2017 Oscars Recap: Trump, the speeches and the biggest mistake in Oscar history
If there's one thing you can count on when it comes to Oscar night, it's that you can't count on anything.
The 89th annual Academy Awards took place on Sunday night with comedian Jimmy Kimmel playing host at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
The three and a half hour celebration kicked off with Justin Timberlake dancing through the theatre performing a spirited rendition of "Can't Stop the Feeling," his nominated song from the animated feature film, Trolls. The song didn't take home Best Original Song award (La La Land's "City of Stars" scored the statue), but it did seem to set the tone for the evening, at least for a few moments.
Hollywood calls out Trump
When Kimmel hit the stage he wasted no time taking aim at the 45th president of the United States. "This broadcast is being watched live by millions of Americans and around the world in more than 225 countries that now hate us," he said during his opening monologue.
"I want to say thank you to President Trump, remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?" the late night host added. "That's gone, thanks to him."
Kimmel then predicted Donald Trump was sure to tweet about Hollywood's biggest night at 5 a.m. "during his bowel movements," and later in the show hilariously tweeted Trump on stage saying, "u up?" and #merylsayshi."
Trump jokes and protests were a constant throughout the night, starting on the red carpet. Numerous celebs sported bright blue ribbons on their designer gowns and tuxedos in support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization has been on the front lines of civil liberty battles fighting Trump's controversial Muslim travel ban, as well as protections for transgender students.
Best Hollywood bus tour ever?
Midway through Sunday night's awards bash Kimmel announced that a Hollywood tour bus had pulled up to the Dolby Theatre, and that the tourists aboard were expecting a tour of a special exhibit of dresses and gowns worn at the Oscars. Instead, the unsuspecting group was led into the Oscars celebration and put on display.
An engaged couple was "married" by Best Actor nominee Denzel Washington, while Jennifer Aniston gave a woman named Vicki a pair of sunglasses, and Gary from Chicago got to hold onto Mahershala Ali's prized Oscar statue. The lengthy segment polarized Twitter with some calling it delightful, while others declared it utterly cringeworthy. Of course, it wasn't the most cringe-worthy part of the evening…
And the winner is . . .
The night was filled with predictable nods including Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis winning much-deserved supporting acting honors. Ali was recognized for his work as a sympathetic drug dealer in Barry Jenkins' coming-of-age film, Moonlight, while Davis picked up her Oscar statue for playing a long-suffering wife in Denzel Washington's August Wilson adaptation, Fences.
Casey Affleck won Best Actor for his performance as a grief-stricken janitor in Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea and Emma Stone won Best Actress for her performance as a Hollywood striver in Damien Chazelle's La La Land.
La La Land dominated the annual celebration of the best of the film by taking home six awards in total, after leading the nominations with 14, tying the record set by Titanic and All About Eve.
The musical tribute to Los Angeles "almost" won seven gold statues when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced that the film had won Best Picture at the end of the evening. There were cheers and the beginnings of heartfelt speeches, and then confusion and awkwardness seemed to take over the stage and no one really understood what was going on. In an unprecedented mistake, Beatty and Dunaway were given the wrong envelope and mistakenly dubbed La La Land as the victor. Barry Jenkin's Moonlight was actually the winner of the most coveted award of the evening.
It was arguably the most spectacular, uncomfortable mistake in Oscar's history. It was also unfortunate that the deserving cast and crew of Moonlight lost their moment to shine on stage amongst the utter confusion of the audience in the Dolby theatre and for those watching at home.
Not-so-typical speeches
Amongst the onstage confusion of Oscar's biggest flub, Barry Jenkins made his way to the microphone to give his speech accepting the Best Picture award.
"Very clearly, even in my dreams this could not be true, but to hell with dreams! I'm done with it because this is true," Jenkins said. "I have to say it is true, it's not fake. We've been on the road with these guys for so long and that was so gracious, so generous of them. My love to La La Land, my love to everybody."
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi picked up the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for The Salesman, but was not present at the ceremony in protest of President Trump's visa ban for citizens from Iran other Muslim countries. Iranian-American engineer Anousheh Ansari accepted the award for director and read a statement that slammed the policy as inhuman and argued that "dividing the world into the us and our enemies categories creates fear."
Ezra Edelman, the director of best feature documentary winner O.J.: Made in America, dedicated his award to the late Ron Goldman, Nicole Brown and their families.
"This is also for other victims, victims of police violence, police brutality," Edelman said. "This is their story, as it is Ron and Nicole's."
Of all of this year's speeches, Viola Davis' might have been the most gratifying. The actress' earned her third Academy Award nomination and first win for her supporting role in Fences. (Her first two nominations were for Doubt and The Help)
In her moving acceptance speech, Davis said, "People ask me all the time, what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories, the stories of the people who dreamed."
She continued and ended praising the playwright behind Fences, saying, "I became an artist, and thank god I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life. So here's to August Wilson, who exhumed and exalted the ordinary people."
Give the woman an award for her Oscar acceptance speech.
Christopher Turner is a Toronto-based writer, editor and lifelong fashionisto with a passion for pop culture and sneakers. Follow him on social media at @Turnstylin.