If Anything Happens I Love You Wins Best Animated Short

So, it sure seemed like it was only yesterday that I was hard at work trying to finish the review of the Best Animated Short nominees in advance of the Oscars tonight. Oh wait, it was yesterday. Where did all the time go?

Anyways, the Oscars have come and gone, and as most of us expected If Anything Happens I Love You walked away with the Best Animated Short Oscar. I was watching at a friend's house and didn't bring my computer so it's been a while since I was able to post this result. Nevertheless, it was a well deserved win for a strong film, and we can all go home knowing that the Oscars were perfect tonight and that there is absolutely nothing to complain about.

If only we were that lucky.

So, let me just say that I am probably the least qualified person to talk about how the rest of the Oscar night win. Besides the Best Animated Short nominees I have seen only four films that were nominated for Oscars this year: Nomadland and three of the Best Animated Feature nominees in Soul, Wolfwalkers, and Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon. Whatever I see here is just from reading Oscar sites and from gauging social media. But from the reaction of the latter, it seems possible this go down as one of the most controversial years of all time.

So, things were actually going pretty smoothly starting out. The screenplay Oscars were first, and they went to two films that were very well received, but didn't seem to have a chance of winning Best Picture. Promising Young Woman took home Best Original Screenplay for its director Emerald Fennell, while The Father took home Best Adapted Screenplay. Another Round won Best International Feature for Denmark, a result that should have shocked nobody as director Thomas Vinterberg received a nomination for Best Director. Then came Best Supporting Actor, and while it was controversial that both the "Judas" and the "Black Messiah" characters in Judas and the Black Messiah were nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category, nobody was complaining when Daniel Kaluuya won for his role as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, making up for his loss in Get Out three years ago. 

Then came a few more of the craft awards, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom won Best Makeup & Hairstyling as well as Best Costume Design. Those were strong wins, and most people were hoping that it would lead to a more special win down the line, with either Viola Davis winning Best Actress for the titular Ma Rainey or more importantly Chadwick Boseman winning Best Actor posthumously for his performance as Leevee. But all that was still further down the line, as Bong Joon-Ho Zoomed in from Korea and awarded Best Director to Chloe Zhao for her direction of Nomadland. You bet I was thrilled when she quoted "人之初，性本善" from the classical Chinese text 三字經. 

Best Sound was next. This was the first year since 1981 that the Academy combined Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing into a Best Sound category, and nobody was surprised that the deaf drama Sound of Metal took home the award. And then came the highlight of the night with the short film categories. Best Live Action Short happened first, with the winner being Two Distant Strangers, the time loop film about police shootings. Then following a commercial break, Reese Witherspoon came on to present the night's best category in Best Animated Short. (I'm totally not biased...okay, maybe I am a little.) Reese continued on by presenting Pixar with another Best Animated Feature Oscar for Soul, not a bad pick even if I was more partial towards Wolfwalkers.

The documentary categories followed, and Best Documentary Short went to Colette. That was a surprise to some as the film was made for the video game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, but maybe it shouldn't have been as it was about a French freedom fighter and her trip to Germany to visit a concentration camp where her brother died. Then the heart-warming My Octopus Teacher won for Best Documentary Feature. Some people felt that Time or Crip Camp should have won, but it's still nothing all that controversial. And then Korean film legend Yuh-Jung Youn won Best Supporting Actress for her role as the grandmother in Minari. She had endeared herself to the moviegoing world for her performance as well as her attitude during the Oscar campaign, and she delivered the best speech of the night. Plus she was the first Asian actress to win in Best Supporting Actress since Miyoshi Umeki won for Sayonara in 1957, and the first actor or actress of east Asian descent to win any acting Oscar since the late Haing S. Ngor won for The Killing Fields in 1984. 

Mank was the most nominated film of the year, but any chances of it joining The Turning Point, The Color Purple, Gangs of New York, True Grit, American Hustle, and The Irishman for films with double digit nominations without a win went out the window as it won for Best Production Design and Best Cinematography. Then Best Editing went to Sound of Metal, and Soul took home its second Oscar of the night with Best Original Score. Finally, H.E.R. walked away with Best Original Song for "Fight for You" from Judas and the Black Messiah. 

