The Academy Awards is always an event that is met with great anticipation.  However, this year it was met with great debate. For starters, the entire broadcast of The Oscars was plagued by a preemptive tweet from President Donald Trump about a New York Times advertisement.

In the advertisement, The New York Times talks about how “The Truth” matters in different aspects of how Trump’s administration has made the nation divided and worse than before. The advertisement ended with the statement, “The truth matters now more than ever.” In saying this, many people knew that this was an attack on the Trump administration for his multiple attacks on the press.

(The New York Time’s “Truth” advertisement – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0Fdz350GE)

Host Jimmy Kimmel was excellent and gave the Oscars another year with a great host after 2015 host Chris Rock and 2014 host Ellen DeGeneres. One great thing to note is that not all of his jokes were aimed at the Trump administration. While this wouldn’t have been a bad thing for some people, others are reaching a point of indifference about talking Trump all the time.

One thing that had many people upset is when the movie Suicide Squad took home the Academy Award for Best Makeup. The outrage came mostly from people who felt the movie did not hold true to the original comic books. Though the movie was met with positive reviews when it was released in 2016, outrage has been widespread over the lack of justice the movie does to the comic books.

Another category that people had a problem with was Best Actor in a Leading Role. The winner was Casey Affleck for his role in the movie Manchester by the Sea. Frustration over his Oscar win comes from the multiple sexual harassment suits that have been filed against him from women that have worked on set with him.

One special part of the event was actors discussing their favorite films. The first to lead this was Charlize Theron discussing the film The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Theron was amazed by MacLaine’s performance and both of them soon came on stage to present the Best Foreign Language Film Award to The Salesman.

Seth Rogen also shared his thoughts about his favorite film Back to the Future, and soon appeared in a DeLorean with Michael J. Fox. Both of them sang a short duet of “The Schuyler Sisters” from the hit musical Hamilton.  They both presented the award for Best Editing which went to Hacksaw Ridge.

Viola Davis’ speech when she won the award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role gave a speech that had many people in tears because it was so inspirational for actors and actresses. Additionally the three women who starred in the film Hidden Figures brought Katherine Johnson, one of the subjects of the film, to the stage to honor her achievements in mathematics and racial equality.

(Viola Davis’s Oscar acceptance speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHTXbGG68T8)

The film, La La Land took home five awards, including Best Actress, Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Director, and Best Production Design.  One award that the film was nominated for was Best Picture, which it won… for several minutes that is, and then the award went to the real winner, Moonlight.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway presented the awards for Best Picture, but were given the envelope for Best Actress, which was supposed to go to Emma Stone, according to the Washington Post. Upon seeing the name Dunaway, it was assumed that the award was meant for La La Land. Instead the award was supposed to go to Moonlight, which was finally revealed after several minutes of confusion.

Academy Awards Host Jimmy Kimmel compared this to Steve Harvey giving the crown to the wrong contestant at the 2016 Miss Universe pageant. Kimmel joked about it saying “Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this.”

(La La Land fiasco unfolding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVaa31BerzY)

The accounting firm responsible for tallying the Oscar ballots, PricewaterhouseCoopers, is starting to investigate how exactly this could have happened. Although much of the Academy Awards was marred by the Best Picture mistake, people enjoyed what was a memorable night for movie/film-making enthusiasts all around.  

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