OSCAR 2020: Highlights of the ceremony that closes this year award season


After the Golden Globes, Grammys and BAFTAs, the Oscars have closed another long award season, and, between Paradise’s success and Phoenix’s engaged speech, nothing was left out.
Hostless for the second year in a row, the show opened, on Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in LA, with a musical-style performance by American singer and actress Janelle Monáe. With the lyrics of her song and a group of dancers dressed as various movie characters, Monáe remembered the films and the female directors who had not been nominated.
The lack of diversity and female director nominees was also the topic of the opening monologue by Chris Rock and Steve Martin, which gave the real kick-off to the award ceremony.
This year Oscars saw the absolute triumph of the South Korean movie “Parasite”, which besides being the biggest winner with its four statuettes, made history as the first non-English movie in a foreign language to win as Best Picture. It also brought home the Oscars for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay, revealing a cute Bon Joon-ho, amazed by the beauty of the statuette, at the acceptance of the Oscar as Best Director.
The award for Best Leading Actress went to Renee Zellweger for her performance in “Judy”, the film that tells the late years of actress Judy Garland. While the award Leading Actor went, as predicted, to Joaquin Phoenix, for his lead role in “Joker”.

As he did at the BAFTAs, Phoenix used his unforgettable and emotional acceptance speech to address today’s injustices. He also opened up about the person he was and how some fellow colleagues helped him to change, quoting his late brother, River.
This year was also Brad Pitt’s year who finally won his first acting Oscar for Supporting Actor for his performance in “Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood”. Unlike Phoenix, in his speech, Pitt took on Trump with a political joke, before dedicating the award to his kids, “Everything I do is for you. I adore you,” he said.
The Oscar for Best Supporting actress instead, went to Laura Dern, for “Marriage Story”.
“1917”, the movie by Sam Mendes, which won big at the BAFTAs (7 BAFTAs, two of which as Best Director and Best Film), did not find the same success at the Oscars, even though, it managed to bring home the statuette for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects
A movie that did not go well at all was “The Irishman”, despite its ten nominations the only thing it got is a joke by Chris Rock on the astounding length of the movie: “Thank you Scorzese for the first season of The Irishman” he said. The film lasts approximately three hours and a half.
Different music performances were also presented. Billie Eilish sang “Yesterday” in the Memorial Arena, where, among others, remembered the recent passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter. Bryant also won the Oscar in 2018, for the animated short film “Dear Basketball”.
A real surprise was Eminem’s music performance in the middle of the three-hour-long show, with “Lose Yourself”, as everybody was expecting a Billie Eilish second performance instead.
The show ended with the Best Picture award and the happiness on the face of the South Korean actors.
With the Oscars scheduled two weeks earlier than usual, the award season has been intense and without pause, and as every year, it gave us a lot of gossip, surprises, emotional speeches, political statements and jokes, but next year, everything will go back to normal with the Oscars scheduled for late February.