Oscars 2017

Whatever happened, someone off stage has been fired, and possibly sued.

... Donlad Trump, were you in the wings?

I don't like a lot of the negativity being thrown at Beatty (elsewhere not here) because as much as we can all from our armchairs/computer screens say 'it was obvious he should have said something right away' but in the heat of the moment, on stage, I think you'd just trust that you'd been given the right thing and go with it. As the saying goes though I think it's fairly clear it's 'cock up not conspiracy' even if La La Land had actually finished their speech and gone off with the Oscar there's no way it wouldn't have come to light almost immediately that it was wrong- PWC look bad enough at this stage never mind if it got further.

Ryan Gosling giggling at the side of the stage is my new favourite Oscar reaction though.

To be fair to both presenters, Beatty knew from the moment he pulled the card out of the envelope that something wasn't right. You can see him going back into the envelope to see if there was another card. He stalls, and keeps looking at the card, but I don't think it occurred to him to look at the writing on the outside of the envelope, which would have instantly told him that he had the entirely wrong envelope. His big error was showing the card to Faye Dunaway, who called out the film name before understanding why Beatty was stalling. Faye was waiting for his announcement, and when he showed her the card, she barely glanced at it, saw La La Land (but probably didn't even register that Emma Stone's name was also on the card), and announced it, perhaps thinking that Warren couldn't make out the wording or something.

It's pretty clear what happened - the one of two PWC accountants (who stand on each side of the stage) gave Beatty the back-up envelope from the previous award. It's just dumb luck that the winner of the award before best picture was the actress from La La Land. Had it been any of the other acting categories, it would have been instantly obvious to the presenters that they had the wrong card. It's likely the PWC error that led to this chaos, but I do blame the show producers, who must have known almost instantly (probably by a stage hand screaming that the PWC accountant just collapsed in a heap crying 'wrong card, wrong card'), and they didn't pull the mics, or go to commercial before the bulk of the cast and crew of La La Land reached the stage. I think they spent 30 seconds too long trying to work out what they should do, instead of getting Jimmy or a producer on the stage to halt the award presentation.

I remember seeing a behind the scenes Oscars programme, and the presenters get handed the envelope literally a second before they walk on stage. The focus about these awards is to protect the integrity of the voting process, and the secrecy of the awards results, which has clearly led to presenters being handed it in the semi-darkness of backstage, and not actually having a chance to double check they've got the right thing. Obviously, having now screwed up the biggest award, at the biggest ceremony, people will know to check, but it's too late for Moonlight to enjoy their moment properly. Such a shame - it was a brilliant film and well deserved. As much as I enjoyed La La Land, there were big issues with some of the performances and the film as a whole.

dizzieblonde

Not sure why I'm quoted in that specifically? I've not said anything controversial there as far as I can tell, or majorly different to others in the thread...nor does my comment disagree with yours? just a bit confused.

I'm not disagreeing with your post! What makes you think I am?! Are we not allowed to quote posts to expand more on something they say? Just checking!

Just catching up on the shenanigans with La La Land winning Best Picture, so it did actually happen and wasn't fake news?

The annotated video from Slate is entertaining.

www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/02/27/oscar_best_picture_mistake_video_annotated_and_reviewed.html

BIB - that's pretty much my thoughts about the two films. La La Land was good, but I was a tiny bit disappointed with the end results, and some of the choices made, both by the actors and the director. It could have been incredible, but fell a little way short. I suspect the number of awards La La Land got reflected Hollywood's love of self-referential subject matter and anything sentimental, and were basically more about the idea of the musical about LA and their industry, rather than about the execution. Moonlight, on the other hand, exceeded every expectation I had about the subject matter. I think Naomi Harris was robbed of that Oscar, she was outstanding.

BTW,that Slate video is both illuminating and hilarious, in a so-very-awkward way! It does show the huge time that clearly elapsed before they actually got the balls to cut into the speeches - the fact that the third producer was in the middle of his speech is kind of ridiculous. They could have acted so much faster - but this was (until last night) obviously a loophole area, that no one had planned for. No one thought the entire wrong name would both appear on a card that was held by a presenter AND get as far as being read out.

In an awful way, this was the only award category to get wrong, where it could feasibly go all the way through to people being on stage and accepting the award. Reading Emma Stone's name on a card that ought to contain the names of directors, other acting categories, music or any of the technical ones, would have instantly raised a red flag to the presenters, and would have stopped the award presentation before someone was on stage giving a tearful acceptance speech, before being forced to hand over a statue to someone else! It totally was one of those perfect storm moments, where any other combination of events would have resulted in it never getting that far. But hey, it makes for great copy in the morning papers, and livened up what was (let's be honest here) a fairly dull Oscar ceremony! It'll certainly up the viewing figures for the highlights shows!

Whatvstood out to me was how Beatty knew it was wrong but instead of questioning it completely bottled it and handed it over to Dunaway to deal.

Madonna once called him "you pussy man". She was right. 

variety.com/2017/film/news/oscar-best-picture-gaffe-brian-cullinan-envelope-1201999283/

For those who want a blow by blow account of what happened backstage captured by the photographer hired to capture the ambience. And who doesn't?

You may be right - it's unhealthy. I thought that even more when I read the accountants involved in the mix-up, not only can no longer be involved with the show, but have had death threats on social media. Their firm has hired bodyguards for them. Seriously.