Monday, 27 February 2017

15 Things I Learned About the Oscars by Watching Twitter

I have no interest in watching the Oscars or any other awards show. I've also never seen and likely never will see most of the movies that are nominated for Oscars, and I'm totally cool with that.

That said, pretty much any major entertainment event I don't care about is way better on Twitter than it is in real life. Plus, the Oscars are important enough that Twitter threw a meaningless little statue emoji at the end of #Oscars, and those automatic little fake emojis are enough to get pretty much everyone to tweet about anything.

So while people were throwing Oscar viewing parties, I sat on my couch and saw everything I needed to see on my phone. Here are the 15 things I learned by doing nothing but scrolling through the #Oscars hashtag on Sunday evening. 

 

Michael Strahan Interviewing the Rock Would Probably be the Biggest Red Carpet Interview Ever

I didn't even know Michael Strahan was at the Oscars, but apparently he's interviewing actors on the red carpet before the actual event. He must've been a better football player than morning talk show host, but Twitter seems to think he's doing either a great job or a terrible job depending on who you ask.


I guess the Rock is also there and being interviewed, which makes me realize that Strahan chatting with the Rock about movies is the conversation I never knew I needed to see. I'm no expert on the size of actors or entertainment reporters, but I'm guessing the two of them combined would probably be among the biggest (in sheer size and athleticism) Hollywood entertainment interviews to ever take place outside of the ESPYs and whatever other meaningless sports award shows there are.

 

Matt Damon Still Seems Like a Prick

People are giving Strahan shit for confusing Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. They're basically the same person, and both of them have gone downhill in my book since they stopped being involved with Kevin Smith. Dogma was great, and I'm pretty sure The Great Wall probably sucked.

 

Jimmy Kimmel Can't Dance or Joke

Not sure why people are dancing so much at the Oscars, but maybe the Oscars decided to take a page out of Ellen's book. Also, apparently Jimmy Kimmel is still only funny when he's not trying to be or people are just too sensitive about jokes these days. I didn't even realize he was hosting the Oscars, so that's a pretty big step from the dude who I still think of as "that one guy from The Man Show."

 

Suicide Squad Won an Oscar (Somehow)

I took a quick break to make a grilled cheese and come back to find Twitter in absolute shambles over Suicide Squad winning an Oscar. I guess it was for makeup, and the only way I can reasonably believe this is that Killer Croc looked so badass that it covered up the fact that Jared Leto turned the Joker into a deranged pimp.


I just checked a list of Oscar nominees for tonight, and the only ones that I've seen are Zootopia, Suicide Squad, Doctor Strange, Rogue One and The Jungle Book. Of those movies, I can say with certainty that Suicide Squad was the worst one, yet somehow it still won an Oscar. This is why we can't have nice things.

 

La La Land Isn't Winning Shit

All I knew about La La Land going into the Oscars is that people either love it or hate it and it was probably going to win all of the awards. Tonight, I've learned that Ryan Gosling has somehow saved jazz music and that it's not winning anything early in the evening. If things continue like this, I'm sensing a lot of cinematic "3-1 lead" jokes and crying Jordans as the night progresses.

Also, Hacksaw Ridge sounds like a phenomenal The Hills Have Eyes-style horror movie or documentary about a little-known outlaw country band, but I'm pretty sure it's neither.

 

 

Taraji P. Henson is All Over the Place

No clue which awards Taraji P. Henson's movie about astronauts is up for, but I heard it was really good so I'll assume it's most of them. Regardless, Twitter seems to care way less about the actual movie and way more about Taraji's reaction to getting asked about Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma's beef. It's already been saved in GIF form on phones all around the internet.


Before that all went down, most of the internet was just admiring how good she looked. Which makes me realize how oddly quiet Twitter was about what everyone wore to the Oscars. I guess it's really the music industry that proudly displays its ridiculousness every time there's a televised red carpet.

 

Viola Davis Made Everyone Forget About Meryl Streep

It doesn't seem that long ago that everyone was talking about Meryl Streep giving the best speech in the history of speeches that I've never watched. That's apparently ancient history now, as Viola Davis said something (although, as usual, Twitter's pretty vague on exactly what) after winning an award that touched a whole bunch of hearts and is obviously the best speech ever until someone else gives a good speech (since our memory of great speeches is apparently only a touch longer than Instagram's video restriction, apparently).

