-New Urban Media- The Oscars, Chocolate Edition: Video Highlights from the 2018 Academy Awards
This past Sunday capped off international awards season for the 2017 calander year with the airing of the 90th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The Oscars cermony was held several weeks later this year to avoid conflicting with February's coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics, and featured appearances by the cast of the runaway blockbuster "Black Panther", comedians Dave Chapelle and Tiffany Haddish, and this year's Academy Award nominees Jordan Peele, basketball star Kobe Bryant, Mary J. Blige, and (2015 Oscar winner for Best Song) Common.
Jordan Peele made history for the eveneing by being triple nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay for the 2017 social thriller "Get Out", taking home the award for Best Original Screenplay. As a comic touch to the evening, the Academy opened the ceromony by promising to award a jet-ski as a prize incentive to any winner able to give shortest acceptance speech of the evening, which, Peele realized almost immediately he wouldn't be in the running for after he began speaking at the podium. Basketball superstar was the second African -American to take home an Oscar for the evening with his win for Best Animated Short Film , "Dear Basketball".
A nother highlight of the night included the hilarious pairing of NYT Bestselling author & comedian Tiffany Haddish, and actress/screenwriter Maya Rudolph. Haddish, who recently made history as the first black female comic to host Saturday Night Live and Rudolph (herself an cast alum of Saturday Night Live and daughter of the late "Loving You" singer, Minnie Ripperton) eschewed the torture of their sky high evening stilettoes in favor of house shoes with their evening gowns, and traded quips to a delighted audience that appears to have resulted in a petition for the two host next year's Oscars ceremony.
The musical performances for the evening featured Best Original Song contenders, "Rememeber Me" (Coco), "Mighty River" ( from "Mudbound", written by Mary J. Blige & Raphael Saadiq), and "Stand Up for Something" (from "Marshall", written by Common and Diane Warren). The nominations featured performances by singers Natalia Laforcade & Miguel, Mary J. Blige, and Andra Day w/ Common respectively. "Stand Up for Something", an eloquent call to actvism enlisted background appearances by 10 notable social activists including Nicole Hockley (of the Sandy Hook school shooting massacre), Patrice Cullors (founder of Black Lives Matter), and Tarana Burke (founder and creator of MeToo) Check out video highlights from the 90th Academy Awards below:
