Raja Sen lists his favourite moments.
I once had the remarkable good fortune to be sitting unexpectedly in the Comedy Cellar in New York when a surprise guest was thrust upon us. The audience couldn't believe it, and out strolled Chris Rock -- an incendiary performer and giant comic superstar -- who slayed.
He was great and we were enraptured, and, this morning, Rock knocked the wind outta me from many timezones away, by the way he opened the 88th Annual Academy Awards.
Featuring that monologue and nine other moments I won't soon forget, here are my highlights from the 2016 Oscars:
1. That opening monologue:
Rock has always been a fearless, envelope-pushing comic, and everyone expected him to be provocative at the Oscars -- infamous this year for their all-white acting candidates, hashtagged #OscarsSoWhite across the media.
What we might not have counted on, however, was the way he would make the most preposterously ballsy jokes as he completely embraced the topic.
Making the white audience uncomfortable with the kinda comic swagger that would make 80s red-leather-suit-wearin' Eddie Murphy proud as hell, Chris Rock spoke about how the Oscars always had a white-only problem, like 'in the sixties, one of those years Sidney [Poitier] didn't put out a movie' and how it was just harder to care about these problems back when black people faced 'real' problems. 'When your grandmother's swinging from a tree,' he grinned to a mostly mortified audience, 'it's hard to care about Best Documentary Short.'
Wow. W-o-w.
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2. David O Russell justifying his seat in the front:
Oscars are as much about reactions as they are about winners, and many a moment has been immortalised in the past by Jack Nicholson's cheshire chuckles and Meryl Streep's gracefully overt enthusiasm.
This year's audience award ought to go to director David O Russell, one of the few people to openly bust a gut laughing at Rock's politically skewed monologue.
Russell had a fine ol' time with Rock and then, with much grace and solidarity, stood up to applaud director Adam McKay as he strode past to pick up his award (shared with co-writer Charles Randolph) for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Big Short.
If that all filmmakers were this warm, or this genuine.
3. Whoopi Goldberg and SNL comics skewer the Oscar-nominated films:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences played the self-deprecatory game quite hard this year by constantly going with the #OscarsSoWhite theme, in effect laughing at themselves as loud as possible.
This approach was often heavy-handed, like when presenters were often transparently paired up as white-celeb-alongside-celeb-of-colour, but when it worked, like in Rock's monologue and this section inserting talented black comedians into this year's nominated films, it worked fantastically well.
Leslie Jones was the angry bear mauling Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, Tracy Jordan wore a dress and ate danishes in The Danish Girl, and the great Whoopi Goldberg reigned supreme as she scolded Jennifer Lawrence in Joy: 'I'm not mad 'cause I know how to play the game, Joy.'
4. Patricia Arquette's fumbling:
Patricia Arquette, winner of Best Supporting Actress for Boyhood last year, made for an embarrassingly bad presenter this year as she fumbled through her time giving away the Best Supporting Actor trophy.
First of all, like the infamous John Travolta gaffe, she appeared to have mixed 'Rocky Balboa' with something that started off sounding suspiciously like 'Draco Malfoy', and then -- after reading out Mark Rylance's name to a chorus of anguish heard around the world as Stallone hadn't won -- ended things sloppily as well.
For a while there, many (read: me) wished that these fumbles signalled her having SteveHarvey'd it and called out the wrong name, but spirits were lifted by Rylance's lovely acceptance speech.
'I've always just adored stories: hearing them, seeing them, being in them,' Rylance said, saluting director Steven Spielberg before going deftly political. 'Unlike some of the leaders we're being presented with these days, he leads with such love that he's surrounded by masters in every craft.'
5. Louis CK, on the importance of documentary:
Master comedian Louis CK came out to present the award for Best Documentary, Short Subject and handled the occasion with scene-stealing aplomb as he spoke of his pride to present what he called his favourite award, 'because this is the one Academy Award that has the opportunity to change a life.'
Eloquently going on to describe the hardships faced by documentary filmmakers in what is often a thankless pursuit for the truth, he said -- with a characteristically brilliant turn of phrase -- that while 'the rest of the Oscars are going home to mansions and to the homes of people with good unions and who will always work. This is Documentary Short Subject... You cannot make a dime on this.'
The kicker: 'This Oscar is going home in a Honda Civic.'
Bravo.
6. Joe Biden and Lady Gaga speak out for sexual assault survivors:
In the most touching moment of the night, Vice President of the United States Joe Biden and Lady Gaga formed a unique but ideal team as they sought an end to rape culture.
'We must, and we can, change the culture so that no abused woman or man has to ask 'what did I do?'' emphasised Biden. 'They did nothing wrong.'
This was followed by a profoundly emotive performance from Lady Gaga as abuse survivors took the stage, hand in hand. It was an affecting and genuinely stirring moment in a night that frequently felt insubstantial.
7. Ennio Morricone thanking his rival and then his director:
Legend Ennio Morricone, 87 -- nine years after having been given an Honorary Oscar in 2007 'for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music' -- finally won his first Oscar for Best Original Score for The Hateful Eight, and the moment was a highly emotional one.
Morricone came to the stage and spoke simply in Italian, first doffing his hat to the also-nominated five-time winner John Williams before thanking his director.
And just hearing his heavily accented pronunciation of the name Quentin Tarantino sparked off many a Spaghetti Western dream.
8. The Best Director was the most unpopular man of the night:
How things can change in a year.
Last year Alejandro González Iñárritu swept the Oscars with grand fanfare with the superlative Birdman but this year his film The Revenant, while impressive, had more detractors than lovers and most of the viewing audience seemed to be rooting against the film.
Things weren't helped by a gif of Iñárritu not even trying to appear like a good sport when Jenny Beavan won Best Costume Design for Mad Max Fury Road; as Beavan walked right by him, Iñárritu crossed his arms and chose not to applaud.
Perhaps he just doesn't approve of leather jackets, but the two-time Best Director winner could have played this better.
9. Leo not taking anything, even the Oscar, for granted:
Meanwhile, despite the many, many editorials claiming that 'A win for DiCaprio would be a disservice to actors' and saying that Most Acting doesn't equate to Best Acting, the star himself (finally) picked up the big prize in style.
I wasn't pro-Leo this year -- rooting for Michael Fassbender's astonishing work in and as Steve Jobs instead -- but DiCaprio's sixth nomination proved lucky and his speech was perfection.
He started by thanking the crew of The Revenant but quickly moved on to speak passionately about the threat of climate change.
'Climate change is real,' Leonardo emphasised. 'Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted.'
10. A beautiful 'In Memoriam' section:
And finally, those who aren't with us anymore were remembered in lovely fashion this year.
Dave Grohl plucked a guitar to a tender version of The Beatles' Blackbird as faces of those who have left us -- from Alan Rickman to Douglas Slocombe to Omar Sharif to our own Saeed Jaffrey -- flitted before us.
The montage nearly climaxed with a clip, amazingly enough, from Zoolander featuring the late great David Bowie offering himself up, saying 'I believe I might be of service.' (Always, David.)
Yet, in a surprisingly powerful touch, the segment closed with a shot of Leonard Nimoy -- and ah, how poetic it felt to say goodbye by ending with a man who repeatedly told us to live long.
