The Oscars snubs, the night’s best performances and what’s in the swag bag – we answer your questions | Canada Voices

On Monday Mar. 1, film editor Barry Hertz and deputy arts & books editor Rebecca Tucker answered reader questions on the Academy Awards, which included their picks for the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the night.

During the Q+A, readers asked about Anora’s Best Picture win, the films and actors that were snubbed and Conan O’Brien’s first stint as Oscars host. Here are some highlights.

Best Picture winner Anora

Were you surprised by Anora’s Best Picture win? Did Anora deserve Best Picture over all the other contenders?

Barry Hertz: I’m happy to report (well, happy for myself) that I got all but one of my major-category Oscar predictions right from the other week, including Anora’s Best Pic win. I felt that going into the ceremony, Anora had the best heat – it’s a largely fun, but not frivolous, film that boasted a tremendous and sympathetic lead performance from a young actress on the cusp of fame that the Academy members could get behind. A few weeks ago, the Academy might’ve been more tempted to pat themselves on their progressive backs and award the big Oscar to Emilia Perez. But the whole tweet-gate situation over that film torpedoed that film’s major-category chances. And Anora had no serious detractors.

There was a Canadian connection to Anora. Can you tell us more about that?

Hertz: One of Anora’s three producers is Samantha Quan, a Vancouver-born actress and producer who started making films with her now-husband Sean Baker around the time of 2017’s Florida Project. Interestingly, Quan and Baker are just one of three husband-and-wife teams in this year’s Oscars race: The Brutalist was directed by Brady Corbet and co-written and produced with his partner Mona Fastvold, and Dune: Part Two was directed by Denis Villenueve and produced (and second-unit-directed) by wife Tanya Lapointe (both of whom are also Canadian).

I didn’t even know about Anora, or the lead actress Mikey Madison. How did it nab Best Picture and she Best Actress?

Rebecca Tucker: In his acceptance speech for best picture, director Sean Baker made a point of celebrating Anora’s success as an independent film – so that may answer your questions! It certainly didn’t have the sky’s-the-limit marketing budget and A-list roster of, say, Wicked. Before you watch the film – which you should! – we’ve got some great preliminary reading:

Hertz: In a way, Anora’s path to the Oscars podium neatly dovetails with the film’s storyline itself, in which an underdog comes to enter a gilded world almost by happenstance. The movie first made a big splash at Cannes in the spring of 2024 – director Sean Baker has been a favourite of the indie world for a decade plus. And this just happened to click with critics, and eventually, audiences. Mikey is being pitched as something of a newcomer, though she has a long CV, including a multiseason stint on Pamela Adlon’s FX series Better Things. Though her real breakthrough moment might’ve been as a Manson follower in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

I think that Oscar voters just cottoned onto her raw, vulnerable performance, and the way that Baker contorted it around a madcap all-night comedic misadventure.

Snubs

Why do you think the film The Last Showgirl wasn’t nominated for an Oscar? I thought Pamela Anderson was excellent in her role.

Hertz: Pamela Anderson certainly earned the best reviews of her career for The Last Showgirl, but having seen the film (during its world premiere at TIFF in September), I feel it just does not have the goods to go from “decent” to “Oscar-worthy.” It’s a rather weakly sketched character portrait, and while Anderson does more than we’ve ever seen her capable of before, it’s still a rather wobbly performance that has to rely on a thin script and shaky (both literally and metaphorically) direction. There just isn’t that much there. And if Anderson wasn’t cast, with her specific career narrative providing the building blocks of the film itself, then nobody would be talking about the film at all.

I feel like Demi Moore was robbed. Justice for Demi!

Hertz: Demi’s loss to Mikey Madison was almost too on-the-nose, in terms of how it mirrored The Substance itself. But Demi will be fine. Like the also overlooked Pamela Anderson, the amount of press that Moore has earned this awards cycle is more than enough to rework her career. A statue would’ve been nice, but the Academy has a tradition of awarding younger actresses at the beginnings of their career rather than mid-career reinventions. Sad but true!

Tucker: You’re in good company with that opinion: Demi Moore is a Hollywood survivor who has more than earned an Oscar

Speeches and politics

What was the deal with Kieran Culkin’s speech? It was … strange.

