Y9 Academy Awards Ceremony!!

[Blankments]

Please welcome Tilda Swinton to the stage!

 

Tilda Swinton: I've had the pleasure to be part of so many great ensembles over the years. A good ensemble can make a film worthwhile in its own right. This year's nominees for Best Ensemble all come from great films, where the entire group of actors is able to utilize the story in front of them to great effect. They are:

 

American Spy

The Crummy Shindig

Heremias

The Queen Who Never Was

Runaway Train

 

And the Oscar goes to...

 

 

 

THE QUEEN WHO NEVER WAS!

 

*The entire ensemble takes the stage, pushing Samara Weaving to the front.*

Samara Weaving: This is truly a great night for this film. I will forever be associated with it and the fellow actors around me. On behalf of all of them, I thank you for giving all of us this great honor.

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Blankments

[Blankments]

Please welcome Academy Award winning director Martin Scorsese to the stage!

 

*A standing ovation occurs as Marty comes out.*

 

Martin Scorsese: Thank you, thank you. But please, I won last year! Usually they don't invite the director back to pass it on, but in this case, I'm apparently famous enough to do that. That's weird. Anyway, the following directors all did their best, and that's all we can ask of them. The nominees for Best Director are...

 

Fede Álvarez, The Mirage

Alfonso Cuarón, Warmth

Ava DuVernay, American Spy

Michelle MacLaren, The Queen Who Never Was

James Mangold, Runaway Train

 

And the Oscar goes to...

 

 

MICHELLE MACLAREN, THE QUEEN WHO NEVER WAS!

Michelle MacLaren: This is unreal, Marty handing this to me. If you had told me this where directing a couple of Game of Thrones episodes ten years ago would lead to Martin Scorsese handing me an award for the best film direction of the year, I would've just walked away and never spoke to you again. Thank you George, thank you Numerator Pictures, thank you my cast, thank you everyone. Wow!

Edited April 28, 2023 by Blankments

[Blankments]

Please welcome Bobby Cannavale to the stage!

 

Bobby Cannavale: These women showed their stuff, delivering truly phenomenal performances. Acting is tough, and these women went there. Here are the nominees for Best Actress.

 

Annalise Basso, Acne

 

Helen comes in, absolutely aghast at Gina's state, telling her that she is in no condition to take any shoot, and that the three spots for Paris are chosen as of that moment, none of them belonging to Gina. Gina, amidst crying tears of blood, begs Helen to let her take the shoot, but Helen refuses, and says that she is barred from the agency until she "becomes perfect" again. Elise, who is behind the scenes of a shooting of her own, is listening to the conversation, and is shocked at Helen's coldness. Helen tells Gina that she can leave and not come back anytime soon. Gina breaks out into shouting and says she's gonna fucking kill Helen, but security pin her down. She has a big panic attack down on the ground, screaming and crying. 

 

Zoey Deutch, Bikini

 

Vanessa turns to leave.
Officer Jim: One more thing.
Vanessa whips back around.
Officer Jim: Next time you enter a police station... Wear clothes. Capisce?
Vanessa's cheeks go red. She turns to look at other officers, who are snickering at the comment. She looks back at Officer Jim.
Vanessa: I think I'll wear what I want.

 

 

Lily James, The Crummy Shindig

 

The mayor tells Claire that renovations in the town square might postpone or outright cancel Jared’s musical, and Claire pleads with him to do something about it...

 

Jurnee Smollett, American Spy

 

At her apartment, she punches the wall and breaks a hole in it, bloodying up her knuckles. She then sniffles a little bit. She picks up an old photograph of herself, Helene and Pop all together while crying, and then hugs it. At that moment, she gets another call. She picks up the phone.

 

Samara Weaving, The Queen Who Never Was

 

He starts to sit when Rhaenys addresses him, calling out some of his statements about women, pointing out that Queen Alysanne is just as well regarded as their grandfather in her wisdom and judgment. She asks if he demeans his own grandmother and her reputation. Daemon rises to respond and arguments break out between the various nobles, shouting over each other.

 

And the Oscar goes to...

 

 

JURNEE SMOLETT, AMERICAN SPY!

