The Joyous Triumph of "Black Panther"

by Chris Feil

Of all of the great wins of Oscar night, some of the most uplifting belonged to the team from Black Panther. The film ran a gauntlet in the past year - early release, genre bias, institutionalized racism - to defy the odds and rack up three richly deserving wins in Costume Design, Production Design, and Original Score. It was the most popular film of the year and yet these wins still shouldn't be taken for granted, theirs a collective trio representing the world we experienced when we experienced Wakanda.

Adding to the sense of massive victory here are several crucial pieces of contextual trivia...

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With a Friend Like Emma...

And the prize for "Best Reaction Shot" of Oscar night goes to an overwhelmed Emma Stone cheering on her friend and surprise Oscar winner Olivia Colman. While we're sad the producers didn't also give us enough cutaways to Rachel Weisz (hopefully occupied by snogging Daniel Craig) and the sight of a tearful Yorgos Lanthimos was unexpected and heartwarming, nothing tops the effusive affection of a friend. Hang this in the Louvre next to Kate Winslet's clasped hands in support of Leo DiCaprio.

Ranking the Oscar Clips

by Ben Miller

Of all the decisions the Academy Awards producers/directors must make, the Oscar clip decisions are surely the most covetous -- who among us wouldn't want to chose? They're fairly crucial, too.  I ranked all the clips last year, and Nathaniel was nice enough to let me do it again.  The clips preceding each of the categories ranged from brilliant to “what the hell was that?”  Let’s rank them 20-1…

Cringe-worthy

I sometimes wish I'd never been born at aaaaaaallllllll 🎵

20. Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
19. Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Woo boy.  I would personally defend the work of both of these performances, but the snippets shown on Sunday did not lend any firepower to those arguments.  Viggo gets to wax on like an idiot about not knowing the difference between Russian and German before laying on some casual racism. Malek has plenty of good moments in the Queen biopic, but a simple shot of him lipsyncing reads like an Oscar producer’s opinion on the performance itself seeping through.

Not Doing Anyone Any Favors...

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Richard Met Barbra!

Sometimes Oscar night offers a silver lining to those who go home empty handed. Case in point: Richard E. Grant may have not won Best Supporting Actor for Can You Ever Forgive Me? but he did get a prize of sorts that was a lifetime in the making. He finally met Barbra Streisand!

Being Oscar nominated was pretty amazing, but meeting with @barbrastreisand and having a proper conversation was an absolute astonishment. 40 carat Gold 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 pic.twitter.com/7ahBzdjg9j

— Richard E. Grant (@RichardEGrant) February 25, 2019

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Caption This: Glenn's Gaze

Nathaniel has already done the job of lamenting Glenn Close's sad loss again at Oscar's big night, so let's take some joy in one thing she did win that night: the internet. The spirit of goodwill and love for the screen legend has been everywhere online this season, from sharing selfies with Chalamet to her dog Sir Pippin of Beanfield's Instagram. But last night she gave us a genius bit of viral performance when she caught the eye of co-nominee Melissa McCarthy on the red carpet. The results were glamorous and... sexual (?) in nature.

  

Reader, tell us: what is Glenn Close thinking?