Tucker: Well, if there’s one thing the Oscars (and the awards-show circut, really) can be depended upon for, it’s a few off-kilter, watercooler-moment acceptance speeches! While it is certainly unusual to announce to a packed auditorium and millions of TV viewers that you are, um, maybe about to start trying for another child, I would say this ranks pretty low on the list of acceptance speech blunders. (I think Adrien Brody throwing his used chewing gum at girlfriend Georgina Chapman was WAY stranger!)

We’re in such a politically chaotic time. Film is inherently political. How did the Oscars remain so apolitical this year?

Hertz: Producers knew what they were doing by hiring Conan, who has historically proven himself to be Mr. Nice Guy and never stray too far into politics. He did manage to get a few quick zingers in there – all without mentioning Trump – but he knew he was there to celebrate the room, and not complicate things with politics. Whether this was the right move or not as the US plunges itself into chaos is another question, but for the job that Conan was handed, he pulled it off.

Acceptance speeches were devoid of any politics like I seem to remember them being in the past. Could you please comment on that. Is that because people fear the current administration or is that policy of the Oscars now?

Hertz: It’s definitely not Oscars policy. If the Academy tried to issue any kind of edict on what can and cannot be said in acceptance speeches, the industry would be up in arms and we would’ve heard about it. I think it’s a mix of things: people wanting to retain the celebratory element of the night, and some self-censorship. Big movie stars still have to appeal to the entire country, including the half that voted for He Who Must Not Be Named. That said, politics weren’t entirely absent – take a look at the speeches for No Other Land, the Iranian short film In the Shadow of the Cypress, Adrien Brody decrying antisemitism, etc.

Musical performances

Was the musical tribute to the Bond movies really random or was that just me?

Hertz: I realize it felt more than a little odd, because it was only in 2022 that the Oscars pulled off a similar tribute, timed to 007’s 60th anniversary. But this time it was to honour the legacy of longtime Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who last week received the Academy’s honorary Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

Why did only Wicked get a featured song performed?

Hertz: Great question! It was a naked bid for relevancy and popularity. Producers decided (not incorrectly) a few weeks back that none of the Best Original Song nominees were all that worthy of taking up precious air time. And the song performed from Wicked wasn’t even nominated – it couldn’t have been, because it was imported over from the Broadway production.

Oscars picks, relevance and goodie bags

Personally, what was your favourite Oscars movie to watch this year? Alternatively, what’s your favourite Oscars movie of all time?

Tucker: I know that Barry and I disagree on this, but I was on Team Conclave this year – and not just because it felt like recommended viewing in the weeks leading up to the Oscars, when life came very close to imitating art as far as the film’s plot was concerned.

Hertz: I’m on the record as being a No. 1 Brutalist fan. I thought it was tremendous, layered, ambitious, thoughtful, exciting cinema – the kind of “big” movies that the Oscars should be celebrating. My favourite Oscars movie of all time? Oh god, I couldn’t even begin. I’m still a little amazed something as challenging and amazing as No Country for Old Men took home the big prize. The Godfather, The French Connection, Rocky, The Deer Hunter, On the Waterfront … we could be here all day, people.

Do you think the Oscars are still relevant?

Hertz: Completely. The ratings for the telecast might not be as huge as, say, in the days of Titanic and James Cameron’s win – then again, which TV shows can boast of anything close to those numbers? – but the knock-down effects of an Oscar win are still huge. Even if you don’t watch the show, there’s a decent chance that even the most casual audience member will hear about what was nominated, and what won. It’s just that much more of a spotlight on a title. A tiny film like Anora will instantly see more revenue because of the Oscars, allowing its stars and producers to make that many more movies.

Did the winners or nominees get any cool gifts like the ones provided at the Golden Globes?

Hertz: All the nominees get a “Everybody Wins” gift bag, each of which is valued at about US$200,000. The big-ticket item in the bag is a four-night stay to an exclusive resort in the Maldives (which is alone worth about $23K), plus skincare products, fashion, and what’s being billed as a “VIP Family History Experience” where a genealogist builds the nominee’s family tree in detail through AncestryDNA. So, yeah, it’s not only an honour to be nominated – it’s a cash cow, too.