“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” Smith said in his acceptance speech. “In this time of my life, in this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world. I know to do what we do, you’ve got to be able to take abuse. You’ve got to be able to have people disrespect you, and you’ve gotta smile and pretend that’s OK. I want to apologize to the Academy, to my fellow nominees.

“This is a beautiful moment…[but] I want to apologize to the Academy…here I am, being the crazy father, the crazy father…love will make you do crazy things…thank you for this honor, thank you for this moment.” — fragments from Will Smith‘s acceptance speech after winning the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Richard Williams in King Richard.

HE is stalling and crashing due to me — it’s my damn fault for trusting Siteground, my Eastern European server, to deliver in a solid, thorough professional level. It’s my own damn fault but I’m dumping these guys as soon as I can. This is awful. I feel mortified.

7:27 pm: What was funny about Regina King holding up a screener of The Last Duel while saying that no one has seen it? Or Wanda Sykes holding up a shredded Texas ballot — good point but not funny.

7:19 pm: What am I mostly feeling while watching the Oscars? What is the one thought that keeps repeating in my head? “I can’t wait to attend the 2022 Cannes Film Festival…that God for that forthcoming adventure.”

7:04 pm: Congrats to Belfast‘s Kenneth Branagh for winning the Best Original Screenplay. And to CODA‘s Sean Heder for winning Best Adapted Screenplay. Heder is thanking the phone book, but that’s what winners sometimes do. Friendo: “The two best speeches both belonged to CODA. Because they had emotion. Branagh’s speech was classy and succinct and gracious.”

6:55 pm: This is basically a folks-of-color Oscar telecast…a rainbow inclusion pageant…a vigorous and passionate representation factor for Latinos, African Americans, Asian, LGBTQs. In this sense it’s fairly similar to the Union Station atmosphere in that the industry’s mostly (am I allowed to say this?) European-descended majority is…uhm, subordinate? Not all that vigorously represented. But that’s okay. Academy sentiments are Academy sentiments. We’re living through a time of progressive change. Incidentally: The Latin dance number is pretty terrific.

6:45 pm: Costume design Oscar for Cruella — Jenny Beavan! A brilliant designer, hugely respected, great smile.

6:38 pm: So far the show is playing a little better than last April’s Soderbergh disaster, but not that much better. Friendo text: “Arianna DeBose has made history as the first openly queer woman to win an Oscar. Fine and good and obviously approvable, but I’m not really feeling the current. The whole community i/s supportive…queer artists are not the underdogs.”

6:20 pm: Time to hand CODA‘s Troy Kotsur his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Troy’s signed acceptance speech is very moving – the first poignant moment of the show. Congrats to Troy — a very fine delivery of evolved humanity. Especially his tribute to his dad. Quote: “Don’t forget to eat this spinach.” He’s going on a little long, but it’s a heart moment…fully earned and felt.

6:17 pm: Wanda Sykes (fresh outfit) introducing a promo for the Academy Museum — i.e., “Woke House.”

6:13 pm: The Best Animated Short Oscar goes to Windshield Wiper.

6:07 pm: Best Animated Feature goes to Encanto. Great, congrats, whatever.

Apology to HE readership: I’m firing Siteground, my Eastern European ISP, for that infuriating 500 internal server error. I’ve been pleading with them to fix or offer a solution I would have to implement. They’re history — incompetent bastards. Again, I apolgize.

5:55 pm: The 60th anniversary of the James Bond franchise? Dr. No opened in England on 10.5.62, but not until May 1963 in the States. So even by British exhibition standards the Bond franchise is 59 and 1/3 years old. Friendo: How is this playing at home?” HE to friendo: “Blah, meh, woke, flat. Something needs to happen.”

5:52 pm: Another Dune Oscar, this time to Best Visual Effects. Terrific. When is this show going to come alive?

5:44 pm: The Oscar telecast is 45 minutes old, and I’m not feeling anything. At all. Nothing. Friendo: “Is this as bad as I think it is? So far woke. Are you watching?” HE to friendo: “I’m watching and waiting.”

