Last year the Oscars suffered just about the biggest mix-up it was even possible for it to suffer when the wrong Best Picture winner was read out. The result was that when it was finally revealed that the gay-themed Moonlight was the real winner, in the confusion the makers of the movie didn’t get to give the speeches they’d planned and say what they wanted to.
The Academy gave director Barry Jenkins and the film’s producers the chance to receive their Best Picture award properly at this year’s ceremony, they declined as it couldn’t recapture the moment they had lost. However, at SXSW Jenkins has revealed what he would have said.
He starts with a shout-out to Tarell McCraney, whose wrote the play the movie was based on. Here’s the speech, as reprinted by Deadline, “Tarell and I are Chiron. We are that boy. And when you watch Moonlight, you don’t assume a boy who grew up how and where we did would grow up and make a piece of art that wins an Academy Award — certainly don’t think he would grow up to win Best Picture. I’ve said that a lot and what I’ve had to admit is that I placed those limitations on myself. I denied myself that dream — not you, not anyone else — me. And so, to anyone watching this who sees themselves in us, let this be a symbol, a reflection that leads you to love yourself. Because doing so may be the difference between dreaming at all and somehow, through the Academy’s grace, realizing dreams you never allowed yourself to have.”
Moonlight hasn’t doesn’t winning awards yet, as last night at the MTV Movie Awards, it picked up Best Kiss for the smooch between Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome as the teenage versions of Chiron and Kevin. Of course the scene in question on the beach involved a bit more than just a kiss, but it was for the lip locking that they got their gong.
Moonlight may have just picked up three Oscars – including it’s shock Best Picture winner, literally taking it from the hands of Moonlight – but it appears the cast aren’t solely interested in awards. No, they’re keen to let people know what they look like in their underwear.
Well, writers have something new to include when it comes to Oscars biggest gaffes and bloopers – and this one will probably top the list for a very long time. Faye Dunaway read out that La La Land had won the Best Picture Oscar, the producers came up to the stage, and then, partway through the acceptance speeches, they were interrupted to be told, actually no, it was Moonlight that was the big winner.
Each year the day before the Oscars, the Independent Spirit Awards are held, which were set up as the equivalent of the Hollywood-centric Academy Awards but for movies made outside the mainstream. This year the big winner was Moonlight, which picked up five gongs.
Do you know one of the reasons the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs manage to attract so many star names? It’s because of when they’re held. The Golden Globes come just a few days before AMPAS members have to submit who they think should be nominated for the Oscars, and the BAFTAs come just before the deadline for them to say who they think should win.
With the success of Moonlight, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s been an okay year for LGBT movies. However, it’s the first time in several years that only one movie with significant LGBT content has been nominated at the Oscars. That’s underlined by the fact that when GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) released the nominees for their annual awards earlier this week, only two movie were nominated for ‘Outstanding Film – Wide Release’ -(Moonlight and Star Trek Beyond).
Mahershala Ali’s chances of winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar just increased significantly, as the acting winners of the SAG Awards often mimic the eventual winners of the Academy Awards.That’s not surprising as the Academy’s membership has far more actors than any other film discipline and there’s a large crossover of voting members.
The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association Dorian Award winners have been announced, and not too surprisingly, a lot of love has gone to Moonlight. The melancholy gay-themed drama, adapted from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play about three phases of a man’s life, won five Dorians, including Film of the Year, LGBTQ Film of the Year, Director and Screenplay for Barry Jenkins and Best Film Actor for Mahershala Ali. Trevante Rhodes, who was nominated for Actor alongside Ali, was given the ‘We’re Wilde About You!’ Rising Star Award (named for the group’s patron saint, Oscar Wilde).
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