Oscars 2019: Parasite Triumphs, and So Does History

Every so often, the Academy gets one right.

Look, I don’t care all that much about the Oscars. They’re a self-congratulatory ceremony designed to honor the preferences of an insular collective whose tastes rarely mirror my own. Getting worked up about them is just silly. But they still matter, as a matter of historical record if nothing else. Sure, the Academy Awards can help launch careers or highlight social issues, but their primary function these days is statistical. Actors are identified in obituaries as having been nominated X number of times, while certain victories become data points—anecdotes used to spot cinematic trends in terms of genre, style, and demographics. How many war movies have won Best Picture? How many women have been nominated for Best Director? These questions are posed not just in esoteric bar trivia, but by scholars who seek to measure changes within the film industry, who participate in our ongoing quest to determine which movies we like and which we ruefully ignore. We pay attention to the Oscars because they matter; the Oscars matter because we pay attention.

So you will forgive me if I let out a small whoop of glee when Jane Fonda announced that Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2019. It’s been more than a decade since my personal favorite of the Best Picture nominees claimed the top prize; it’s been roughly a quarter-century since my favorite film of the year, period, took home a statuette. (Sorry, I can’t tell you which specific movies they are because the internet has declared that I’m no longer allowed to like them.) Of course Parasite’s victory didn’t change the film itself; it was a great movie before last night, and I suspect that I’ll still consider it a great movie five years from now. But its win does matter, and not just because the Academy has finally broken the English-language stranglehold that had persisted for its 91-year history. Perhaps the success of Parasite will encourage American studios to more aggressively green-light and distribute foreign fare. Perhaps it will induce mainstream audiences to overcome their phobia of subtitles. Perhaps it will encourage creators to try to be bolder, to refuse to constrain themselves in terms of genre or ambition.

Or maybe not. Maybe next year, Best Picture will go to Green Book 2: The South Strikes Back. Who knows? But for now, I’m choosing to revel in this moment. Parasite won Best Picture! How cool is that?

As for the show itself, it was the usual mix of funny, awkward, well-meaning, and boring. Throughout, the Academy appeared to make a concerted effort to feature women and minorities as presenters, a noble gesture that only underscored the pervasive maleness and whiteness of the slate of actual nominees. The opening number, performed by Janelle Monaé (with an assist from Billy Porter), seemed to take this a step further; it was a robust and well-executed performance that curiously paid tribute to a number of films that had received zero nominations (most notably Midsommar). Steve Martin and Chris Rock delivered a finely calibrated dual monologue, with Rock supplying the social barbs and Martin coolly deflecting them; it was moderately pointed but mostly just playful. The message seemed to be one of both self-congratulation and self-improvement: We know we can do better, but c’mon, we’re still pretty good!

Fair enough. The Academy is hardly perfect, but there was still an awful lot of talent assembled in the Dolby Theatre last night, and the show did a solid enough job of recognizing it. Speaking of which, per tradition, let’s quickly run through the feature categories, in order of their presentation:

Best Supporting Actor
Predicted winner: Brad Pitt—Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (confidence: 5/5)
Preferred winner: Joe Pesci—The Irishman
Actual winner: Brad Pitt—Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

This year, rather than showing single-scene clips of each acting nominee, the broadcast assembled them into a montage for each category. It was a clever way to highlight more of each actor’s performance, but it also felt a bit jumbled. Anyway, good speech by Pitt—short, appreciative, and punchy.

Best Animated Feature
Predicted winner: Toy Story 4 (confidence: 1/5)
Preferred winner: Toy Story 4
Actual winner: Toy Story 4

Hey, Toy Story 4 won! It’s a good movie!

After Hair Love picked up the trophy for Best Animated Short, Idina Menzel and a gang of foreign singers delivered a knockout performance of Frozen II’s “Into the Unknown”, in various languages. (Most of her confederates seemed to be either European or Asian, but hey, let’s not nitpick.) I find most of the song renditions at the Oscars to be flat, so my proposal is that Idina Menzel should just sing all of them from this point forward.

Best Original Screenplay
Predicted winner: Parasite—Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won (confidence: 2/5)
Preferred winner: Knives Out—Rian Johnson
Actual winner: Parasite—Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won

Bong hive, activate! This was Bong’s first appearance on the stage; needless to say, it would not be his last.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Predicted winner: Jojo Rabbit—Taika Waititi (confidence: 2/5)
Preferred winner: Little Women—Greta Gerwig
Actual winner: Jojo Rabbit—Taika Waititi

Boo.

Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig—and if you’re looking for comments on the latter’s dress, you’re on the wrong site—presented each of the next two awards, and they did their usual thing where they were 20% annoying and 80% hilarious. I’ll take that ratio any time.

Best Production Design
Predicted winner: 1917 (confidence: 1/5)
Preferred winner: Parasite
Actual winner: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

My first miss of the night. For the record, I went 17-for-21 on my predictions, a passable but unexceptional performance.

Best Costume Design
Predicted winner: Little Women (confidence: 4/5)
Preferred winner: Little Women
Actual winner: Little Women

That’s “Academy Award winner Little Women” to you.

Best Documentary Feature
Predicted winner: American Factory (confidence: 1/5)
Actual winner: American Factory

Okay.

