Oscars 2018: Jordan Peele Makes History with Best Original Screenplay Win

March 6, 2018planet akinade Leave a comment

Jordan Peele. Photo: CNN

“This is history in the making right here”, host Jimmy Kimmel opened the 90th annual Academy Awards with a monologue. Hollywood’s biggest and most glamorous night held on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

There was indeed a couple of historical moments at the 90th Academy Awards and one of such moments was when comedian and filmmaker Jordan Peele collected the ‘Best Original Screenplay’ award for his film Get Out. The movie was nominated in four categories, however, its single win reportedly makes Jordan Peele the first African-American recipient of a ‘Best Original Screenplay’ Academy Award.

Meanwhile, Frances McDormand who won the ‘Best Actress’ Oscar for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri delivered a speech, which seemed to be in support of women in Hollywood, the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. This saw the women stand up to applaud her after she said “If I may be so honoured to have all the female nominees stand with me. All the filmmakers, the producers, the writers, the composers”.

Furthermore, the New York Times has a detailed report on how Lupita Nyong’o and Kumail Nanjiani made an appeal on behalf of “Dreamers” before introducing the ‘Best Production Design’ award. The “Dreamers” are undocumented immigrants in the US, under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which was reportedly ended by the Trump administration in September, 2017.

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Oscars 2017: Barry Jenkins’ ‘Moonlight’ wins Best Picture

February 28, 2017planet akinade Leave a comment

GoldDerby/Instagram

It is celebrations galore for the cast and crew of Moonlight, considering that the Barry Jenkins-directed movie won in the ‘Best Picture’ category at the 89th Academy Awards on Sunday night, February 26, 2017.

However, the announcement of Moonlight‘s win came after a mix-up, which saw presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway initially announce Damien Chazelle’s musical La La Land as the winner.

British Vogue reported that La La Land producer Fred Berger was in the process of delivering an acceptance speech on behalf of the La La Land team when producer Jordan Horowitz declared:

“No, there’s a mistake, Moonlight, you won Best Picture – this is not a joke.”

Vogue.co.uk

After the Moonlight team took to the stage to claim the prize, Beatty immediately explained to a confused audience that he was handed the wrong envelope.

Vogue.co.uk

Meanwhile, US Weekly reported that PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm in charge of the Oscars balloting and the delivery of winning envelopes, issued an official apology on Monday morning for the mix-up:

“We sincerely apologize to ‘Moonlight,’ ‘La La Land,’ Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred.”

Other winners are Casey Affleck in the ‘Best Actor’ category for his role in Manchester by the Sea, Emma Stone in the ‘Best Actress’ category for La La Land.

Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis won in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and ‘Best Supporting Actress’ categories for their performances in Moonlight and Fences respectively.

Kevin Winter/Vanity Fair

It is pertinent to note that, Viola Davis, who came close to winning in the ‘Best Actress’ category in 2011 for The Help, reportedly had her lead performance in Fences submitted last fall in the ‘Best Supporting Actress’ category toward the 89th Academy Awards, according to Vanity Fair.

Nonetheless, her Oscar win makes her the first black woman to win Oscar, Emmy and Tony awards for acting.

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Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney | via Instagram

La La Land director Damien Chazelle also picked up an Oscar in the ‘Best Director’ category, while Barry Jenkins picked up the ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ award for Moonlight, which he penned with original playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. Moonlight is Jenkins’ sophomore directorial effort after Medicine for Melancholy (2008) .

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Naomie Harris Gets Honoured with OBE

February 27, 2017planet akinade Leave a comment

via Instagram/Facebook

In case you have not heard, British actress and Oscar nominee Naomie Harris has been officially appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the Queen of England. The Queen reportedly honoured Harris during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Thursday, February 23, 2017, for her services to drama.

HELLO! Canada reported that the James Bond 007 and Moonlight star gave credit to director Danny Boyle after the ceremony, when she told reporters “He really gave me a chance when nobody else would at the start of my career when I had no credits to my name. Then later on he gave me a part in Frankenstein at the National after having left drama school ten years before and not having done any theatre. He took a chance again and that’s how Bond happened”.

Later, the actress whose filmography also includes After the Sunset, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and Collateral Beauty, posted a picture from the ceremony on Facebook with this long caption: “As the daughter of an immigrant, it was with an added sense of pride that I received an OBE from the Queen today. I spent the ceremony reflecting on how my deceased grandparents would have felt seeing their granddaughter receive this kind of recognition from a country they fought so hard to be accepted by. I am proud to be British, and proud to be of Jamaican/Trinidadian descent, and I am incredibly proud of all the sacrifices my grandparents made so that I could live my dreams.”

Harris said she was impressed by how youthful the Queen looked, “She looked incredibly young and really healthy – and she has good skin.”, she added.