Oscars: "Green Book" wins best picture awardFebruary 25, 2019 - 10:24 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - "Green Book" has won the Oscar for best picture at the 91st Academy Awards, The Guardian reports. Based on a real-life road trip through the deep south in the early 1960s, "Green Book’s" victory proved a considerable upset at the awards, after a night largely marked by predictability. After Alfonso Cuarón took the best director award for "Roma", a victory in the main category – to add to its best foreign language film and best cinematography wins – had seemed a certainty. Rami Malek was named best actor for playing Freddie Mercury in "Bohemian Rhapsody", following on from a string of other wins this awards season. He is the first Arab American to have won the best actor Oscar. Regina King picked up the best supporting actress award for her role in Barry Jenkins’ emotive drama "If Beale Street Could Talk", beating Bafta winner Rachel Weisz. But the apple cart had already been upset 10 minutes before, when Olivia Colman snatched the best actress gong from frontrunner Glenn Close. And the warmth with which Academy voters had greeted "Green Book" was already proven by its wins in the best original screenplay and best supporting actor category. In their speeches, the producers explained that the film was about “living together despite our differences”; they also dedicated the award to the late Carrie Fisher. Named after the motoring handbook originally designed to help African American travellers avoid dangerous areas in the pre-civil rights US, Green Book is the story of black concert pianist Don Shirley and his Italian-American bodyguard/driver Tony Vallelonga, AKA Tony Lip. It is directed by Peter Farelly, and stars Viggo Mortensen as Vallelonga and Mahershala Ali as Shirley. Sony’s critically acclaimed "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse", which brought much-needed diversity to the Spider-Man universe, was named best animated feature, putting an end to Disney’s six-year hold on the category. Nominated for eight Oscars, "A Star Is Born" had to make do with only one win, for best original song. While accepting the award for Shallow, a tearful Lady Gaga said: “I’ve worked hard for a long time and it’s not about winning. What it’s about is not giving up. If you have a dream, fight for it.” The 91st ceremony had been plagued with indecision and problems, from Kevin Hart’s history of homophobia leading to him stepping down as host, to the decision not to include an award for popular film, to the reversal of the announcement that four awards would take place in commercial breaks. The Academy had also stated that the ceremony would come in at a tidy three hours, yet it ran to almost three and a half. Top stories The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. The festival made the news public on March 19, saying that “several options are considered in order to preserve its running” Partner news | Erdogan wants “realistic road map” for relations with Armenia Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a “new realistic road map” for relations with Armenia. Armenia-Azerbaijan: Experts launch work on determining coordinates Expert groups from the countries started the process of determining the coordinates based on geodetic measurements. Yerevan says did not expect CSTO in peacekeeping role Pashinyan has declared that the CSTO would be expected to come to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border as an ally of Armenia Henrikh Mkhitaryan wins Serie A title with Inter Inter Milan midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan admits that the team have long been imagining clinching Serie A against AC Milan. |