Best Supporting Actress
Predicted winner: Laura Dern—Marriage Story (confidence: 4/5)
Preferred winner: Florence Pugh—Little Women
Actual winner: Laura Dern—Marriage Story

“Some say never meet your heroes, but I say if you’re really blessed, you get them as your parents.” Thanks a lot, Laura Dern, making me all misty.

This was followed by Anthony Ramos introducing Lin-Manuel Miranda, who in turn introduced a pretty nifty montage showing famous songs in film history. That then inexplicably led to Eminem giving a live performance of “Lose Yourself”, which won Best Original Song 17 years ago for 8 Mile. He didn’t show up to perform it then, but that didn’t justify the interminable rendition he gave here.

Best Sound Editing
Predicted winner: 1917 (confidence: 1/5)
Preferred winner: Ford v Ferrari
Actual winner: Ford v Ferrari

Love the sneaky eulogy to 20th Century Fox in the speech.

Best Sound Mixing
Predicted winner: 1917 (confidence: 1/5)
Preferred winner: 1917
Actual winner: 1917

And with that, 1917 finally got on the board. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t the frontrunner’s night.

Randy Newman then performed a forgettable song from Toy Story 4, the title of which I do not remember. However, I do remember the “rap recap” that Utkarsh Ambudkar subsequently delivered, where he rather ingeniously synthesized most of what had happened in the past two hours into a two-minute package of rhymes. Perhaps he had more advance prep than he let on, but it was damn impressive regardless. (By the way, Ambudkar is in Brockmire, a show that you should totally watch.)

Also, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Will Ferrell—soon to be hitting screens in Downfall, the (presumably unnecessary) American remake of Force Majeure—presented the next two awards. They said some funny things because they are funny people.

Best Cinematography
Predicted winner: 1917—Roger Deakins (confidence: 5/5)
Preferred winner: 1917—Roger Deakins
Actual winner: 1917—Roger Deakins

Obviously.

Best Film Editing
Predicted winner: Ford v Ferrari—Andrew Buckland and Michael McCusker (confidence: 2/5)
Preferred winner: Parasite—Jinmo Yang
Actual winner: Ford v Ferrari—Andrew Buckland and Michael McCusker

At the time, I thought that this signaled a major hit to Parasite’s Best Picture chances. Shows what I know.

Best Visual Effects
Predicted winner: 1917 (confidence: 2/5)
Preferred winner: The Lion King
Actual winner: 1917

James Corden and Rebel Wilson presented this award in full cat regalia—complete with some distracted batting of the mic stand—and, well, you have to give them credit for steering into the skid.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Predicted winner: Bombshell (confidence: 4/5)
Preferred winner: Bombshell
Actual winner: Bombshell

Big night for Megyn Kelly.

Best International Feature Film
Predicted winner: Parasite (confidence: 5/5)
Preferred winner: Parasite
Actual winner: Parasite

I like Penélope Cruz, but it was just rude of the Academy to make her present this award when everyone knew that Pain and Glory—which she starred in—was going to lose to Parasite.

Best Original Score
Predicted winner: Joker—Hildur Guðnadóttir (confidence: 3/5)
Preferred winner: Little Women—Alexandre Desplat
Actual winner: Joker—Hildur Guðnadóttir

This was cool. Sure, the banter between Brie Larson, Sigourney Weaver, and Gal Gadot was pretty forced, but then they introduced a female conductor to lead the orchestra for the first time in the Academy’s history, which was followed by Guðnadóttir becoming the first woman ever to win this award, and sue me, that was awesome. Plus, Guðnadóttir seemed genuinely moved in her speech.

Best Original Song
Predicted winner: “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again”—Elton John and Bernie Taupin (from Rocketman) (confidence: 3/5)
Preferred winner: “Into the Unknown”—Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (from Frozen II)
Actual winner: “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again”—Elton John and Bernie Taupin (from Rocketman)

Yawn.

Best Director
Predicted winner: Sam Mendes—1917 (confidence: 3/5)
Preferred winner: Quentin Tarantino—Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Actual winner: Bong Joon-ho—Parasite

Whoa! Really nice touch of Bong to quote Scorsese in his speech. If you’re unfamiliar with Bong, his entire filmography is strong, but I’d particularly recommend Memories of Murder and Snowpiercer. (Well, and Parasite, duh.)

Best Actor
Predicted winner: Joaquin Phoenix—Joker (confidence: 5/5)
Preferred winner: Leonardo DiCaprio—Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Actual winner: Joaquin Phoenix—Joker

I’m sure that some will take issue with Phoenix’s speech, which was a little too unfocused and platitudinous to be truly powerful. But it was still the only legitimately memorable speech of the night; instead of the typical laundry list of thank-yous, he actually had something to say. Good for him.

Best Actress
Predicted winner: Renée Zellweger—Judy (confidence: 4/5)
Preferred winner: Saoirse Ronan—Little Women
Actual winner: Renée Zellweger—Judy

Maybe next year, Saoirse.

Best Picture
Predicted winner: 1917 (confidence: 3/5)
Preferred winner: Parasite
Actual winner: Parasite

Huzzah! This is the fourth time in the past five years that I’ve failed to correctly predict the Best Picture winner; I’ve never been happier to have been wrong.

That’s a wrap. We’ll be back soon with our regularly scheduled reviews, plus our top 10 list for 2019. Until then, go see Parasite!