Quebec shone at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday night thanks to Montreal native Adrien Morot, who won the Best Makeup and Hairstyle award for his work in the film The Whale. The crazy comedy Everything, everywhere, suddenly emerged as the big winner of the evening with seven Oscars including best picture.
The pundits who had suddenly predicted a raid on Everything, Everywhere, All were not wrong: in the race for eleven awards, the film by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert ultimately won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The actors Everything, Everywhere, Everything at Once particularly excelled. Michelle Yeoh took home the Oscar for Best Actress, while Ke Huy Quan, who plays her husband in the film, took home the Best Supporting Actress award.
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“Ladies, don’t let anyone tell you that your best years are behind you,” said Michelle Yeoh, 60, as she accepted her award.
Jamie Lee Curtis, an icon of American cinema for more than 40 years, has now won the first Oscar of her career – for best supporting actress – thanks to her interpretation of an obnoxious tax officer.
The evening was also fruitful for Québec native Adrien Morot, a renowned special effects makeup specialist in Hollywood. The Montreal native won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyle for his work in the film The Whale, which included designing the makeup and augmentation prosthetics that allowed actor Brendan Fraser to look into his skin of a man with hatch over 600 pounds.
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Fraser, who is also Canadian, won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film.
Adrien Morot was nominated for an Oscar in 2011 for his role in the film Le monde de Barney. However, this year it came up empty handed.
Following Patrice Vermette, who won last year’s Best Art Direction award for his work in Dune, this is the second year in a row that a Quebec artist has taken the stage at the Dolby Theater to receive an Oscar. Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction film won a total of six Oscars.
Other films that stood out on Sunday were the German war drama in the West, Nothing New, which won four awards including best international film.
It should also be noted that Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for her film What They Say.
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Jimmy Kimmel returned as Master of Ceremonies after hosting the Gala in 2017 and 2018 and was excellent. Parachuting onto the stage — a Top Gun nod — the host delivered a scathing and comically effective opening monologue, serving up some amusing points to Tom Cruise and James Cameron, who were both absent from the ceremony.
Kimmel was also quick to address the elephant in the room: Will Smith’s famous slap on Chris Rock. The host recalled that a crisis response team was present behind the scenes to prevent another incident of the same nature from happening this year.
“But you know, if someone commits a violent act in this room, they get the Oscar for best actor and they get to give a 19-minute speech,” he added tot.
Best movie
Everything, everywhere, all at once
best performance
Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, Everything, everywhere, all at once
Best actor
Brendan Fraser for The Whale
Best Actress
Michelle Yeoh, for everything, everywhere, all at once
Best supporting actor
Ke Huy Quan, for everything, everywhere, all at once
The best supporting actress
Jamie Lee Curtis, for everything, everywhere, all at once
Best International Film
Nothing New in the West, by Edward Berger (Germany)
Best Animated Film
Pinocchio, by Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley
Best Soundtrack
Nothing new in the west, by Volker Bertelmann
Best Original Song
Naatu Naatu, by Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava for RRR
Best Animated Short Film
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud
Best Documentary
Navalny, by Daniel Roher
Best Short Film
An Irish farewell to Tom Berkeley and Ross White
Best Original Screenplay
Everything, everywhere, all at once, by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Best Adapted Screenplay
What They Say, by Sarah Polley
Best direction of photography
James Friend for In the West, nothing new
Best visual effects
Avatar: The Way of Water
Best edit
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, by Paul Rogers
Angela Basset
AFP
Royale in Ramonda in Black Panther: Long Live Wakanda, the 64-year-old actress didn’t walk away with the Best Supporting Actress statuette, the Academy of Oscars favored Jamie Lee Curtis for her performance in The Whole, everywhere, completely mad about Daniel Kwan and Daniel Appears at the same time.
It is not this year that the interpretation of a character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (UCM) will be awarded an Oscar for the first time.
Mandy Walker
AFP
Cinematographer Mandy Walker, who signs Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, wasn’t the first woman to win an Oscar in the category, with the Oscar going to James Friend for Nothing New in the West.
The Australian, who notably worked on Mulan and Figures in the Shadows, was nevertheless recognized on March 5 by the American Society of Cinematographers as the first woman to receive this award.
Steven Spielberg
AFP
The Fabelman, a semi-autobiographical feature film by Steven Spielberg – filmmaker who has won three Oscars during his career – and which stars Michelle Williams and Paul Dano as his parents, was nominated for seven Oscars.
On the other hand, the film failed to seduce the members of the academy of the film industry’s most prestigious awards after The Fabelman left empty-handed.
The film also failed to impress at the box office, grossing just over $38 million from a $40 million production budget, a little over $54 million.