Here’s what you need to know going into tonight’s Academy Awards:
• In 1957, the award for best animated short film went to Victoria-born Stephen Bosustow for the Mr. Magoo cartoon Magoo’s Puddle Jumper. Bosustow actually produced all three nominated animated shorts that year, the only time one person has swept an Oscar category.
• The first nude scene in mainstream movie history was performed by Victoria-born Nell Shipman in 1919’s Back to God’s Country. The film’s cinematographer, Joseph Walker, was later nominated for four Oscars.
• Two Vancouver Island-raised sisters are among the five Canadians who have been nominated for best supporting actress — Meg Tilly for Agnes of God in 1985, and Jennifer Tilly for Bullets Over Broadway in 1994.
Last year, on awards day, Belmont grad Jennifer went to Elton John’s Oscars party in Hollywood, while Esquimalt High grad Meg, now a bestselling author, hung out in the basement of the Galiano Inn with me. Lucky Meg.
All this qualifies me to tell you exactly what you will see if you watch today’s ceremony. Here goes:
• To my surprise, I discovered that Bob Hope is no longer hosting. Nobody is. It was supposed to be Kevin Hart last year but after some regrettable 10-year-old tweets emerged, he was taken down like that girl at the beginning of Jaws. Now no one wants the job, lest they get the Sir John A. Macdonald treatment from Twitter’s forces of righteousness. Really, this mob would have burned Mother Teresa at the stake. If only they vetted their presidents this rigorously.
• Because Hollywood is all about gender equality, female nominees, no matter how accomplished they are, will be paraded on the red carpet and judged by their appearance, just like livestock at the Cowichan Exhibition.
Just once, when the interviewer asks, “Are you wearing Versace?” it would be nice to hear a woman reply: “Thanks, I thought it was the best performance of my life.”
Men are exempt from the judging, as are Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren, who are so high up the Hollywood pecking order that they could go Full Fairfield Man (cargo shorts, Tilley hat, black dress socks, brown sandals) and be gushed over as the epitome of style, whereas less powerful/popular nominees risk career suicide by fashion. Basically, it’s high school.
• If two men share an award, the taller one will speak first, at length, and the shorter one will be yanked off the stage with a shepherd’s crook the moment he opens his mouth.
• During the In Memoriam segment you will see a familiar face and go: “Wait, what, that guy died?”
• Because there are no other composers in the U.S., Randy Newman has been nominated for the 20th time. He will probably be nominated for another 20 long after he is dead, just out of habit.
Most Oscar-nominated songs are utterly forgettable, with the unfortunate exception of Let It Go, the theme from Frozen, which has been stuck in your head since 2013. Do I want to build a snowman? Yes, yes, I do. And then I want that snowman to come to life and kill me so that I don’t have to listen to Let It Go anymore.
• Netflix leads with 24 nominations, including one for Best Picture, which is like the fox being nominated for Best Chicken.
Streaming services have wormed their way into the Oscars by making shows that appear in cinemas just long enough to qualify for nomination, but that are really intended to be viewed at home. This is cheating. Netflix does not make movies. It makes television shows, albeit long ones that take three nights to watch. Really, I swear I aged more during The Irishman than Al Pacino did between The Godfather and The Godfather Part III.
Movies should be seen the way the good lord intended: on a big screen, with a $42 bag of popcorn, in a darkened theatre where your shoes stick to the floor.
They are best enjoyed with other people, as a shared experience, just like hockey games, concerts and comedy shows. The laughs are louder. The roars are more intense. The crowd becomes part of the attraction — until the crowds disappear.
Reserve the Oscars for real movies. Letting the streaming services in the door is as shortsighted as Mr. Magoo (look it up, junior).
