Please tell me you watched it. Please tell me you stayed 'til the end. I know not everyone is a big awards show watcher, but if there is anything the 2017 Academy Awards proved, it's that nothing can surpass live television when it is at its finest.
Like my previous article predicted, a lot of the awards Sunday night had thankfully ended up being spread out pretty generously throughout the night. The people who were expected to win did end up winning, while there were some winners --- freaking "Suicide Squad" (for makeup/hair, but still) --- that, much to everyone's dismay, won an Oscar.
With me and a packed room of film majors anxiously watching each category as the night went on, I have to say it was one of the more enjoyable awards shows. I feel like usually, they tend to drag on with nothing out of the ordinary ever really happening. But host Jimmy Kimmel definitely proved why he was the superior Jimmy of hosting this awards season as with great writing and inventive ideas, he kept both the audience and the people watching amused the entire night. That's not to say it wasn't a tiny bit longer than we all hoped.
As someone who has seen all nine nominated Best Picture films, I truly believe that credit was given where credit was due. With what Emma Stone was given, I think she really brought a great amount of heartfelt emotion to the role of Mia in "La La Land," while even though I thought Dev Patel possibly should have walked away with Best Supporting Actor for "Lion," Mahershala Ali was absolutely amazing for the short time he was in "Moonlight."
And now to the best part of the night. What could possibly go wrong with the most hyped award, the final award, the most coveted award, that was a complete toss up as to who was going to win for Best Picture the entire awards season? It was completely a "La La Land" and "Moonlight" race this season, and with the amount of coverage of the two opposing each other, there wasn't going to be a shock if either one won. No, the shock came in the form of a misinterpretation. Like so:
The truth of the matter is PricewaterhouseCoopers, the company responsible for tabulating and handling the envelopes of the winners, has two copies of the winning envelopes for every award... just to make things even more complicated. While at her press conference, Emma Stone said she had her Best Actress envelope with her the entire night, but Warren Beatty ended getting the other copy as well instead of the Best Picture one.
Honestly, if that had happened to any of us, we wouldn't have run off the stage in confusion, but tried to gather some sort of understanding like he was definitely trying to do at the time. However, he could have done it a little better instead of throwing Faye Dunaway under the bus in reading the wrong winner (it's okay because she bolted right after anyway).
When the stage managers ended up coming on to notify the "La La Land" producers that the real envelope had not been given, the producers handled the situation with a ton of class (especially Jordan Horowitz) when they could have easily been completely pissed.
On both sides, however, it was uncomfortable. After all, the producers of "La La Land" had already given speeches and they had to get their award -- as Best Picture is awarded to the producers -- taken away from them. Anything taken away is going to hurt, especially the most prestigious award in the entertainment industry. While for "Moonlight," they won, but under crazy, confusing circumstances with little time to include a proper speech.
Despite the chaos, the fact of the matter is that both of these films, as well as the rest of the films nominated, were amazing in their own right. That's why they were nominated, and so head-to-head the entire Oscar race. That's the point of good storytelling -- to have a story resonate with such a large number of people that community forms behind the story's message.
But this will definitely go down as the biggest Oscar moment to have ever happened because that truly was a surreal situation. Just think of how much Matt Damon has on Jimmy Kimmel now because his show had to end like this.
Anyway, enjoy the weirdness that was Sunday night through these gifs.
And by far the creepiest clap known to man:
What even is this. Forget the end of the show, most uncomfortable moment of the night goes to you, Nicole Kidman.
