Wow. I think that pretty much sums it up. If you were living under a rock for the past 48 hours than you missed the greatest upset in Oscar history as well as perhaps the most unexpected moments in all of televised award shows. It was quite a night. In an historical moment that few (if any) could have predicted, the night that was all but a coronation for La La Land quickly took a turn and instead chose a different winner: Moonlight.
The fact that the La La Land producers were already announced the winners before making the realization is somewhat besides the point. Never before in Academy history has an envelope error caused the wrong winner to be announced, and only once before was a presenter given the wrong envelope (Sammy Davis Jr mistakenly received and announced the Best Original Score winner instead of the presented nominees for Adapted Score way back in 1964). That wasn't Best Picture. The perfect marriage of errors on Sunday night seemed all too perfect: that the alleged front-runner was still named Best Picture (it was revealed to be Emma Stone's envelope for Best Actress that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway received by accident). It was clear that Beatty knew something was wrong, but what were the chances that La La Land would have lost anyways?
Slim to none...
As long as Oscars have been predicted and going all the way back through Oscar upsets in the past, never has a film won Best Picture without winning either SAG or PGA or DGA or BAFTA or Critic's Choice. Yes, Moonlight won for Drama at the Golden Globes, but it couldn't even muster the strength to win the Ensemble SAG prize from Hidden Figures. How could it possibly win the Oscar?? La La Land had the clear support all year, winning PGA and DGA, sweeping the guild awards and standing unopposed virtually all year. Had Moonlight won anything, perhaps we could have seen it coming. I can't even recall the last time a Best Picture winner strayed so far from BAFTA results, seeing as Moonlight won zero trophies. How did this upset happen?
Evidence points to the Preferential Ballot system which is employed for Best Picture voting, a ranking system where math and averages score each voter's choices ranked 1-9 and then calculates a consensus winner. It's tedious and confusing, but essentially rounds down to the fact that more people had Moonlight ranked higher on their ballots than La La Land. The movie with a record 14 nominations that was expected to win at least 10 Oscars walked away with 6, missing in key categories that were surprises in themselves and began an award ceremony where it was evidence early on that anything could happen. Maybe the backlash against La La Land (which many people brushed aside) proved to be all too real. When a movie gets 14 nominations and is heralded as one of the all-time great films, expectations can prove hard to match.
We had some tea leaves to go off of, namely the snub of La La Land for Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards (only 1 movie has won the Oscar without this nomination: 1995's Braveheart). This initially cast some doubt on La La Land's chances, but we brushed it off since the film only really had 2 actors. Never again will we doubt. For 2 years in a row the Oscar favorite has lost after being snubbed by SAG (remember last year when the Revenant was our expected winner?). Next year, no matter how popular the film, if it doesn't get SAG, drop it like a hot potato.
Shocks rained down throughout the night across categories. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ranked 4th on our predictions for Costume Design and yet pulled off an upset that even took Colleen Atwood, the winner, by surprise (a Harry Potter film has never won, and previous indicators showed it to be a close race only between La La Land or Jackie). Even the sound categories were bombshells. Rarely, if ever, does a nominated musical lose Best Sound Mixing, and yet Hacksaw Ridge upset in an early indicator of La La Land's lack of support. In Sound Editing (where Hacksaw Ridge seemed locked), the award instead went to the quieter yet deserving Arrival. We were thrilled to see Arrival not walk away empty-handed, but who could have seen it coming?
The show itself was fun, lively, and Jimmy Kimmel proved a worthy if not traditional host. Whether it was his continuing feud with Matt Damon or his surprise tour bus visitors (Gary from Chicago is a living legend), the show ran extremely long but rarely dropped the ball (well, except for the last 3 or 4 minutes).
Still, the night proved historical in so many ways. Moonlight, on top of it's groundbreaking upset, is now the first LGBT-themed film to win Best Picture (a feat even Brokeback Mountain couldn't achieve in perhaps the second-biggest Oscar upset when it lost to Crash). Damien Chazelle as expected became the youngest Director winner in history. OJ Made In America became the longest film to ever win an Oscar (467 minutes). Mojo only had a 66% accuracy in regards to it's predictions, but the night was full of twists and turns that no one could see coming. Where we expected a sweep, the Oscars instead spread the wealth and awarded arguably more deserving films with trophies (Manchester by the Sea, Hacksaw Ridge, Moonlight, and La La Land all won multiple awards). It's a year I don't think anyone will ever forget, and in the end, the Best Picture prize went to a film that was beyond deserving.
Here's to 2017! Bring on the movies.
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