Academy Awards (Oscars)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Anthony Hopkins Wins Best Actor Over Chadwick Boseman

      by

      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

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Movies

      Anthony Hopkins Accepts Oscar, Paying Tribute to Chadwick Boseman

      by

      “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

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Chloé Zhao Wins Oscar for Best Direct of 'Nomadland'

      by

      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

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Two Black Women Win Oscar for 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'

      by

      In what may shape up as a night of firsts, Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson became the first Black women to win an Oscar for best hair and makeup for their work on “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”“I want to say thank you to our ancestors who put the work in, were denied, but never gave up,” Neal said. “And I also stand here as Jamika and I break this glass ceiling with so much excitement for the future. Because I can picture Black trans women standing up here and Asian sisters and our Latina sisters and Indigenous women, and I know that one day it won’t be unusual or groundbreaking; it will just be normal.”Neal and Wilson, who were honored for the film’s hairstyles (Sergio Lopez-Rivera was cited for the film’s makeup) were also the first Black women ever nominated in the category. The award was added in 1981 after the 1980 drama “The Elephant Man” was not recognized.The film, adapted from August Wilson’s play and directed by George C. Wolfe, is set during a recording session in 1920s Chicago. It tells the story of Rainey, a pioneering blues singer played by Viola Davis, and her battle to protect her gift from exploitation by a white-owned record label. When Chadwick Boseman’s musician, an ambitious upstart named Levee, wants to play a song his way, a clash of egos ensues.The film is “a powerful and pungent reminder of the necessity of art, of its sometimes terrible costs and of the preciousness of the people, living and dead, with whom we share it,” The New York Times co-chief film critic A.O. Scott wrote in his review. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Daniel Kaluuya Wins Oscar for Best Supporting Actor

      by

      Daniel Kaluuya won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his nuanced portrayal of Fred Hampton in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” beating out his co-star, Lakeith Stanfield, who was also nominated in the category.“To chairman Fred Hampton,” Kaluuya said in his acceptance speech. “What a man. How blessed we are that we lived in a lifetime where he existed.”“There’s so much work to do,” Kaluuya added, speaking about Hampton’s legacy. “That’s on everyone in this room.”Kaluuya’s win was far from a surprise. Critics have widely praised his performance of Hampton, an ascendant leader of the Black Panther Party who was killed by the police in 1969. And Kaluuya won the Golden Globe for best supporting actor earlier this awards season.But when Oscar nominations were unveiled last month, Stanfield’s inclusion in the supporting actor category alongside Kaluuya puzzled some Oscars pundits, who thought Stanfield a better fit for the best actor category. As it turned out, it did not ultimately cost Kaluuya, who was considered something of a lock to win the category.Kaluuya previously had earned a best actor Oscar nomination for his turn in the 2017 smash “Get Out.” Sunday marked his first Oscar win.Kaluuya’s rousing call-and-response speeches drive some of the most electric scenes in “Judas and the Black Messiah.” But in an interview with The New York Times, Kaluuya detailed the great lengths he went to in order to understand Hampton and, in so doing, come to capture his idiosyncratic voice and style of speaking. “I gave it everything I had. I gave. I gave. I gave,” he said then.In his review of the film, The New York Times co-chief film critic A.O. Scott acknowledged Kaluuya’s efforts, writing that the actor “finds inflections of Southernness in his voice and manner — undertones of humor and courtliness, an appreciation of the expressive possibilities of language.”“I don’t feel like I’m entitled to anyone’s attention,” Kaluuya told The Times. “I have to offer, or channel, or shape something that’s going to make you want to give it to me.” More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      Yuh-Jung Youn Nabs Historic Oscar Win for 'Minari'

      by

      After the Korean actress Yuh-Jung Youn’s delightfully hilarious BAFTA acceptance speech earlier this month, the Academy gave the 73-years-young “Minari” grandmother the chance to deliver another Sunday night when it selected her as its best supporting actress. It is the first time a Korean actress has ever won an acting Oscar.“I don’t believe in competition, how can I win over Glenn Close?” Youn said in her acceptance speech. “Tonight, I have just a little bit luck, I think, maybe. I’m luckier than you. And also maybe it’s American hospitality for the Korean actor. I’m not sure. But anyway, thank you so much.”Youn triumphed as the grandmother in Lee Isaac Chung’s film about a family from South Korea who takes up farming near the Ozarks. The film is named for the leafy green vegetable popular in Korean cooking. Our critic A.O. Scott called it “in its circumspect, gentle way, moving and downright revelatory.” Scott classed Youn as a sly scene-stealer but noted that is “also true of her character, who infuses her daughter’s home with mischief, folk wisdom and mostly unspoken memories of war, poverty and other hardship.”She also thanked her two grown sons, who she said “make me go out and work. … This is the result, because mommy worked so hard.”This was Youn’s first nomination, and, until recent weeks, an invite to speechify on the film industry’s biggest stage was far from a sure thing. One of her biggest foes might have been the 74-year-old Glenn Close, who’s now been nominated eight times without a single statuette (can we give her an honorary Oscar yet?). But after Youn’s SAG Award win and smile-inducing BAFTA speech earlier this month that thanked British voters — whom she labeled “very snobbish” people — for selecting her, the race was hers to lose.She didn’t repeat her BAFTA roast, but she did offer a kindly zinger Sunday night.“As you know, I’m from Korea, and my name is Yuh-Jung Youn — most of European people call me Yuh Youn and some call me Yuh-Jung,” she said. “But tonight, you are all forgiven.” More