Josh-da-man

It really puts the award presenters on the spot when there's a fuck-up like this. They're standing alone onstage on live television, and everyone is waiting to hear who the winner is, and they open the envelope and OOPS. I would think they would have some kind of procedure or protocol for the presenters to follow in case they get the wrong envelope or card, or an empty envelope.

GoldenJCJ

I haven't bothered rewatching it but that's one thing I noticed upon the initial viewing. Beatty stayed behind to try to make sense of the mistake and Faye up and disappeared like a fart in the wind. That's probably the fastest she's moved since filming Bonnie and Clyde!

Ash Ketchum

"And the Oscar goes to...ELLE? Paul Verhoeven, come on down!"

That would have been gold.

kefrank

In my opinion, all of the protocols should be focused on making it virtually impossible for the presenters to receive an incorrect envelope of any kind. The presenters can't be expected to resolve issues like that in real time on live television and there are so many steps that could be taken to prevent that from ever being necessary. Your fail-safe has to be at the point of handing the envelope to the presenter, not at the point the presenter opens the envelope.

Yeah, give Beatty credit. All things considered he handled an awkward situation pretty admirably. His short explanation in the moment ended up being really important, because it did shed some light on what went down (it made it clear the card they were given had the announcement for best actress), but didn't explicitly throw anyone under the bus.

sherm42

The producers of the show are probably taking a lot of blame internally. Yes, the envelope screw up was Price's fault, but why did it take nearly 2.5 minutes before someone stopped the La La Land acceptance speeches? And only then it was one the La La Land producers who had to say something.

Price is trying to take the blame, but it is not true that the mistake was corrected immediately as they say in their statement.

GoldenJCJ

You have to figure all those people behind the scenes who could have stopped it quicker didn't even realize it was a mistake. Evidently only two people in the world knew it was the wrong winner. It still doesn't explain why it took either one of those two baffoons that long to figure it out.

Sex Fiend

But did it really?

sinned

Tonight's Jimmy Kimmel show ratings will be huge.... I wonder if he can convince Warren Beatty to make an appearance and explain what happened from his point of view.

mphtrilogy

I don't usually watch, but set the DVR tonight and tomorrow

Ash Ketchum

If Warren Beatty ever entertained even the slightest hope in hell of banging Emma Stone, he can forget about it now.

Draven

He's totally who I noticed first too

slop101

Mel Gibson may be batshit insane, but at leas he has a healthy sense of humor about himself.

cungar

I don't know. Even his laugh has an insane look to it. Like "Yeah real funny, asshole"

bluetoast

Something non fiasco related - what was the Meryl Streep movie that Javier Bardem was reflecting in?

GuessWho

slop101

That bit with the tourists was really awkward.

Mabuse

This puts to rest the Marissa Tomai rumor. Now we know what happens if the wrong name is read. Was it Jack Palance who presented her the award? I think it was.

Mr. Flix

The Oscar gets taken from a white musical and given to the rightful winner, a movie about a gay black man. Can't help but wonder how much bigger the hubbub would be if the opposite had happened.

B.A.

First thing I noticed, too.

Double_Oh_7

This is how you handle having the wrong envelope at an awards show... you don't throw your co-presenter under the bus.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0RF0cyjS9DU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

chowderhead

I don't think Beatty threw her under the bus at all. He explained why he was confused when he saw Emma Stone's name and took a long time and looked for another card.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/movies/oscars-best-picture-transcript.html?_r=0
He never blamed anyone and explained himself quite clearly.
If the envelop had said Zootopia or white Helmet or something it would have been easier to stop but these people are looking for a film title and it said LaLa land. This was all the two people from PWC who were to secure the envelops and passed them out. That's it. They were responsible, they messed up a and a lot of people ended up looking bad.

MLBFan24

So will the eventual 4K / bluray / DVD cover art say:

"6-time Academy Award Winner!"

"not INCLUDING BEST PICTURE!"

with not in tiny, tiny font and INCLUDING BEST PICTURE in gigantic font

Drexl

LA LA LAND - THE BEST PICTURE

...and sound quality you'll experience all year!


It's kind of interesting that this makes it 4 of the last 5 years with a split in Best Picture and Best Director. That used to be pretty rare. It happened a little more often in recent years, but it has been still been uncommon.

I wonder what, if anything, has changed to make this happen. Maybe back when Ben Affleck was denied a directing nomination for Argo (which at the time looked like a death blow to its chances for BP) and it seemed that they rallied around his film, perhaps that caused a lot of them to question the conventional wisdom of putting the same movie down for both awards.

chowderhead

I think there is a correlation between expanding the number of films nomominated for Best picture 9-10 years ago while still fixing the number of directors nominated. More films allowed in for best picture could mean splitting more votes. Also there is still probably a different demographic/age pools of voters between directors who nominate and everyone else in the academy who votes for the winners.

Why So Blu?

Even libraries got in on the fun: