank you for letting me stand on your shoulders, giving me a leg up so that I can be here today. And to my godchildren, to my sisters, all of them, to my brothers. Oh God. To my family, thank you. Thank you.Thank you to the Academy. This is history in the making. Thank you. More