• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Oscars: Chaos on stage after 'Moonlight' wins best Picture

Status
Not open for further replies.
Frodo said:
I'm so happy for Moonlight.




It is a shame the mishap is taking the spot light, though.
Click to expand...

Inadvertently probably gives it legs too though. You get the Oscar win, put that on the Bluray/streaming descriptions for all of time. And any time there is a top ten list of award debacles the movie gets mentioned again for years to come. Not too many movies get that kind of free advertising for eternity. Think of it as a blessing in disguise.
 
Watched Moonlight the other day, just an incredibly intimate movie. La La Land was great – I loved it all the way – but this was the right choice.
I secretly kinda wanted Manchester by the Sea to win though. That one fucked me up good.

2016 was a great year of film.
 
Succinct Verbosity said:
As much as I dislike the oscars, spotlight was a great film and not really the best example to use when discrediting the organisation.
Click to expand...

Were talking about losing emotional investment in the idea of presenting an antiquated ceremony of well-made movies like a competition and handing out trophies years before Spotlight won BP, not "discrediting the organization" because Spotlight won or whatever you were getting at. The oscars were fun to watch growing up but I've been unable to care much about it for a good while now.

Spotlight explores an interesting subject and has some dope performances for sure, but MM:FR and TR are more impressive cinematic achievements (visually amazing stuff) to me and it's reasonable to assume they will likely be more impactful in culture and in the film and TV industry over time (Especially MM:FR).
 
Dan27 said:
Spotlight was clearly the better film over Revenant and Mad Max IMO.
Click to expand...

Not trying to take away from the performances and overall craft of the movie, but films like that which hinge on real events to that extent just make me want to read about the actual events or watch a documentary instead of a dramatization TBH. A lot of effort went into it being a good fil, I'm sure, but I can't help it, just give me the doc or non-fiction book lol.
 
gfxtwin said:
Not trying to take away from the performances and overall craft of the movie, but films like that which hinge on real events to that extent just make me want to read about the actual events or watch a documentary instead of a dramatization TBH. A lot of effort went into it being a good fil, I'm sure, but I can't help it, just give me the doc or non-fiction book lol.
Click to expand...
Are you talking about Spotlight or Revenant?
 
neoanarch said:
Are you talking about Spotlight or Revenant?
Click to expand...

The Revenant works for me without it being completely true to the story of the real Hugh Glass. IMO it's an amazing, visually spectacular look at the early American frontier that immerses you in that time and place to a degree I haven't seen in any other Westerns. If you expect a straight biopic about the real Hugh Glass, you'll be disappointed, sure, but he's also a folkloric character and his story has been embellished so much over time that it is difficult to say for certain how much of all the info out there is accurate. TR still honors his legend by including some of the things he went through but uses it as a starting point to make a more interesting, cinematic revenge epic and survival story.

An argument could also likely be made that Spotlight transcends the real events by telling a fantastic story where there is truth in its fiction, but I can't help but feel like a well-researched doc or book is more interesting and a better use of my time given that i really want to know about the events it's based on with as little misleading info as possible.
 
The blame here lies solely on the person that mixed up the cards.
Warren Beatty is an old dude. He was probably questioning his own mind, and needed time to think /process what was happening but with the pressure and everybody waiting, handed off the card. The lady isn't to blame either.

It sucks for the LLL people and somebody is going to lose their job, but I don't think it's fair to pin it on the presenters. They are supposed to read the card and they did. Beatty in his youth likely would have caught the mistake and fixed it but it is what it is.
 
Parahan said:
C5plfqfXMAI-FL5.jpg


Dude clearly had Best actress card handed to him by some idiot. I guess his only fault was not flipping it to cross check.
Click to expand...
I imagine whoever handed him that envelope did that job for the last time.
 
It's weird that the Oscars TV lady doing the voiceover for the winner said that La La Land won Best Picture. I would think the things she reads are all pre-written. Or is the winner really that secret??

