Canadians had a chance to make some Oscars history last night and mostly did not disappoint. Brendan Fraser, Sarah Polley, Daniel Roher were the major Canadian film winners of the night. The other articles might start with Fraser, understandably, but we are starting with Polley's win.
Sarah Polley, who has done countless TV and films as an actor, gave all of that up to write and direct. Polley's directorial debut Away from Her got 2 Oscar nominations. Bold innovation with Stories We Tell and Take This Waltz. A comeback story as impressive as Fraser's story. Seeing Polley stand up on the Oscars stage, talking about women talking, Women Talking, democracy. I knew a potential speech would be beautiful and we got that last night.
"First of all, just want to thank the Academy for not being mortally offended by the words women and talking with so close together like that."
"Miriam Toews wrote an essential novel about a radical democracy in which people who don't agree on every single issue managed to sit together in a room and carve out a way forward together free of violence. They do so not just by talking but also by listening,"
Women Talking is not a Canadian film. Don't care. Miriam Toews got mentioned. Sheila McCarthy stood up in a lovely red dress when Polley acknowledged the cast and crew.
We would greatly argue in the relatively enlightened Oscars time the last 2 years where this film would have been celebrated even more. Appreciate the good that came from this film.
Let's dance through the accolades: first Canadian female to win a screenplay Oscar; first Canadian to win an adapted screenplay Oscar as a Canadian; first Canadian to win an adapted screenplay Oscar based from Canadian material.
Polley has 2 Oscar nominations, both for adapted screenplay, and an Oscar.
English, Australian, even an Italian. You can scour the list of Best Actor winners and find many non-Americans. This morning, you can go through that same list and find 1 Canadian: Brendan Fraser.
Fraser won the statue for The Whale. He was rather excellent and gave a beautiful speech.
Walter Huston has a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and 2 Best Actor nominations. Walter Pidgeon was nominated for Best Actor 2 years in a row in 1942 and 1943. Ryan Gosling is the only other Canadian alive with 2 Best Actor nominations: Half Nelson (2006) and La La Land (2016). Raymond Massey (1940) and Alexander Knox (1944) are also members of the club.
A Canadian was in the Best Actor mix for 5 years in a row (1940-1944) and then nothing for 62 years.
Most first-time nominees don't get the call to go up on the stage. Congratulations to Brendan Fraser for his talent and resiliency.
Prosthetics designer Adrien Morot took an Oscar for his work on The Whale.
Looking back on Canadians nominated for screenplay Oscars
Brendan Fraser might be the first Canadian to ever win the Oscar for Best Actor
Sarah Polley gets Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay but not Best Director
Women Talking wins Robert Altman Award at the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards
Canadian film review: Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band
Daniel Roher, who previously directed Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band — the opening film of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, won an Oscar on his first try for Navalny for Best Documentary Feature.
Roher's speech drew out the importance of journalism and journalists, which will always endear me.
The film chronicled the struggles of Alexei Navalny in drawing attention to Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Fire of Love, a Canada co-production, lost out to Navalny.
Turning Red shows the beauty of Toronto thanks to Domee Shi
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio likely deserved to win Best Animated Feature. Being available on Netflix helped.
Domee Shi, an Oscar winner for Bao, had a chance at another Academy Award with Turning Red from Disney-Pixar. Inclined to reward a new story instead of rehashing a well-known story. Turning Red came out about a year ago and that didn't help its chances. You had to have Disney+ to see the film, which halted momentum for the film.
Your humble narrator was skeptical about an animated film that could make much of a difference. I loved Turning Red and was happy I saw it. This was the first Oscars in a long time where I cared who won and crushed when the film I liked didn't win.
Can't wait to see Domee Shi's next film.
Canadian film review: Take This Waltz
The 95th Academy Awards felt like a Take This Waltz reunion. Writer/director Sarah Polley was a Best Adapted Screenplay nominee for Women Talking. Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams were in Fabelmans with Williams up for Best Actress. Rogen and Williams were husband/wife in Take This Waltz. Polley took the risk of casting a normally funny person (Rogen) in a non-funny role. Did the same for Sarah Silverman. All the performances were outstanding.
