February 27, 2019

On Sunday, February 24, the 91st Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. For the first time since 1989, the award ceremony went without a host. Instead, a variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards. The comedy drama Green Book took home the coveted best picture award, and Alfonso Cuarón won best director for his film Roma.

Viggo Mortensen (left) and Mahershala Ali starred in Green Book, the best picture winner at the 2019 Academy Awards in Hollywood. Credit: © Universal Pictures

Hollywood’s biggest night began with a rousing performance by the rock group Queen, the subject of the best picture-nominated film Bohemian Rhapsody. Later in the ceremony, that film’s star, Rami Malek, became the first Arab American to win best actor for his charismatic portrayal of former Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury. British star Olivia Colman won best actress for her role as Queen Anne in the period dark comedy The Favourite. Anne was the first queen of Great Britain, which was formed when the Kingdom of Scotland united with the Kingdom of England and Wales in 1707.

Roma, a Mexican film that follows the life of an indigenous domestic worker, lost out on the best picture award, but it did top the best foreign language film category. Green Book told the story of a black musician and his white driver and bodyguard on a tour of the American south in 1962. The film’s title was taken from the The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook that once helped African American travelers navigate dangerous racial discrimination in the southern United States. African American actor Mahershala Ali won the best supporting actor award for his role in the film, which also won best original screenplay.

As for the other top awards on Sunday, Regina King won  best supporting actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk, a movie based on a 1974 novel by African American author James Baldwin. Director Spike Lee’s  BlacKkKlansman earned the best adapted screenplay award. That film told the story of a black detective who investigated the Ku Klux Klan hate group in the 1970′s. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won best animated feature film, and Free Solo won best documentary.

Each trophy given out at the ceremony (there were a total of 24 this year) is officially called an Academy Award of Merit, but the small golden statues have been known as “Oscars” since the 1930′s. The origin of the nickname is uncertain, but most histories center on Margaret Herrick, a former director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Apparently, upon seeing the statuettes for the first time in 1931, Herrick remarked that they looked a lot like her Uncle Oscar. Oscar became common usage for the award soon after.

February 29, 2016

The 88th Academy Awards were presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, last night, following one of the most controversial Oscars seasons in recent memory. The Academy Awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. The awards are supervised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California. Oscars are awarded in up to 27 categories.

Academy Awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. Winners of an Academy Award receive a gold-plated statue commonly called an Oscar, shown here. Credit: © Richard Levine, Alamy Images

Spotlight won for best picture of the year. The film tells the true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Roman Catholic Archdiocese. Alejandro González Iñárritu won the Oscar as best director for The Revenant, about a frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820′s who fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. It was the Mexican director’s second Oscar win in a row for best director. Iñárritu won as best director in 2015 for Birdman. Leonardo DiCaprio won the Academy Award as best actor for his performance as the lead in The Revenant. It was the actor’s first Oscar win after five other nominations. Brie Larson received the Academy Award as best actress for her performance as a woman who is abducted, held against her will, raped, and gives birth to a boy in Room. Mark Rylance won the best supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of a man who is captured for espionage against the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union (now Russia) during the Cold War in Bridge of Spies. The Academy Award for best supporting actress went to Alicia Vikander for her performance as the wife of a transgender pioneer in The Danish Girl. The night’s big winner was Mad Max: Fury Road, with six awards, for costume design, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, production design, sound editing, and sound mixing.

A number of Hollywood’s most prominent African American stars boycotted the Oscars ceremony to protest the Academy’s lack of diversity. After the Academy announced its Oscar nominees on January 14, it was quickly noted that only white actors and actresses were nominated in the top four acting categories for the second year in a row. The Twitter hashtag #OscarSoWhite, which began last year, soon saw a resurgence among users of the social networking website. Among the most outspoken Hollywood celebrities calling for a boycott were director Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith. On January 18, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, Pinkett Smith announced on Facebook and Lee announced on Instragram that they would not attend the Oscars ceremony with their spouses. Lee’s film Chi-Raq failed to win any nominations, while Pinkett Smith’s husband, Will Smith, who had been expected by some to be a best actor contender for his turn in the biopic Concussion, was also snubbed for an Oscar. Other notable omissions were British actor Idris Elba, who was projected to secure a best supporting actor nomination for his performance as an African warlord in Beasts of No Nation; Michael B. Jordan, who portrayed a boxer in the Rocky sequel Creed; and the cast of the biopic Straight Outta Compton, about the influential rap group N.W.A.

Many protesters called for the evening’s host, African American comedian and actor Chris Rock, to join the boycott. Instead Rock, who had also hosted the awards in 2005, made the Academy’s lack of diversity the focus of his humorous opening monologue and the butt of many of his jokes and bits during the evening. On Jan. 22, 2016, the Academy announced that it would overhaul its membership in order to promote diversity, aiming to double its number of female and minority members by the year 2020.

Other World Book articles:

• Birdman Soars at 87th Academy Awards (February 23, 2015) – A Behind the Headlines article
• See also Back in time articles for Motion picture from 1922 through 2014