Hollywood endures the hangover of the Oscars wondering why James Cameron Didn’t Attend The Ceremony, Or Why Did The ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Team All Was There Except Tom Cruise, its promoter. The two great promoters of the cinemas were conspicuous by their absence, aware not only of what works in cinemas but of a pattern that is repeated. Just like last year ‘CODA’ triumphed at the end of the night, this 2023 did ‘Everything at once everywhere’, which swept seven awards.
The frenetic universe of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert is actually a fable about immigrants. An ode to working mothers who fear public finances. A comic of martial arts, cosmological slapstick, and group hugs that spans multiverses. “Best film? Not at all, but I think we are facing a generational change, ”say anonymous academics, who show a certain resentment towards the bulky result. In the hothouse of social media, the film has blossomed week after week since its debut at the South by Southwest Festival last year. the daniels They claim to have rejuvenated Hollywood with their awards. A success consummated by word of mouth that is, to date, the biggest box office success of the great studio of the moment: A24.
Michelle Yeoh came backstage in the Oscars press room with her statuette to vindicate herself after snatching the award from Cate Blanchett. “This is a historic moment. I have the Academy to thank for recognizing and embracing diversity and true representation. This is something that I have been working very hard for, for a long time… Finally, after 40 years, I have achieved it,” she said. And she went even further: “It just shows that we have won as a community. Never give up, because once you give up, you lose. Don’t let anyone put you in a box, don’t let anyone say you’re past your prime.”
In the parallel worlds between success and representation, the Academy surrenders to its new members with a film that captures something of the social fragmentation in the Internet age. “We need this because there are many who have felt invisible and not heard. Not just in the Asian community, this is not just for the Asian community, but for anyone who identifies as a minority. We deserve to be heard, we deserve to be seen, we deserve to have opportunities so that we can have a seat at the table. That’s all we’re asking for. Give us that opportunity. Let’s prove we’re worth it.”
With its phenomenal box office success and seven Oscars, ‘Everything At Once Everywhere’ stands as the most culturally and commercially significant Asian-American film ever made. A watershed moment, after nearly a century of Hollywood’s indifference to Asian characters, actors, stories, and storytellers. In a year when a reeling post-pandemic film industry could have gone for something more traditional, it’s significant that, for the first time, a film centering on a disorderly dysfunctional Chinese-American family took top honors, with the Daniels winning best picture. , direction and original script. Even before the night began, ‘All at Once Everywhere’ had already helped make Oscar history with its acting nominations for Yeoh, Quan and Hsu.
The victory of ‘Everything at Once Everywhere’ marks a pivotal moment in an industry that struggles to break down the barriers between classic and new, A-list and the rest, epic and intimate, past and the present, the universe and the multiverse.
To cap off one of the most inspiring stories of the year, actor Ke Quan, who rose to prominence as a child star in the 1980s in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ or ‘The Goonies’ only to quit acting due to Due to the lack of opportunities, he was recognized by winning his Oscar for best secondary in the role of the meek husband in the film. To everyone’s delight and no one’s surprise, Quan won the supporting actor Oscar, becoming the second Asian actor to win in that category. “My journey began on a boat,” Quan said in one of the most moving speeches of the night. “I spent a year in a refugee camp and somehow ended up on the biggest stage in Hollywood. They say that stories like this only happen in the movies.
In the end, ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Avatar’ saw their wins limited to the technical categories, with ‘Avatar’ taking the prize for visual effects and ‘Top Gun’ winning the prize for sound. Despite their efforts to help lift Hollywood out of its pandemic slump, neither attended the Oscars, absences that host Jimmy Kimmel mentioned in his opening monologue: “It’s disheartening that the two guys who were most insistent that we we went to the cinema did not come to the cinema today».
