Will Smith, Chris Rock clash stuns Oscar audience

The 94th Academy Awards, which had maintained constant excitement, were rocked by an incredible exchange when Will Smith took offense to a joke Chris Rock made about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

When Rock jokingly told Smith that he was looking forward to the sequel to “G.I. Jane”, Smith stood up from his seat near the stage, reached up to Rock and slapped him. After sitting back, Smith shouted at The Rock “Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth.”

That moment shocked Dolby Theater audiences and home audiences. At the commercial break, presenter Daniel Kaluuya came to hug Smith, and Denzel Washington led him to the edge of the stage. The two talked and hugged and Tyler Perry also came to talk.

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Smith won the Best Actor award for his role in King Richard, the latter at the first Oscar ceremony.

“I want to apologize to the Academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow candidates. It’s a beautiful moment and I’m not crying to win the award. It’s not about winning the award for me. It’s all about the people.” It’s about being able to shine a light on. Tim and Trevor and Zack and Sania and Demi and Anjonaeu and the whole cast and crew of ‘King Richard’, Venus and Serena, the whole Williams family. Art imitates life. I’m crazy I look like a father, like he said about Richard Williams,” Smith said in his tearful acceptance speech.

Till that moment, the show was going quite smoothly. Ariana DeBos became the first Afro-Latina to win an Academy Award for Supporting Actress, while Troy Kotsur became the first Deaf actor to win an acting award.

After record-low ratings and a pandemic-ridden 2021 show, producers turned to one of the biggest stars around — Beyoncé — to close the Oscars this year with the aim of reviving the awards place in pop culture. After an introduction to Venus and Serena Williams, Beyoncé performed her “King Richard” eponymous song, “Be Alive”, in an elaborately choreographed performance from a lime-colored, open-air stage in Compton, where the Williams sisters Grown up

Hosts Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall then resumed broadcasts from the Dolby Theater.

“Well, here we are at the Oscars,” Hall began. Sykes ends: “Where movie lovers unite and watch TV.”

Sykes, Schumer and Hall poked fun at major Hollywood issues such as pay equity – they said three female hosts were “cheaper than a man” – the Lady Gaga drama that Sykes called a “House of Random Accents” at the Golden Globes. The situation (now included in the In Memoriam package, Sykes said) and Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend. His most important political point came at the end of his routine, in which he promised a great night and then pointed to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

“And for you guys in Florida, we’re going to have a gay night out,” Sykes said.

The first broadcast award, appropriately, went to Ariana DeBos, the first openly LGBTQ actor and the first Latina to win Best Supporting Actress. Her win comes 60 years after Rita Moreno won for the same role in the 1961 original “West Side Story.” DeBose thanked Moreno for leading up to “tons of Anitas like me.”

“You see an openly queer woman of color, an Afro-Latina, who found her strength and life through art. And that is, I think, what we are here to celebrate,” said DeBos. “So if anyone has ever questioned your identity or you find yourself living in a gray space, I promise you this – there really is a place for us.”

Later, Kotsur became the first male deaf actor to win an acting Oscar, joining his “CODA” costar Marlee Matlin among the only deaf actors to win an Academy Award. He received a standing ovation, while at Dolby many people clapped for the deaf, waving both hands in the air.

“This is for the deaf community, the CODA community, and the disabled community,” Kotsur said, signing off the stage. “This is our moment.”

The Disney hit “Encanto,” inspired by its chart-topping soundtrack, won the award for Best Animated Film. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who penned the film’s hit songs, missed the ceremony after his wife tested positive for COVID-19. One of the most acclaimed films of the year, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour Japanese drama “Drive My Car” won the Best International Film Award.

Two years after the pandemic, and under a hot California sun on Sunday, Hollywood’s glamor rituals resumed, with a jammed red carpet and a COVID-tested audience.