 

Jurnee Smolett: Thank you to the Academy for this wonderful honor, to everyone who worked with us in the film, to everyone who’s supported me in my journey to fulfill my dreams… this honor goes to you as well. Thank you so, so much!

Edited April 28, 2023 by Blankments

[Blankments]

Please welcome Michelle Williams to the stage!

 

Michelle Williams: And now we end on the men. All five of these led their films with great gusto and genuinely moving performances. Speaking as someone who took a while to win - I'm not complaining! - it's still an honor enough to be among these five. Here are the nominees for Best Actor.

 

Robert Beltran, Warmth

 

 Enrique takes another deep breath, as if he's coming back to reality. Son immediately questions what this was all about, and Enrique explains it: he was a part of the state police during the Mexican Dirty War, which occurred in between the 60's and 80's and was Mexico's Cold War. His job was to prevent the communists from ever taking power away from their government at the time - the American CIA even backed the then-rulers of the country. Son asks him if he really didn't want the communists in power, and Enrique claims that without a doubt, he did, as he associated communism with misery, totalitarianism and repression, and believed in an anti-red vision for his country, so he asks Son not to blame him for anything he did against the (he stutters as he says this) "terrorists"; plus, he was just following orders. Son asks him if he enjoyed anything he did to those protesters. Enrique does not answer, but Son retorts that the memories did not completely lose color. Color in the astral plane represents more than just realistic representations of nostalgia, so Son leaves Enrique to answer by himself what he thinks.  

 

Devin Druid, The Next Good Day

 

 

Daytime. In his house, Levi, still sitting next to his bed, gets up. He takes a deep breath, and enters Leah’s bedroom. It looks clean, as he’d expect from Leah. The piano is still impeccable. He approaches the piano, and a sob reaches him. He reaches his twitchy hand towards the piano.

 

 

Mike Faist, The Crummy Shindig

 

Cue the song “Dancing Man” where Jared evades the rowdy muscular men and sings about how theater guys have more physical attributes than meets the eye, and that superficial “strong men” types underestimate them. Jared’s doing Gene Kelly style dancing on pool tables and on the bar, and we get shots of Claire and Rowland as they watch him go.

 

Joaquin Phoenix, Runaway Train

 

Cut to him still with his guitar, alone now. Finally, the jams come along and start making a sound that he likes. He starts writing lyrics on a melancholic melody about the author's despair. The chorus is lowly sung: "Runaway train, never going back | Wrong way on a one way track | Seems like I should be getting somewhere | Somehow I'm neither here nor there..." - as he sings the last words of the chorus, it all starts making sense to Dave.

 

Glen Powell, The Mirage

 

He looks toward West and sees a young woman in a white dress; she’s out in the distance, standing behind the heat haze. Ralph continues North while monologuing. “You’re no girl,” he says. “You’re a mirage. If you were Allison, you’d be runnin’ up to me, screamin’, cryin’, bleedin’. You’re not Allison. My Allison’s up in those canyons.”

 

And the Oscar goes to...

 

 

 

GLEN POWELL, THE MIRAGE!

 

Powell: Powell power! Ha ha... That was for the fans. Anyways, I am thankful to the Academy for this honor. I'm thankful for all the opportunities I've been given to work with great directors——Alvarez of course, and also guys like Michael Mann and James Mangold. I want to thank my costars——Parker, Eva, Margaret. I'll keep up the good work, but for now, I'm afraid the Powell's gone out! Ciao!

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Blankments

[Blankments]

DeBose: It's pretty late.

Garfield: I guess our song was accurate.

DeBose: Man, I can't even remember my lyrics anymore.

Garfield: One last award.

DeBose: Our final presenter needs no introduction.

Garfield: He's arguably the biggest movie star left who doesn't constantly risk his life.

DeBose: I said he needed no introduction!

Garfield: Sorry!

DeBose: Fine, please welcome Denzel Washington!

 

*Denzel comes out to cheers.*

 

Denzel Washington: Thank you. But save your applause. Every year, five films are etched into time as the Best Picture nominees. But only one can be the Best Picture. Here are this year's nominees, forever part of film history, regardless of what's in this envelope.

 

American Spy

Matilda and the Night Children

The Mirage

The Queen Who Never Was

Warmth

 

And your Best Picture of Year 9 is...

 

 

 

THE MIRAGE!!!