We're coming to the late stages of the night, and so far there weren't any major controversies yet. There was a puzzling bit where comedian Lil Rey Howery went around asking people if certain songs were nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Anybody with a modicum of Oscar knowledge would know that while Prince won Best Original Song Score for Purple Rain, the song itself wasn't nominated as the Oscar had gone to Stevie Wonder for "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from The Woman in Red. And of course they should know that "Last Dance" from Thank God It's Friday won in 1978. Of course all that was worth it for watching Glenn Close dancing to "Da Butt" from School Daze. And then came the In Memoriam section, where it seemed that things just whipped by was almost 15 months had passed since the last ceremony. 

And then there were only three more categories. In a stunning surprise, Rita Moreno came out to present...Best Picture! Best Picture has long been the most anticipated of the night, and this was the first time since the Academy Awards was broadcast on TV all the way back in 1953 that Best Picture was being handed out before the lead acting Oscars. Most people felt that it would provide a final heartwarming moment for Boseman's family to get a chance to bask in the spotlight for his posthumous win. And besides, nobody was surprised that Nomadland won a second Oscar for Chloe Zhao.

And then as expected here comes Renee Zellweger to present Best Actress. It was a little bit strange as traditionally the winners from the year before would present the Oscar in the opposite gender, which had happened in the Supporting category. Yet it didn't really matter all that much as neither Zellweger nor last year's Best Actor winner were not nominated. Zellweger introduced the nominees, including black nominees Davis and Andra Day for The United States vs. Billie Holliday. And she opened the envelope and read the name...Frances McDormand for Nomadland.

That result was a little bit unexpected as McDormand had won just three years ago for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and had also picked up an Oscar just minutes before for being one of the producers for Nomadland. When including her win in 1996 for Fargo, it made her just the second actress (after Katharine Hepburn) to win three Oscars in the Best Actress category, as other three-time acting winners Meryl Streep's first win and Ingrid Bergman's final win were in the Best Supporting Actress categories.

Anyways, it's okay, we can live with that. After all, there was one more category to go, and for many it was the most anticipated category of the night. (Oh how little they know.) Joaquin Phoenix came out, and after making a self-deprecating joke he presented the nominees: Boseman was well as British Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed (for Sound of Metal), Korean-American actor Steven Yeun (for Minari), and white males Gary Oldman (for Mank) and Anthony Hopkins (for The Father). And then he opened up the envelope and read...

Anthony Hopkins, for The Father.

The internet was outraged. Here was a chance to reward Chadwick Boseman for his tremendous performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom done while he was dying of colon cancer, in addition to his lengthy resume that include Jackie Robinson for 42 as well as T'Challa in Black Panther among other Marvel Cinematic Universe films. And yet the Academy had to give it to a while male? Who had won previously for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991? And who broke Christopher Plummer's nine-year-old record for oldest actor to win an Oscar? The criticism was scathing.

And yet...was it really the wrong decision? I'm really not one to say as I have not seen any of the films that were nominated in this category. But from what I have been reading, Hopkins gave a strong performance as a British man unaware of his worsening dementia. And it was a tremendously tight race as Ahmed and Yeun delivered powerful performances as well. And it wasn't something that was entirely unexpected. When I saw that Best Picture was moved before lead acting Oscars, I turned to my friend and told him "Wouldn't it be funny if they did Best Actor last and it wasn't Chadwick Boseman?" In the end, it doesn't matter and what's done is done. I had somebody on a Discord server joked that the acting Oscars were moved to the end "so people don't burn [the stage] down during the event because it wasn't Chadwick."

If Anything Happens I Love You won Best Animated Short and that's all that matters. (Although I would have been happy with a win for Opera as well).

The full list of winners:

Best Animated Short: If Anything Happens I Love You
Best Picture: Nomadland
Best Director: 趙婷, Nomadland
Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Best Actress: Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Best Supporting Actress: 尹汝貞, Minari
Best International Film: Another Round, Denmark
Best Animated Feature: Soul
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Father
Best Original Screenplay: Promising Young Woman
Best Editing: Sound of Metal
Best Cinematography: Mank
Best Costume Design: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Original Score: Soul
Best Original Song: "Fight for You," Judas and the Black Messiah
Best Production Design: Mank
Best Sound: Sound of Metal
Best Visual Effects: Tenet
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Best Documentary Feature: My Octopus Teacher
Best Documentary Short: Colette
Best Live Action Short: Two Distant Strangers

3 wins
Nomadland

2 wins
The Father
Judas and the Black Messiah
Mank
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Soul
Sound of Metal

1 win
If Anything Happens I Love You
Another Round
Colette
Minari
My Octopus Teacher
Promising Young Woman
Tenet
Two Distant Strangers

0 wins (Best Picture nominee)
The Trial of the Chicago 7