To help regain the cultural spotlight, Oscar musical performances (Billy Eilish, Reba McEntire), film anniversaries (“The Godfather,” James Bond) and the “Encanto” breakout song, “We Don’t,” on multiple mentions relied too much. Talk about Bruno,” as much as possible. It often made for a cheery ceremony that focused less on the pandemic. Ukraine-born Mila Kunis led a 30-second silence for Ukraine. Sean Some stars, such as Penn, lobbied the Academy for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to speak at the ceremony.

Apart from a few blue ribbons seen on the red carpet, politics was rarely central stage. Instead the Oscars dazzle and the movies double as escapes. The producers brought in artists like BTS and Tony Hawk to add more audiences. Some things worked better than others. The fan favorite ranking, as voted on by Twitter users — unlikely to be remembered as an Oscar highpoint in a moment — honored Zack Snyder’s version of “Justice League.”

Feel good films also did well. Cyan Heder’s family drama “Koda”, a coming-of-age film about the hearing daughter of a deaf family, won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical “Belfast”, an affectionate family drama bathed in nostalgia and shot in black and white, took home best original screenplay.

The Academy Awards went off-camera on Sunday, with the first eight awards being presented at the Dolby Theater the night before the start of the ABC broadcast. Dolby was largely full for the 7 p.m. EDT pre-show, dubbed “golden hour” by the Academy. The speeches were later edited into the broadcast.

It was a strange and controversial debut for an entirely individual Oscar for the first time in two years. Earlier this month, more than 70 Oscar winners, including James Cameron, Kathleen Kennedy and Guillermo del Toro, warned that the change would turn some of the nominees into “second-class citizens.”

“Dune” went all out for an early lead in those early awards, and it kept it up overnight. The biggest blockbuster of this year’s 10 Best-Picture nominees, “Dune” won for production design, cinematography, editing, visual effects, sound and Hans Zimmer’s score. Although it has not been favored in the top awards, “Dune” was widely expected to clean up in the technical categories.

Greg Fraser’s cinematography win didn’t stand a chance for Oscar history. Some were in favor of Ari Wenger, who inspired Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” to become the first woman to win Best Cinematography, the only Oscar category never won by a woman in her nine decades of Academy Awards. went-plus history

Best Makeup and Hairstyling went to Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”. That film’s star and producer, Jessica Chastain, was among several members of the Academy who thought that all awards should have been handed out live during the broadcast. Chastain hugged each of the winners as he took the stage.

“I just hope that every day on set everyone just takes a moment to look around them and see all the talented people who work hard,” said makeup artist Dowds.

“The Queen of Basketball,” about basketball great Lucia Harris, took home Best Short Documentary Film. Its executive producers include Steph Curry and Shaquille O’Neill. Best animated short went to “The Windshield Viper”, while “The Long Goodbye”, a scintillating fantasy short starring Riz Ahmed, took home best fiction short.

“It’s for everyone who feels like they’re stuck in no man’s land,” Ahmed said. “You’re not alone. We’ll meet you there.”

The reason behind the change in this year’s telecast was concern about the rapidly falling ratings of the Oscars. While declines have been common at all major network award shows, last year’s show attracted only 10 million viewers, less than half the 23.6 million the year before. A decade ago, it was closer to 40 million.

The film industry largely recovered from the pandemic in 2021, but the rebound has been keeping fit, despite “Spider-Man: No Way Home” being one of the biggest hits in years. According to the Motion Picture Association, the global film industry sold nearly half of its tickets last year as compared to $21.3 billion in 2021, two years ago, to $42.3 billion in 2019. Hollywood is pushing more of its top movies straight into homes than ever before; Of this year’s 10 best-picture nominees, half were streamed at or near the time of release.

Netflix’s “The Power of the Dog,” Campion’s gothic Western, brought in a major 12 nominations and a good chance of snatching the top prize. But all the momentum is on with Sean Heder’s deaf family drama “CODA,” which is considered a favorite despite just nodding three heads. A win would be a win for Apple TV+, which acquired the film from the Sundance Film Festival last year and spent big on promoting it for Academy members.