Bizarre that it went on for so long before they stepped in and stopped the La La Land acceptance speech.
 
Futureman said:
It's weird that the Oscars TV lady doing the voiceover for the winner said that La La Land won Best Picture. I would think the things she reads are all pre-written. Or is the winner really that secret??

Bizarre that it went on for so long before they stepped in and stopped the La La Land acceptance speech.
Click to expand...

It's that secret. Voiceover is done live
 
AP reports PwC announced earlier this morning (February 27, 2017) that they are launching an investigation into how they handed the wrong envelope to the presenters, AP states that PwC has been involved with the Oscars for more than 80 years: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f015.../oops-our-bad-moonlight-really-won-major-mess

It was one of the most awkward moments in the history of the Oscars, of television, in entertainment, heck maybe in American history.

And somehow Warren Beatty, Hollywood's ultimate smooth leading man, was at the center of it, and the accounting firm that is responsible for the integrity of Oscar voting apologized and was vowing a full investigation.

The producers of "La La Land" were nearly done with their acceptance speeches for Best Picture, the Oscar broadcast's credits sequence about to roll, when a stir of whispers began on stage. Moments later "La La Land" producer Jordan Horowitz returned to the microphone and said "Moonlight won Best Picture" and insisting that "this is not a joke."

The collective jaw of the crowd at the Dolby Theatre — and of America — remained dropped long after they became convinced it was no joke, but what academy historians later called an apparently unprecedented Oscar error. The accounting firm PwC, formerly Price Waterhouse Coopers, said early Monday that Beatty and Dunaway had been given the wrong envelope.

"We sincerely apologize to 'Moonlight,' 'La La Land,' Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture," a statement from the firm said. "The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred."

The statement came several hours after the chaotic ending, which featured Beatty returning to the mic to explain that he had opened the envelope and he was confused when it read "Emma Stone, La La Land." He had shown it to co-presenter Faye Dunaway briefly, as though he wanted her to read it, which she did, apparently assuming the Emma Stone part was off but the "La La" part correct.

"It's one of the strangest things that's ever happened to me," Beatty said backstage. "Thank God there were two of us up there," Dunaway responded.

The actress then asked Beatty, "Who else should I tell?"

"Everybody," he said.

At that point, a security guard tried to take the real envelope and Beatty said, "Security is not getting this. I'm giving it to (Moonlight director) Barry Jenkins at a later time." Beatty also refused to show it to anyone else.

ABC News, tweeting about the ceremony broadcast on its network, said the envelope held by Beatty read, "Actress in a leading role." A close-up photo of Beatty onstage verified that.

PwC has counted votes and provides winner envelopes for the Oscars and has done so for more than 80 years.

When the firm's representatives realized the mistake, they raced onstage to right it, but too late, officials told The Associated Press.

The result was a bizarre scene with the entire cast of both movies standing together on stage exchanging sympathetic awkward stares and hugs.

The ceremony's chaotic scene immediately raced to the top of all-time Oscar moments, far more stunning than the nude man who raced across the stage in 1974 as part of the "streaking" fad.

And it immediately evoked Steve Harvey's recent gaffe of naming the wrong Miss Universe winner.

The Miss Universe Twitter account quickly let the Oscars know they felt their pain.

"Have your people call our people, we know what to do," the tweet read.

That was the beginning of a Tweet pile-on that may be the biggest of all time, with many declaring that "La La Land" won the popular vote while "Moonlight" won the electoral college.

But this stage, and this audience, were far, far bigger and are likely to last far, far longer in collective memory.
Click to expand...
 
Futureman said:
It's weird that the Oscars TV lady doing the voiceover for the winner said that La La Land won Best Picture. I would think the things she reads are all pre-written. Or is the winner really that secret??

Bizarre that it went on for so long before they stepped in and stopped the La La Land acceptance speech.
Click to expand...
Oscar secrecy is serious shit. PwC only knows.
 
