Oscars 2019 updates: Queen launched Sunday’s Oscars with a medley of hits that gave the hostless awards a distinctly Grammy-like flavour as Hollywood’s most prestigious ceremony sought to prove that it’s still “champion of the world” after last year’s record-low ratings. Following Queen, the motion picture academy ran of montage of the year’s movies before Tina Fey — alongside Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph — welcomed the Dolby Theatre audience to “the one-millionth Academy Awards.” The trio ran through the kind of jokes, they said, they would have said if they were, in fact, hosting. They then presented best supporting actress to Regina King for her pained matriarch in Barry Jenkins’ James Baldwin adaptation If Beale Street Could Talk. The crowd gave King a standing ovation for her first Oscar. Black Panther won for Ruth Carter’s costume design and Hannah Beachler’s production design at Sunday’s Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Bohemian Rhapsody won two Oscars for achievement in sound editing and sound mixing. Roma too matched their tally with wins in cinematography and foreign language film categories. Mahershala Ali won the best supporting actor honours for his performance in Green Book. It’s the second Oscar for Ali, who won in the same category in 2017 for Moonlight. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was named best animated film. While Green Book was awarded Best Original Screenplay, BlacKkKlansman earned Best Adapted Screenplay. The list of the winners so far at the 91st Academy Awards: Best actor: Rami Malek Best actress: Olivia Colman Best supporting actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk Documentary feature: Free Solo Makeup and hairstyling: Vice Costume design: Ruth Carter, Black Panther Production design: Black Panther Cinematography: Roma Foreign Language Film: Roma Sound Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody Sound Mixing: Bohemian Rhapsody Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali Animated film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Documentary – Short Subject: Period. End of Sentence. Animated Short Film: Bao Visual Effects: First Man Original Screenplay: Green Book Adapted Screenplay: BlacKkKlansman Original Song: “Shallow” from A Star Is Born, music and lyrics by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt Preview: A winter of discontent for the Academy Awards will culminate on Sunday in an Oscar ceremony that may lack a host but isn’t missing intrigue. The run-up to the 91st Academy Awards has been a series of missteps and backtracks by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A new best “popular film” category was in, and then it was out . Kevin Hart was host and then he wasn’t . Some categories were removed from the live broadcast, and then they were back. But if the script this Oscar season has been constantly rewritten, the film academy is hoping for a Hollywood ending (and much better ratings than the all-time low viewership last year .) The show is available for livestream via Hotstar in India to subscribers. Producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss have pledged that the show will be speedier this year, even though its initial goal of a three-hour broadcast has faded. Kicking things off will be a performance by Queen, featuring Adam Lambert, to celebrate the best picture-nominee Bohemian Rhapsody. In the academy’s favour is a popular crop of nominees: Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star Is Born and, most of all, Black Panther have all amassed huge sums in ticket sales. Typically, when there are box-office hits (like Titanic), more people watch the Oscars. But just how many people have seen one of the top nominees and the film favored to win best picture — Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma — remains unknown. Netflix has declined to give box-office results or steaming viewership. It remains a nominee unlike any other. Should Roma — a black-and-white, Spanish and Mixtec language film about a domestic worker in a Mexican family — win, it will be both the first Netflix movie to win best picture and the first foreign language film to do so. Yet this year’s race has been maddeningly unpredictable , with the usual predictive awards being spread across contenders such as Peter Farrelly’s Green Book, a divisive period dramedy about a black pianist (Mahershala Ali) and his white chauffer (Viggo Mortensen); the royal romp The Favourite; and Ryan Coogler’s Marvel sensation Black Panther, which could become the first superhero film ever to win Hollywood’s top award. Other milestones are possible, too. Though Cuaron is favored for best director, a win for Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman) would make him the first black filmmaker to ever win the award. Lee has said he likes his film’s underdog position as a “dark horse — pun intended.” Lee and his fellow screenwriters are also up for best screenplay, which would give the 61-year-old Lee his first competitive Oscar. Many also expect Glenn Close, in her seventh nomination, to finally win one. She’s the front-runner for best actress for her performance in The Wife, a film about the overlooked and under-honored spouse of an acclaimed novelist. Though Lady Gaga began the season as the favorite, Close has won a string of awards leading up to the Oscars, including at Saturday’s Independent Spirit Awards where she brought her dog, Pip, along as a date. One virtual lock: Marvel will win its first Oscar. Though Black Panther, up for six awards and could win in a number of categories, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is considered the overwhelming favorite for best animated film. (With inputs from The Associated Press)
)
























