Wright Recaps: The 2017 Academy Awards

Dylan Wright, A&E Editor

The 89th Annual Academy Awards happened Sunday night, giving out accolades to some of Hollywood’s best and brightest while taking it away from others.

Justin Timberlake began the show with a rendition of his Best Original Song nominee “Can’t Stop the Feeling.” Host Jimmy Kimmel then led the proceedings, keeping the evening light by bringing in a busload of tourists to be paraded in front of the celebrities, parachuting candy into the crowd, bringing an Oscars edition of his Mean Tweets segment and telling plenty of political jokes throughout his various monologues.

The Oscars, although not having as many political asides as this year’s Grammys , had perhaps the most poignant statement from the winner of the award for Best Foreign Film. Director Asghar Farhadi did not attend the ceremony, instead sending a statement issuing his solidarity against the immigration ban enacted by the Trump Administration. The speech can be read in its entirety here. 

The biggest surprise of the night came at the very end, when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced “La La Land” as the Best Picture winner. As the creators gave their acceptance speeches, the technical crew came on stage with another red envelope. After some confusion, it was announced that the true winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture was “Moonlight.”

Photo credit/ Oscars 2017 official site

 

Warren Beatty had apparently been handed Emma Stone’s Best Actress announcement card, and seeing the movie she was from was “La La Land,” declared that film the winner. Kimmel took the stage and joked about the similar event that occurred when Steve Harvey hosted the Miss Universe Pageant and mistakenly announced Miss Columbia as the winner when it was Miss Philippines.

La La Land was nominated for a record-breaking 14 nominations, but only took home six, including the awards for Best Cinematography (Linus Sandgren), Best Actress (Emma Stone) and Best Director (Damien Chazelle). Chazelle is also the youngest to win this award at 32.

Though “City of Stars” won Best Original Song, each nominated song was performed at the ceremony, with John Legend performing both “City of Stars” and “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” from “La La Land”. 16-year-old Auli’l Cravahlo and Lin-Manuel Miranda sang “How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana”  and Sting performed “The Empty Chair” from “Jim: The James Foley Story.”

Photo credit/ Oscars 2017 official site

The final performance of the night came from Sara Bareilles, who performed “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell for the In Memoriam section.

“Moonlight” took home three awards out of the eight it was nominated for, including Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali. This marks the first time a Muslim actor has won an Academy Award.

Photo credit/ Oscars 2017 official site

 

Viola Davis won Best Supporting Actress, and talked about the importance of telling the tales of those who have passed away.

“We are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life,” Davis stated during her acceptance speech.

Photo credit/ Oscars 2017 official site

 

For a complete list of winners, please visit the Oscars official website

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Twitter: @DWrightTWW