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Everything You Wanted To Know About The Oscars, Including A Link To All Of The Winners

If you want the summary, all of the acting awards went as expected; Guillermo del Toro won Best Director; and Shape of Water won Best Picture. But here’s everything.

How Does The Oscars Orchestra Find The Perfect Guitar For A Song From ‘Coco’?

Greg Porée, one of the guitarists for the orchestra, was stumped (yes, even in Los Angeles) when it came to finding the right guitar for the nominated song from the animated movie Coco: “The Mexican vihuela, I believe it started in the 1800s, and it became very popular in mariachi bands because it’s very loud and it’s almost a percussive type of instrument where you strum it. It speaks very loudly. It cuts through all the singing and cuts through all the playing.” (Spoiler alert: He found one.)

What Paramount Is Doing To ‘Annihilation’ Is A Troubling Precedent For The Studio

Paramount sold the international rights to the movie, with five female leads, to Netflix, which means Paramount doesn’t have to advertise or market it anywhere aside from the U.S. That’s a problem. “Annihilation is a film of stunning visuals and rumbling audio, complementing a brainy and psychologically unsettling story; it deserves to be seen on a big screen in Dolby surround sound with the full attention of the viewer, rather than as Bright-level background noise while folding laundry and checking Instagram.”

Actor Michael Sheen Says It’s Time For Gender Pay Equality (Including If He Needs To Take A Pay Cut)

Sheen, whose major roles include roles in Frost/Nixon and The Queen, “said the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns showed that there is ‘clearly a moment happening’ but ‘we have to make sure that this doesn’t just remain a moment'”

Please Let Us Trash The Academy Award For ‘Best Original Song’

Whew, things have changed since the category was added in the 1930s: “The list of undeserving — or worse, unmemorable — winners is a long and embarrassing one. Even more damning, many of the nominees and winners seem to have little to do with the movies themselves, blatant cross-promotional devices that serve only as the closing-credits Muzak for your shuffle to the exits.”

What’s Next For The Woman Who Bought The Weinstein Company?

Maria Contreras-Sweet and her investors group have a plan: “to turn the rubble of Harvey Weinstein’s former New York-based studio into a new, female-focused film and TV company run by women. If the plan works, it would be an unprecedented turnaround for a badly tarnished company and possibly even set an example for the male-dominated entertainment industry.”

Elizabeth Strout’s Favorite ‘Guilty Pleasure’ Book Is War And Peace

The author, who just won The Story Prize for her Anything Is Possible, says, “The first time I read it, I was on vacation with my in-laws and sitting by the pool one of them said: ‘Liz, that’s so pretentious, can’t you cover that up?’ I almost died. So now I read it furtively in the privacy of my home.”

The NY Philharmonic Signed A Three-Year Contract This Week, Settling Some Big Questions (For A While)

Perhaps the feeling of harmony can be laid at the feet of Deborah Borda, the NY Phil’s new president and chief executive officer. “Since her arrival she has helped to extricate the orchestra from a costly, disruptive plan to renovate its Lincoln Center home and raised $50 million to end its string of deficits and give it the resources to welcome a new music director, Jaap van Zweden.”

Somehow, London Is Still Talking About The Garden Bridge (The Somehow Being Boris Johnson)

Why is it under discussion? Because Johnson finally – finally – had to answer questions about the cost to the public of a bridge that never got built. “A total of £60m of public money was committed to the project, and £37.4m was spent by the Garden Bridge Trust without any construction work being done, even though a construction contract had been signed.”

Author: ArtsJournal2