Oscars 2020: Parasite Upset

Okay, we did see it coming. Parasite certainly made a big impression. A stylish hoot, the feature was the edgiest, artiest of the lot. Director Bong Joon Ho needed a drink after his writing win; maybe he thought his run would end after that, but the academy shed its love for him over top honors. Much like our current political scene, where the line-up of democrats does not seem to yield any one clear candidate, the Oscars, with 1917 looking like a Best Picture winner, had stellar contenders. The mood had shifted over the course of the award season. I, for one, wished more love could have been shared with The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, or Little Women, that Parasite would beat Pain and Glory for Best International Film, and that would be that. Still, in the end, the Oscars 2020 show proved to be more entertaining than expected. As the dear departed two-time nominee Sylvia Miles used to say every year, the voting algorithm for Academy Awards is reliably unpredictable. Expect an upset.

Alas, Miles showed up this year in the memorial reel, a traditional reminder of the losses this year in the film industry: Rip Torn, D. A. Pennebaker, and Michael Lynne, and many others, Peter Fonda too, as Billy Eilish sang “Yesterday.” I was happy to remember Hollywood of the bygone years, to laugh at Steve Martin and Chris Rock, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig, to sing along with Eminem, to see honors bestowed on American Factory, Hair Love, and The Neighbor’s Window, and to wonder if Billy Porter’s gown would look good on me.