Williams in Take This Waltz was incredible. Difficult to say that this was her best performance, given that she has 5 Academy Award nominations: Best Supporting Actress for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Manchester by the Sea (2016); and Best Actress for Blue Valentine (2010), My Week with Marilyn (2011), and The Fabelmans (2022). Williams deserves an Oscar at some point.
Hope Polley, Rogen, and Williams had a chance to catch up in Los Angeles.
Canadian film review: Eternal Spring
Eternal Spring misses the Oscars shortlist cut for Best International Feature Film
All Quiet on the Western Front won the Best International Feature Film. Your humble narrator tried watching the Germany entry as well as Argentina (Argentina, 1985) and couldn't go too far.
While we have not seen the Ireland entry (The Quiet Girl), Belgium (Close) and Poland (EO) were the obvious choices IMHO. They were quieter films, much more quiet than either movie with Quiet in the title. They also weren't on Netflix.
We normally discard mentioning the shortlist nominees after the cut to 5 films. This year, we feel the need to bring them back out given the Oscars winner.
These films made the shortlist but didn't advance to the Top 5 for Best International Feature Film: Austria (Corsage); Cambodia (Return to Seoul); Denmark (Holy Spider); France (Saint Omer); India (Last Film Show); Mexico (Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths); Morocco (The Blue Caftan); Pakistan (Joyland); South Korea (Decision to Leave); and Sweden (Cairo Conspiracy).
All Quiet on the Western Front won 4 Academy Awards with 9 nominations: Best International Feature Film, cinematography, original score, and production design. Polley's Oscars win meant the film didn't win Best Adapted Screenplay. No foreign language film has ever won an adapted screenplay Oscar.
6 foreign language films have won Best Original Screenplay Academy Awards: Marie-Louise (Richard Schweizer) 1944; The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse) 1956; Divorce Italian Style (Pietro Germi) 1961; A Man and a Woman (Claude Lelouch) 1967; Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar) 2002; and Parasite (Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won) 2019.
Maybe Xavier Dolan will be on this list someday.
#GordonPinsent deserves to be #InMemoriam tonight at @TheAcademy #Oscars. He was the male lead in a #cdnfilm with 2 #AcademyAwards nominations. https://t.co/TwzIv0NHeM @canadian_xing
— Chad Rubel (@canadian_xing) March 12, 2023
Gordon Pinsent wasn't likely a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, so making the In Memoriam segment was highly unlikely. Pinsent had an amazing acting career in Canada, Newfoundland, and the United States. He was the male lead in Away from Her, which was Sarah Polley's directing debut. Julie Christie was nominated for Best Actress and Polley for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Canadians Oscars nomination scoreboard
CanadianCrossing.com film coverage
The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson was a presenter for Best Animated Feature, the only Canadian presenter on the night.
The ceremony coverage showed Michael J. Fox winning an honourary Oscar statuette — the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award — for his philanthropic efforts for Parkinson’s research. Simu Liu was the host for the Scientific & Technical Awards.
Sandra Oh was shown in the Oscars crowd as Everything Everywhere All at Once won Best Picture. Oh voiced Ming Lee, Mei Lee's overprotective mother in Turning Red, up for Best Animated Feature.
If you grew up in a house of hockey fans...getting to do this narration for the opening of Hockey Night in Canada is more meaningful than going to the Oscars. (And my nephew Owen now thinks I am cool. Result!)#LeafsForever #leafsnation #hnic #hockey https://t.co/gQnF8PHP0s
— @realSarahPolley (she/her) (@realsarahpolley) March 12, 2023
Now Oscar winner Sarah Polley narrated the opening to Hockey Night in Canada on CBC and Rogers Sportsnet Saturday night. I promise you that you don't have to be a hockey fan to appreciate how good this is. It does help if you know the Canadian teams in the NHL.
photo and videos credit: The Academy/ABC
Twitter captures: @canadian_xing; @realsarahpolley
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