 

Producer: All of us at Studio Groundswell wish to share a heartfelt thanks to the Academy, to our fans who support our movies, and to our talented industry colleagues for helping push this film forward. We hope to continue providing the Cayom cinematic landscape with more high quality productions. Thank you and have a good night!

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Blankments

[Blankments]

Final win counts:

 

The Queen Who Never Was - 10

The Mirage - 5

Matilda and the Night Children - 3

American Spy - 2

Acne - 1

Devil Bean - 1

Runaway Train - 1

War on Drugs: America's Modern Conflict - 1

 

Final win counts by member:

 

@4815162342 - 10

@SLAM! - 6

@MCKillswitch123 - 5

@YM! - 3

 

And of course, the tallying for both nominations and wins are in this Google Doc. Take a look and see how you did. Again, thank you all for letting me host the Oscars this year despite not participating otherwise. It's always a fun time to run ceremonies like this, and this was a good one!

[YM!]

16 hours ago, Blankments said:

Please welcome to the stage Jack Black and Kristen Wiig!

 

Jack Black: We know it's getting late!

Kristen Wiig: We're getting tired!

Black: But if there's one thing Kristen and I love doing...

Wiig: It's random voice roles in any animated movie.

Black: But there's only one Best Animated Feature every year.

Wiig: Here are the nominees.

 

Heremias

Invader Zim

Kirby and the King’s Caper

Matilda and the Night Children

Vixen and the Castle of Doom

 

Black: And the Oscar goes to...

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

MATILDA AND THE NIGHT CHILDREN!

Aphton Corbin: Thank you, this means a lot to us.
Everett Downing: We have a long speech on this ready for the press room, I believe?
Corbin: Yeah, I think so.
Downing: See you there! Thanks!

 

Spoiler

Corbin: We would like to thank everyone for voting as well as our respective family and the friends at Endless Animation for helping us shape this film.

 

Downing: Me and Aphton first started work on this project back at the end of Y6-start of Y7 with Aphton being the main driver. Xavier B. Irving, the head of Endless Entertainment as well as Endless Animation wanted to meet with both of us, having been impressed by both our works. Irving noted a lack of black-led animated movies in CAYOM especially in the family field and admittedly Endless Animation and sought hard for pitches. A lot of black creators like Jordan Peele, our co-writer and co-director Ian Jones-Quartery, Peter Ramsey, Matthew A. Cherry and Hamila Lucas all gave an assortment of pitches for films across various genres and demographics, all of which still in development. Peele went on to do Sleepy Hollow and Cherry was selected to do Meeka, a big PG adventure musical, in vein of Moana, but with African culture.

 

Corbin: Irving even said straight up to the writers that he didn't want any transformations into something marketable, just make something great and we'll follow you to the end.

 

Downing: Meeka had story problems but is still in development and Irving loved our pitch, especially with it being set in Barbados and the mythology behind the duppy called us about a month or two into Meeka’s production to develop Matilda. 

 

Corbin: What inspired us to make this movie was our own mothers. Mothers in the audience, y'all are heroes! It takes a lot of work into raising children and what delighted Irving and myself was the character of Matilda. Like Irving’s mom, she is a compassionate trooper who worked hard for her family but did it on her own with the network around her. She couldn't get everything but did a damn good job regardless but would still beat herself up when she couldn't make the mark. I wanted to make a movie to celebrate the work and to assure that their love and work paid off even if we didn't have everything. 

 

I was also a huge fan of the Night Children. Me, Downing and Jones-Quartery wanted to nail the dynamic of them but also nail home the fact they're normal kids. They mess up at times but what kid doesn't, they have hearts of gold. There is a lot of stigma children get for behavior are deemed as problems, especially black children, which in turn creates a cycle of distrust. In the movie, it wasn't Matilda being a disciplinary which made them change and be subservient. No. They were always good kids! They still keep true to themselves and didn't have to change themselves to conform! The children changed Matilda for the better, teaching her to be more compassionate and proactive and to be a better person in the end. All Matilda did was provide them an affirmative support system and listened to their needs instead of viewing them as a problem to be fixed or passed along to someone else to deal with. 

 

Corbin and Downing: We’d like to thank you all for this honor. 

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by YM!