Here's everything you missed at the 2021 Oscars
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The 93rd Academy Awards (stream now on CTV) last night were unlike any other -- held in a train station, no official host, everyone was masked and physically distanced, and barely any movie clips were shown. But despite all the changes, including Steven Soderbergh directing (Oceans 11-style opening credits should always be a thing), records were broken in spectacular fashion.
You may have heard that Chloe Zhao became the first woman of colour to ever win Best Director, and only the second woman in history. Or that Travon Free was the first Black person to ever win in the Live Action Short category.
Youn Yuh-Jung became the first Korean actor to ever win an Academy Award. And our gal Glenn Close made unfortunate history with her 8th loss, tying Peter O’Toole for the most acting nominations with no win. But in the fury of all these headlines, you might have missed some of the small but remarkable moments that captured our special attention.
Exhibit A: Glenn Close understood the assignment when it came to Spike Lee and “Da Butt.” Not only could the famed actress drop some knowledge on the history of the song, she got up out her seat and almost – ALMOST – twerked. Under normal circumstances, this might be a faux pas, but this is Glenn Close so we’ll allow it. To quote her character from Fatal Attraction, Glenn’s “not going to be IGNORED!”
If you liked those GIFs of Glenn shaking her booty, you’re gonna love the GIFs made out of Daniel Kaluuya’s mum and sister, reacting in shock to his Oscar acceptance speech. Few want their marital relations brought to the world’s attention, however, most of us can relate to Daniel because our parents, too, had sex.
He even doubled down on his hilarious speech in the backstage press room.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that all our parents had sex,” he said. He is gonna get a smack upside the head when he returns to London (where his mom was watching), that’s all we know.
Speaking of awesome acceptance speeches, we think we can all agree that Youn Yuh-Jung.
That’s it. That’s the tweet.
But despite how funny and charming she was, she also had the hots for Brad Pitt (we haven’t seen her at the club meetings. Weird). Brad Pitt, for his part, was doing his very best to redefine the man-bun. What is this? Is that a man-knot? A man-messy-bun? Whatever it is, it is now listed as a 2021 hot summer trend in Vogue Magazine (probably).
Okay, can we take a moment to appreciate Travon Free? His Oscar win? Amazing.
His matching suit with Martin Roe that was lined with the names of victims of police brutality? Amazing.
The fact that he manifested this win in 2012 by tweeting about it and made it happen eight years later?? Uh-may-zing.
Yes, Minari star Alan Kim was playing video games during the ceremony, ignoring all of the winners, speeches, celebs, glitz and glamour. Honestly, can you blame him?
Before the ceremony, the red carpet had a lot more unique and fun moments beyond celeb interviews and designer suits and gowns.
Like this absolutely adorable moment between Sound of Metal star Riz Ahmed and his novelist wife Fatima Farheen Mirza. He told the paps to chill for a sec while he fixed her hair. Get you a man who can do both.
How about Daniel Kaluuya and Leslie Odom Jr. laughing and chasing each other around the red carpet! Whatever they were laughing about, we ship this friendship hard and we love this for them.
And then there was Oscar-winner Viola Davis pretending to take a shot through the medium of mime. ACTING!
Then Frances McDormand, who is now a three-time Best Actress Oscar winner, used her time up at the podium to howl at the moon because Frances is as Frances does.
Even the ending to the ceremony broke with tradition by choosing not to end the show with the Best Picture category. Best Picture has been the last award of the evening since 1948! Only once since then has it not been the finale (1971 they ended the show with a tribute to Charlie Chaplin). Deciding to end the show with the Best Actor award was definitely *a choice*.
And considering that the chosen winner, Sir Anthony Hopkins, wasn’t even there to accept it, made it even more of . . . *a choice*.
Guys, didn’t you pay attention to the Hopkins blunder at the BAFTAs? Have we not been paying attention in class? You knew this would be on the test!
In any case, Sir Anthony woke up this morning to send in his gratitude and thanks.
The only thing that would have made his after-the-fact speech even better is if he suddenly dropped down and twerked to “Da Butt.” What? This is 2021, anything could happen.
Watch the full 93rd Academy Awards on CTV.ca and the CTV app.
BEFORE YOU GO: 'Minari' Best Supporting Actress Youn Yuh-jung meets Glenn Close
[video_embed id='2188529']BEFORE YOU GO: 'Minari' Best Supporting Actress Youn Yuh-jung meets Glenn Close [/video_embed]