That was the beginning of a Tweet pile-on that may be the biggest of all time, with many declaring that "La La Land" won the popular vote while "Moonlight" won the electoral college.
Click to expand...

And this is exactly what I was afraid... immediately casting doubts on Moonlights incredible and important win.

Heads need to roll
 
Holy shit, I didn't realize the La La Land folks got through 2 full acceptance speeches and almost a third. That's brutal.

You gotta feel bad for the Moonlight folks too. Their win got overshadowed by this.
 
Now a good movie can keep its oscar and another good movie will be trivia question classic forever.
So its a win for both lol

The person that gave the envolope is into some serious trouble though.
 
Sephzilla said:
Yeah, someone's losing their job
Click to expand...

It's not that simple, they're both partners at PwC and I'm pretty sure the guy is the lead partner. It'll be interesting what happens re: the fallout, it's bad publicity for a prestigious accounting firm but at the same time it's not like they'd be booting out a low level staffer, these are two leaders of the firm. The actual 'job' of doing the Oscars is more about optics, I'm sure it's pennies compared to their whole business but if they were to be dropped by the Oscars it'd be a pretty big black eye for them but I also don't know if they'd lose clients or business because of it. If you're a big business using this firm to handle your finances/taxes, they're so entangled in everything that removing them over something like this seems really impractical.
 
excelsiorlef said:
And this is exactly what I was afraid... immediately casting doubts on Moonlights incredible and important win.

Heads need to roll
Click to expand...

I imagine most were just trying to make some topical joke. There's simply zero reason to assume that Moonlight didn't win legitimately.

Proteus said:
I kind of wish it had been the backup for the Best Makeup envelope.
Click to expand...
"And the oscar goes to Suicide Squad"

*a single man screams in the gallery*

*loud footsteps running down stairs*

*an exhausted David Ayer crashes through the door and jumps on stage*

"Oh god, thank you, thank you"
 
Would this technically count as a bigger comeback than the Patriots in the SuperBowl?
 
Quite the fuck up. I feel bad for those guys who gave their acceptance speech but they handled the mess up pretty well.
 
KSweeley said:
AP reports PwC announced earlier this morning (February 27, 2017) that they are launching an investigation into how they handed the wrong envelope to the presenters, AP states that PwC has been involved with the Oscars for more than 80 years: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f015.../oops-our-bad-moonlight-really-won-major-mess
Click to expand...

I mean, I agree that it's a weird bit of television, but the tone of that article is so funny to me. They're basically rubbing their hands in glee and endlessly proclaiming how historically important it was.

The mass attention will die off in a couple of days, and from then on it'll be something that will get brought up a couple of times when the Oscars are coming up and it'll be featured in a ton of compilation videos on youtube, but that'll be the extent of it. It's a big fuckup on a stage with a lot of eyes on it, but it's not more than that.
 
Warren Beatty doesn't come off as good in this:

At that point, a security guard tried to take the real envelope and Beatty said, "Security is not getting this. I'm giving it to (Moonlight director) Barry Jenkins at a later time." Beatty also refused to show it to anyone else.
​

Give the award to Moonlight at a later date? But the whole point of winning is to celebrate with everyone, on stage, with emotions running high.
 
Let's all be honest here...

Who hasn't watched these award shows and, when it gets to the "big prize", secretly wants them to announce the wrong winner and watch the chaos unfold?

Every award show, my brain wants the announcer to go "and the winner is... these guys!.... Just kidding."
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Oscars 2026 |OT|
2 3
149
2K
DKehoe replied
  • Poll
Oscars: New rules states AI actors and scripts cannot win awards
33
53
YCoCg replied
Oscars 2026 - The nominations
2 3
138
2K
jason10mm replied
3 Doors Down singer Brad Arnold Dead at 47 After Stage 4 Cancer Battle
24
460
Northeastmonk replied
Ask Jeeves closes after 30 years
37
159
StreetsofBeige replied
Top Bottom