The 94th Academy Award Winners

Well, it was more eventful than last year's show.

They gave eight awards out ahead of time, then edited the acceptance speeches into the show. A little awkward, but I didn't hate it as much as I thought I might. This led the producers to think we had enough time for two musical numbers from Encanto.

The three hostesses (Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, Amy Schumer) juggled comedic duties. I thought Hall's bit about privately testing the singles actors like Bradley Cooper and Tyler Perry backstage for COVID was funny, and Schumer had some good lines in her own monologue. ("Being the Ricardos is like if they did a Michael Jordan biopic but only showed the bus rides between games.") Sykes's pre-recorded detour of the new Hollywood museum should have been cut in half or dropped.

But the one they're going to be talking about is the Will Smith altercation. Chris Rock poked fun at a couple celebs but then joked about Jada Pinkett Smith preparing for G.I. Jane 2. At first Will laughed along but then he saw the look on Jada's face. Some back-story: Jada has alopecia. Smith marched up to Chris Rock and gave him a full slap on the face. American audiences didn't see the next ten seconds but clips from other broadcasts have gone viral to show that Smith stayed upset ("Keep my wife's name out of your f---ing mouth!") Rock then introduced the nominees for Best Documentary.

And then a half-hour later, Will won. It's quite something to behold his speech. He did ultimately apologize to the Academy, but not to Chris Rock. I'll be fascinated to see what tomorrow's headlines are like.

The winners:

BEST PICTURE - CODA

BEST DIRECTOR - Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

BEST ACTOR - Will Smith, King Richard

BEST ACTRESS - Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Troy Kotsur, CODA

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - Sian Heder, CODA

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Kenneth Branagh, Belfast

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE - Encanto

BEST DOCUMENTARY PICTURE - Summer of Soul

BEST FOREIGN PICTURE - Drive My Car (Japan)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - Dune

BEST COSTUNE DESIGN - Cruella

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS - Dune

BEST ORIGINAL SONG - "No Time to Die", Billie Eilish

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - Hans Zimmer, Dune

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - Dune

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING - The Eyes of Tammy Faye

BEST EDITING - Dune

BEST SOUND - Dune

BEST ANIMATED SHORT - The Windshield Wiper

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT - The Queen of Basketball

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT - The Long Goodbye

Spider-Man passes $610 million domestic

For the weekend of December 31, 2021 - January 2, 2022, Spider-Man: No Way Home continued to dominate and it looks like it's on its way to be the third-highest domestic grosser of all time. Not sure if it has the legs to reach #1 The Force Awakens or #2 Avengers Endgame, but I do think it'll pass #3 Avatar.

Of everything else, Sing 2 has to be happy. It'll outgross Encanto this week and be the first and only animated movie of 2021 to pass the $100 million mark. Only 14 movies at all passed or will pass $100 million. (Compare that to 2019 when 31 movies did that.) The only non-sequel or non-Marvel movies to pass $100 million were Free Guy, Jungle Cruise and Dune.

Nothing else was able to catch fire. The Matrix Resurrections had mixed reviews and was also available on HBOMax, so its 68% drop-off is steep for a New Years Day weekend. The Colin Firth-less King's Man will disappear quickly. Some of these titles at least have the benefit of not too many new movies opening in January.

Opens This Week

THE 355 with Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong'o and Diane Kruger.

Opens January 14

SCREAM 5 with Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette and Jack Quaid.