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www.postmagazine.com 21 POST MARCH 2017 he snubs (No Amy Adams? No Deadpool? No Scorsese?) are now ancient history. The surprises (Mel Gibson's back! Musicals are back! Isabelle Huppert finally gets nominat- ed!) have sunk in. And then there was the unexpect- ed last-minute drama! (The Academy rescinded its nomination for sound mixer Greg P. Russell, on Michael Bay's 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, for a rules violation, upending that race — which was nothing compared to the truly shocking and dramatic announcement mix-up that initially gave the Best Picture award to La La Land (talk about fake news — and why wasn't Trump live-tweeting away about it?). And now all the glitter and pixie-dust has finally settled on the red carpet and the 89 th Oscars are over — and so are the races. And in terms of race, what a difference a year makes. In 2016, for the second consecutive year, the Academy failed to nominate any actors of color, and talk of boy- cotts, protests, backlash and the trending hashtag #OscarsSoWhite quickly dominated the entertain- ment world and the 24-hour news cycles after the nominations announcements. By contrast, 2017 looked a whole lot more diverse, so maybe all the noise helped change the voting landscape. For a start, the Academy nomi- nated a record seven actors of color, including such familiar faces as Fences star and director Denzel Washington (it's his eighth nomination, and he previously won for Glory and Training Day), Fences star Viola Davis (it's her third), and Hidden Figures star Octavia Spencer (who won for The Help), along with such Oscar newcomers as Dev Patel (Lion), Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris (Moonlight) and Ruth Negga (Loving). But some things seemed unchanged. Despite all the recognition for Moonlight, Fences et al, the 14-nomination ultra-white juggernaut, La La Land still looked most likely to walk away with the big prize — Best Picture. Of course, even those 14 nominations paled in comparison to the 20 total nominations now earned by a single "over-rated" (according to the new president) actress, Meryl Streep — breaking her own record (this year, she was nominated for Best actress for her role in Florence Foster Jenkins). So who ended up grabbing the golden boys and who ended up crying into their flat champagne? Here we take a look at the races, the results and examine why voters embraced some films and nominees, while remaining indifferent to the charms of others. BEST PICTURE The Academy can nominate up to 10 movies now, but it stopped short with nine this year; Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Lion, Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight. Maybe even several more nom- inations on the list wouldn't have made much difference to the longtime frontrunner — Damien Chazelle's retro-glam musical, La La Land, which tied the nominations record set by All About Eve (14 nominations, six wins) and Titanic (14 nominations, 11 wins). In fact, La La Land looked likely to beat those Titanic-winning numbers precisely because it's a musical, which gave it an edge in other cat- egories such as Original Score and Original Song. Surprisingly, Chazelle's love letter to Hollywood's golden age of song and dance spectaculars is only the third original musical ever to land a Best Picture nomination, following All That Jazz (1979) and Anchors Aweigh (1945). However, the crowning wasn't an inevitability, as the frontrunner doesn't always win on Oscar night. Last year, Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant led the field with nine and took home three, surpris- ing many who thought it would win after its BAFTA, Globes and DGA wins, or that The Big Short would triumph following its PGA win (which often predicts the Best Picture Oscar). But both lost to Spotlight. So could a rival rudely step on the well-choreo- graphed toes of La La Land and dance away with the award? While voters love a good crowd-pleas- er that deals with timely issues (Hidden Figures, with its casual racism and gender inequality), or an intimate and moving character drama (Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, Lion), or a contempo-west- ern (Hell or High Water) or a thinking man's sci-fi adventure (Arrival), when push comes to shove, they generally don't hand out the big prize to those sorts of movies. Except that, out of more than 40 major pre-Os- car prizes, Moonlight won 18 top film awards — two more than La La Land. Or would it come down to a two-way race with the late-surging Oscar contender few saw coming — Hacksaw Ridge, with its nominations for Best Actor Andrew Garfield, Editing, Sound Editing and Mixing, Director and Best Picture? Mel Gibson's powerful passion project has all the elements that Oscar loves; it's based on a true story and paints a vivid picture of selfless heroism set against an epic, period backdrop of war-is-hell and sacrifice. To recap: Moonlight is serious, tender and socially relevant, with no singing and no dancing. In the new Trump era, the Academy may love that. Hacksaw Ridge is brutal, violent, inspiring and uplifting, with no singing and no dancing. The Academy loves that, too. La La Land is frothy, escapist, delightful and uplifting, with lots of singing and dancing. And the Academy also loves that. And the Oscar went to — after that monumental screw-up — Moonlight…we think! BEST DIRECTOR After sweeping the Globes and the DGA awards, Damien Chazelle looked unbeatable, despite some challenges from other young turks, including Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) and Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea). With his second feature, Jenkins became just the fourth black man nominated by the director's branch, following in the footsteps of John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood), Lee Daniels (Precious) and Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave). Lonergan and his intense family drama also got a lot of attention (it's his first Oscar nomination for directing, and fourth overall), but mainly in the acting categories. And Villeneuve's restrained direction on his dark, super-intense sci-fi drama also had its admirers, win- ning him his first Oscar nomination for directing. But ultimately, Chazelle's main competition likely came from Jenkins and from the only Oscar veteran in the group — Mel Gibson, who's back in a big way, nominated for Best Director for his powerful but harrowing World War II movie Hacksaw Ridge, 21 years after his last nomination when he won Best Director and Best Picture in 1996 for Braveheart. And the Oscar went to — 32-year-old Chazelle, making him the youngest Best Director winner in Oscar history. CINEMATOGRAPHY Another exceptional year with a varied range of beautifully shot films, with Oscar honoring Greig Fraser (Lion), Rodrigo Prieto (Silence), Bradford Young (Arrival), James Laxton (Moonlight) and Linus T Moonlight (left) and La La Land (above). La La Land (above). La La Land