5:40 pm: A minor tribute to the White Men Can’t Jump guys (Woody, Rosie, Snipes)? And the Best Cinematography Oscar goes to Dune and Greig Fraser.

5:35 pm: Regina’s random Covid-testing routine is…why? People are laughing and cheering but it’s not funny. Really. I’m sorry.

5:25: West Side Story‘s Arianna de Bose wins Best Supporting Actress Oscar — locked in from the beginning, unanimous consensus, totally predicted, good work. She celebrates her history, her luck, her job, her queerness…going on too long. Like they all did during last year’s Soderbergh show.

5:22 pm: “Take away the lame opening number and unfunny opening monologues, and they could’ve given out all the awards they are eliminating from the live broadcast” — regional friendo.

5:10 pm: Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina King sharing the monologue duties. “Toxic masculinity.” Snippy insult joke aimed at J.K. Simmons. Sykes: “I’ve watched The Power of the Dog three times, and I’m halfway through it” — a Jimmy Kimmel joke. And now they’re introducing the cavalcade of Oscar presenters. And now Schumer has taken over solo. “Home is the best” joke…?…nope. “We finally got a movie about the Williams sisters’ dad”…nope. A Leonardo DiCaprio young girlfriends joke…nope. A Being The Ricardos put-down joke.

5 pm: Venus and Serena Williams kicking things off with a Beyonce music video? I’m not getting a movie-madness feeling from this. Getting a lime chiffon vibe. Key lime pie and whipped cream. This could be an opener for the Grammys. What is this? Righteous Brothers: “You’ve lost that Oscar feelin’…”

…starts at 5 pm Pacific. Or maybe before. I don’t know what I’m saying. All I know is that for the last several weeks I’ve been hearing nothing but variations of “the Oscars are over, they peaked a couple of decades ago, nobody cares, how low will the ratings be?, everything sucks,” etc. And now we’re all on the red carpet and everyone is jubilant, jazzed, giggling, tickled pink!, caaaan’t wait!, etc.

It’s like the Invasion of the Happy Mysterians…who are you people? What do you really think? Do you have brains? Why is no one talking about what’s really and truly going on in this town? And where’s Penelope Cruz?

David Edelstein‘s CBS commentary is a nice way to start things off. Then again he doesn’t even mention Penelope Cruz as a possible Best Actress victor.

I’ve checked off my predictions of the top six Oscar categories, and here they are — the same choices that everyone else has gone with (Best Actress excepted):

Best Picture (CODA) / Best Director (Power of the Dog‘s Jane Campion) / Best Actor (King Richard‘s Will Smith) / Best Actress (Parallel Mothers‘ Penelope Cruz) / Best Supporting Actor (CODA‘s Troy Kotsur) / Best Supporting Actress (West Side Story‘s Ariana DeBose, although a win by King Richard‘s Aunjanue Ellis would be great).

And I went with The Worst Person in the World for Best International Feature. A little voice is telling me that Drive My Car may not have the horses to bring it all home.

And then I stalled. I don’t even have a line on Best Original Screenplay. What’s supposed to win in that category…Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast? It shouldn’t. Joaquin Trier‘s The Worst Person in the World screenplay is my pick. I’m completely lost when it comes to Best Adapted Screenplay. Don’t tell me CODA is going to win. Please.

I’m trying very hard not to feel bitter and dismissive, but listening to the horrible red-carpet banter is making it difficult.

Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, a grandly ambitious Hollywood period drama (late 1920s, early 30s) about the changeover between silent and sound movies, won’t open until 12.25.22 — nine months hence. Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Tobey Maguire costar; also Olivia Wilde, Samara Weaving, Katherine Waterston. Eric Roberts. Jean Smart.Spike Jonze, Jeff Garlin.

A rough-cut version is being research-screened this week (I won’t divulge details about the date or location), and the invite contains the first semi-official confirmation that Babylon is looking at an epic-scaled running time — “slightly over three hours,” the invite reads.

The final version could end up shorter, of course.

I’m not an Oscars prediction guy — I’m an Oscars advocacy guy. That’s been my handle all along.

