Because of the ongoing pandemic, which for Hollywood meant closed theaters and many movie projects being moved to later this year or sometime next, the 93rd Academy Awards that were held Sunday was a small gathering seen by millions around the world. Union Station (also known as Alison Krauss' backup band) was used instead of the usual Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, leading to a dinner party atmosphere not unlike (ahem) the Golden Globes. There was no host for the third consecutive year.
The pictures got smaller too. Most of the nominated films intended for the big screen ended up on Netflix, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and HBO Max. They're streaming services that can be accessed at home for the price of a monthly subscription.
"Nomadland", streaming on Hulu, was the big winner with Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actress for Frances McDormand (her third), and Chloe Zhao for Best Director. Zhao was the second woman to win the honor (Katheryn Bigelow was the first), and the first from her native China.
It was a good night for actors of color, if only because the Academy wanted to prove they're oh so diverse.after many years of not being that. Besides Zhao, Youn Yuh-Jung won Best Supporting Actress for "Minari", and Daniel Kaluuya won Best Supporting Actor for "Judas and the Black Messiah".
It was all set up for Chadwick Boseman, the actor best known as "Black Panther" who died last year, to win a posthumous Oscar for his role in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom". In fact, the producers switched the order of the last three awards from Best Actor, Actress and Picture to Best Picture, Actress and Actor so Boseman would have a nice, emotional sendoff. And the Oscar for Actor in a Leading Role went to . . . Anthony Hopkins for "The Father". He didn't bother to show up to accept the award. No disrespect to either Boseman or Hopkins or any of the other nominees, but maybe the Academy should never have messed with tradition.
It also would have been nice to see clips of the nominated films, so we had some idea what they're about. Instead, we got actor testimonials, longer-than-usual acceptance speeches, and Glenn Close dancing to "Da Butt" in a trivia segment meant to fill time. The telecast clocked in at three hours and 15 minutes, which is right on time if you're doing the show from a train station. Or else it's just a pandemic thing.
One more thing that got small. Everyone thought the ABC telecast would tally the smallest audience in Academy history, and everybody was right. Less than ten million viewed the proceedings, a 58% drop from last year. But that's typical of every other awards show that's been aired since this pandemic began a year ago. If we just figured out that no one wants to watch people giving other people awards, what's going to happen when nobody wants to watch movies in a theater any more post-pandemic? That's a doomsday scenario no one in Hollywood wants to contemplate.
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