The 91st Academy Awards aired on February 24th, 2019.
The show opened in a way it never has before, as Brian May wrote on his Instagram, “…in an avalanche of excitement, looking out on an instant standing ovation from a glittering audience…” Queen, accompanied by Adam Lambert opened the show with a medley of “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions,” with a beautiful Freddie Mercury montage to close the performance.
Even though Queen played “We Are The Champions,” neither the band members or the cast of the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, could’ve guessed how true those words would ring to be.
Continuing the pattern of endless nominations and wins this season, Bohemian Rhapsody went home with the most awards, including, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, and the revered award for Best Actor.
Rami Malek, who played a brilliant Freddie Mercury, won and by doing so, made history by becoming the first man of Arab descent to win an Oscar for Best Actor. In his acceptance speech, he said, “I am the son of immigrants from Egypt. I’m a first generation American and part of my story is being written right now.”
Malek’s story, ever so inspiring, similar to that of Mercury’s, is being written right now. And to me, it wouldn’t be surprising if, in thirty years or so, a biopic centered around Malek’s life is produced as he will go down in history and his name remembered for years to come.
Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t the only film to home with lots of awards, let alone to have an abundance of nominations. Both The Favourite and Roma had the most nominations with a total of ten, with A Star Is Born and Vice following closely behind with eight each, Black Panther with seven, and BlackKklansman and Bohemian Rhapsody tied with five nominations.
Green Book, a biographical comedy-drama, took home the esteemed award for Best Picture. Green Book is inspired by the true story of a Jamaican-American classical and jazz pianist, Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), and his Italian-American bodyguard, Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) on a music tour in the Deep South. Ali won Best Supporting Actor for his role.
As for Best Actress, Olivia Colman took home the esteemed award for her depiction of Anne, Queen of Great Britain in The Favourite. This was a big topic of discussion as Colman was completely ignored at the The Golden Globes and other award shows despite her brilliant performance in The Favourite.
Another notable win was Regina King for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Sharon Rivers in If Beale Street Could Talk. In her acceptance speech, she gave a heartfelt thank you to her mother, that brought the audience, and me, near tears.
Another big topic of discussion was Spike Lee’s award for Best Adapted Screenplay as a co-winner for BlacKkKlansman. BlacKkKlansman was based on the book by Ron Stallworth and was adapted into a screenplay by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, and Spike Lee.
Spike Lee’s co-win proved to be a bigger deal than expected due to the fact that it was his first competitive Oscar win. Since 1989 with the release of his film, Do The Right Thing, he has been nominated for five Oscars, yet never won any until this year.
Unsurprisingly, this year’s Best Animated Feature Film was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Grossing more than $360 million worldwide on a $90 million dollar budget, Spider-Man quickly rose to the top of the charts. The film dominated the world as a fan favorite and became celebrated by many for its diversity and atypical depiction of superheroes.
And to hopefully put to rest the one song none of us could escape this past awards season, “Shallow” from A Star is Born took home the award for Best Original Song. The live performance by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper sparked lots of conversation as the two looked deeply in love, inching closer throughout the song, begging for tabloids to put it on the front page.
Alfonso Cuaron was also a big winner of the night and won the awards for Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Cinematography, all for his film Roma.
Notable presenters of the night included Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph, Serena Williams, John Mulaney, Barbra Streisand, Julia Roberts, and many more.
Lots of changes were made prior to this year’s Oscars in an effort to increase viewership in contradiction to last years ceremony which had the lowest views in the history of the Academy Awards with less than half of the 57.25 million viewers of the 70th Academy Awards in 1998.
The Academy also announced its plans to create a new category honoring achievements in “Popular Film.” This announcement faced a lot of backlash as it seemed like it would target big blockbuster films in comparison to art house films and other non-mainstream pictures. Many critics claimed it to be a ploy to boost ratings and as the Academy’s desperate grasp at relevancy.
More changes the Academy wanted to make before the show consisted of making efforts to shorten the ceremony, like having only certain nominees for Best Original Song be performed live and having the presentation for awards like Best Cinematography, Best Live Action Short Film, Best Film Editing, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling during commercial breaks. Yet again, the Academy’s attempt at change faced massive backlash by big names like Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, and Alfonso Cuaron.
Because of such tremendous backlash, the Academy Awards withdrew their previous announcements and the changes were not applied to the 91st ceremony.
The Academy wanted the 91st Academy Awards to break boundaries, to pull in more viewership, and with terrible decision after terrible decision to try and accomplish both, they certainly did just that.
For the first time in history since the 61st Academy Awards in 1989, the Oscars aired without a host. But it wasn’t supposed to be like that.
In October 2018, the Academy asked Dwayne Johnson, Hollywood’s highest-paid actor, to host the ceremony, as another attempt to increase the audience. It ultimately didn’t work out as Johnson’s filming schedule for the Jumanji sequel got in the way.
The Academy then contemplated having a different host for each of the three hours, but that idea was quickly shot down. Next, the Academy announced that comedian Kevin Hart would host the ceremony, and all was well—for about fifteen minutes.
Quickly after the announcement, a controversy emerged when past jokes and comments made by Hart, containing homophobic and anti-gay slurs, resurfaced. He withdrew from the position two days after the original announcement saying he didn’t want to be a “distraction”.
After the Hart debacle, previous Oscar hosts like Ellen DeGeneres, Neil Patrick Harris, Chris Rock, and Jimmy Kimmel unsurprisingly expressed no interest in hosting the show. On January 9th, 2019, the final decision to air without a host was made.
As for this year’s exact ratings, the American telecast drew 29.6 million viewers, a 12% increase in viewership compared to the 2018 ceremony.
Even through the ups and downs of this award season, the Oscars still prevailed as one of Hollywood’s biggest nights and entertained millions across the country.