I feel pretty safe in saying she's definitely the best actor named after a musical instrument these days, but the only thing I'm really sure of is that she didn't win for Suicide Squad. If that had happened, the internet probably would've just imploded.

 

Zootopia is Still the Best Movie of 2016

The only category that really matters (Best Animated Movie) just went to Zootopia, which is probably the best movie I saw in all of 2016. Don't argue it, just accept that Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde should absolutely be the stars of True Detective's third season. I guess La La Land just won some relatively meaningless award and lost another, and my fellow Star Wars people are really upset that Rogue One lost to The Jungle Book. Considering that Rogue One might've been the second-best movie I saw in 2016, that just further confirms my belief that Zootopia was the pinnacle of cinema last year.

 

There's a Movie Called 'White Helmets' and It's on Netflix

In the latest tidal wave of tweets to rush in, every movie snob with a smartphone is finding a slightly different way to brag about watching something called White Helmets on Netflix. I'm not sure if it's about construction workers or condoms, but it sounds like it should be one of the two. Sure, I'll add it to my constantly expanding queue behind Black Mirror, The OA, everything Marvel puts on Netflix, and whatever else social media is telling me I need to watch but isn't as good as Stranger Things.

Actually, the kids from Stranger Things would probably make the Oscars a lot more enjoyable. And did they let Frank Ocean come to this since the Grammys refused to honor him? That seems like the least they could do.

 

La La Land is Finally Winning Things

It was a rough first few hours for white people on Twitter, as the tweets disappointed at La La Land's losses were only slightly more diverse than a Make America Great Again rally. I'm not sure what John Legend or Sara Bareilles (I forgot she still existed, to be honest) have to do with La La Land winning, but it seems like they both performed and the most self-indulgent movie about LA I've ever heard of won a few different categories. Cue the comparisons to Adele beating Beyonce.

 

Nicole Kidman Doesn't Know How to Clap

Arguably the most disturbing thing I've seen all night is this GIF of Nicole Kidman clapping. Not only is it the most awkward white person applause I've ever seen in my life, but her fingers look unreasonably long while she's doing it.


Seriously, this is worse than 50,000 people trying to clap in sync at a music festival, and it looks more painful than anything. It's like the golf clap and the awkward white bro handshake had a baby, and it was still trying to figure out how to applaud on its own. If this clap was any stiffer and more forced, it'd be the Nicole Kidman of applause. It might be the only image I remember from the entire evening.

 

The Internet Really Won Best Actor

Whoever made the NBA/Oscars mashup video for Best Actor should win an award of their own. Between that and the people outraged over Ben Affleck's little brother winning despite sexually harassing women, Twitter is more fired up over this category than anything else so far tonight.


Although I've never seen any of the movies, I will say that I can't imagine anyone related to Ben Affleck acting better than Denzel. That man's a national treasure.

 

Meryl Streep Should Win Everything

Meryl Streep didn't win best actress, but she should've. That's pretty much the only thing most of Twitter can agree upon tonight (even if some people just wanted to see another speech from her).

 

Steve Harvey Secretly Hosted

Alright, so around 9:10pm Pacific Time, Twitter descended into chaos. Once the dust, OMGs and Steve Harvey memes cleared, I managed to gather that La La Land was announced as the winner of Best Picture and started celebrating before they declared there'd been a mistake and that Moonlight actually won.


Along with all of those "3-1 lead" jokes and crying Jordan faces, add Steve Harvey memes into the repertoire of the internet's assault on La La Land tonight and into the near future. I didn't even have a horse in this race, but I'm pretty sure this is the best possible outcome from a Twitter entertainment perspective.

 

The Oscars Were Full of "Hot Takes"

If you've been anywhere near social media for the last several months, you've no doubt seen plenty of uninformed "experts" giving their boring and/or just plain wrong "hot takes" about various topics. Well, everyone became an amateur film critic for the Oscars and decided to lay into their favorite (and least favorite) winning and losing films about nearly everything and anything.

 

 

Want to see more lists? Check out our Everybody Loves a List! page. 

 



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