Beauty vs Beast: Our Favourite Fellas

Jason from MNPP here, wishing everyone a Happy Oscar Hangover Monday -- the mood swings last night were particularly violent, but then we live in a rollercoaster world in 2019 so the evening felt par for the course. Personally I had some villains I was rooting against last night but today in the light of day I don't feel like being particularly cruel so I'm going to go another direction with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" competition and celebrate one last time before we move on to new things my favourite red-carpet duo this season -- the fellas of The Favourite, Nicholas Hoult and Joe Alwyn, who trotted out their sharpest looks of the year on the red carpet, Nicky in Dior and Joe in Tom Ford. Nothing diabolical here, let's keep it light -- just choose!

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PREVIOUSLY Two weeks back it was the ladies of ROMA facing off for us, and leading lady Yalitza Aparicio took home your prize with 58% of the vote. Here's a selection of what Jones had to say (I recommend you click back and read the whole comment though because it's boss):

"To understand Cleo's character is necessary to not only understand existing at the margins of society but to be familiar with what it is like to exist at the margins of a household: being intimate without having a voice or autonomy. To people unfamiliar with these class structures and Mexican indigenous people this could read as blank but reflect again..."

On Glenn Close's Oscar Curse

by Nathaniel  R

At this point in her long and celebrated career, Glenn Close surely has reason to wonder. Consider it a reverse Sally Field: 'You don't like me? You really don't like me?'

There are many familiar time-tested ways to win an Oscar and Glenn Close has tried them all. She's tried the debut performance that makes everyone's jaw drop with 'who is THAT?' wonder (World According to Garp). She's tried being the actor who becomes a kind of symbolic representation of an entire film and cast (The Big Chill). She's tried having the necessary momentum, twice actually, with three consecutive supporting nominations ending in The Natural  early in her career, and then two consecutive lead nominations a few years later (ending with Dangerous Liaisons). She's tried having the kind of blockbuster zeitgeist hit that can carry you to win even when you aren't deserving though she certainly was (Fatal Attraction)...

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Make Up For Ever

by Seán McGovern

About ten months from now, there will be a press release from the Academy informing us that some of the 24 categories will be handed out during the commerical breaks. Initially there will be uproar all over again. How dare they?! Didn't we go through all this last year? What an outrage! But then I'll turn to you and say 'yeah but remember those make-up people who won for Vice?' at which point we shall all accept this harsh but necessary decision...

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Oscar Trivia with the 91st Annual Academy Awards now a wrap

Now that the big show has ended let's talk trivia. Please do share any cool things you noticed in the comments.

PICTURE & DIRECTING

• With Alfonso Cuarón's win we are reminded that Mexico is completely dominant for Best Director prizes in Hollywood of late. Five of the past six winners have been Mexican directors (Damien Chazelle for La La Land being the lone non-Mexican winning). The US is really lagging, and not behind Mexico -- in the ten past ceremonies only two American-born directors have won: Chazelle and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

• Alfonso Cuarón is the first and ONLY director to win for directing a foreign-language film. Some trivia listings suggest he's the second after Michel Hanavicius for The Artist but that was a silent film, so language isn't relevant...

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How'd you do on your predictions?

✅ ❌ A quick note on predictions before we lay down to sleep for a few hours before all the post-mortem Oscar discussions / work. I went 17/24 as you can see on the official chart index which has been updated with all the winners. But frankly I was hoping to do a lot worse since some of my predictions were fear based like: hmmm, this terrible thing might happen, let's predict it. While I did predict every single Best Picture nominee taking home at least one prize (which is noteworthy becasue it's not common and it DID happen for the first time since 2014) I unfortunately didn't predict which Oscar correctly in some of the cases. 

How'd you do?