Example: I was an ardent Green Book admirer and supporter during the 2018 and ‘19 Oscar year, as I knew in my heart that Peter Farrelly’s film was a harmless, heart-warming period film (‘62) about a parent-child relationship that evolves and deepens over the course of a road trip through the racist South. Helping to defeat the anti-Green Book wokester cabal was a glorious HE satisfaction.

The principal HE advocacy issues this year:

(a) Penelope Cruz for Best Actress — HE has been way ahead of the pack on the value of Cruz’s Parallel Mothers performance for many months;

(b) King Richard is far more nutritious and moving and well-crafted than CODA or The Power of the Dog, and should win the Best Picture Oscar;

(c) Volodymyr Zelensky, an actor-comedian before becoming Ukraine’s president, gets to make a passionate plea & proudly affirm Ukraine’s pride and independence during the show if he wants to do this. I presumed yesterday that Zelensky does want a moment of Oscar’s time, or Sean Penn, presumably attuned to Zelensky’s thinking, wouldn’t have spoken so passionately about the matter on CNN;

(d) Spider-Man: Far From Home should have been Best Picture nominated in tribute to how excitingly & even profoundly it emotionally connected with hoi polloi ticket buyers, not to mention the fact that its success all but saved exhibition during a pandemic-and-streaming-besieged year; and…

(e) Stanley Nelson Jr. and Traci Curry’s Attica deserves to win the Best Documentary Feature Oscar over Summer of Soul, mainly because of its overall excellence plus the fact that it’s an actual documentary rather a found-footage showcase.

Handicapping the nominees & predicting winners is interesting as far as it goes but everyone does it — advocacy is where it’s at.

I’d rather hang out under the Aero marquee and shoot the shit with like-minded souls than attend all the hot pre-Oscar and post-Oscar parties this weekend.

Our first reaction to news of the sudden passing of a middle-aged rock musician is always the same. We all suspect “lifestyle issues” but it’s bad form to say that.

Sean Penn on Volodymyr Zelensky’s rumored-about Oscar telecast moment: “There are some who would say ‘politics are for another place’ and entertainment is [its own thing]. [But] there is nothing greater that the Academy Awards could do than to give Zelensky an opportunity to talk to all of us. And by the way, this is a man who understand movies and has had a very long and successful career in that.

“Now, it is my understanding that a decision had been made not to do it” — i.e., not to give Zelensky some Oscar air time. “If the Academy has elected not to do this…that will be the most obscene moment in all of Hollywood history, and I hope that’s not what’s happening….I hope that is not what has happened, and I hope that everyone [inside the Dolby theatre] walks out if it is.”

Hollywood Elsewhere is down on its knees in respect and tribute to Penn for saying this. Update: My presumption is that Zelensky is down with the Oscar message thing and has conveyed as much. If he hasn’t conveyed this and is indifferent to the idea, then perhaps it’s not something that needs to happen.

Giving Zelensky a forum for telling the worldwide Oscar audience about the horrors going on in Ukraine would be a blessed thing — the only blessed thing that the Oscar producers could possibly hope to bring to this three-hour telecast. The rest is all poppycock. I double-dare any HE commenter to step up the plate and tell me I’m wrong for supporting this. I double-dare you.

The notion of a U.S. President calling for the abrupt downfall of a Russian head of state is, you have to admit, fairly startling.

Not even Ronald Reagan went that far when he called the Soviet Union “the focus of evil in the modern world.” He didn’t call for Mikhail Gorbachev‘s ruin but the system he served.

It is noteworthy that Joe Biden‘s phrasing wasn’t alluding to an orderly electoral defeat of Vladimir Putin or by some other moderate measure — he was basically advocating the same kind of thing that Sen. Lindsay Graham called for two or three weeks ago.

Biden essentially said that Putin, a dictator, has to be somehow muscled out of power. In mafia-ese, that means “he’s gotta go.”

Literal quote: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

I also liked Biden calling Putin a “butcher” and a “tyrant.” I also liked “don’t even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory!”

Sabre-rattling? Yes, of course, but that’s to be expected.