AFP
Hollywood (United States) (AFP) โ Surreal sci-fi film โEverything Everywhere All at Onceโ dominated the Oscars on Sunday, winning seven golden statuettes including best picture, Hollywoodโs most coveted prize.
The unorthodox but beloved movie โ which features multiple universes, sex toys and hot dog fingers โ also won best director, best actress, best original screenplay, best editing, and both the best supporting actor and actress prizes.
Michelle Yeoh, who is Malaysian, becomes the first ever Asian woman to win best actress, for her portrayal of an exhausted Chinese laundromat owner embroiled in battle with an inter-dimensional supervillain โ who happens to be her daughter.
โThank you to the Academy, this is history in the making!โ she said.
โLadies, donโt let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime,โ added the 60-year-old, whose career began decades ago with martial arts films in Hong Kong.
Brendan Fraser won best actor for playing a morbidly obese teacher in โThe Whale,โ capping a remarkable career comeback.
Fraser was a major action star in the late 1990s with films like โThe Mummy,โ before largely disappearing from the public view.
โI started in this business 30 years ago, and things โ they didnโt come easily to me,โ he said.
He thanked director Darren Aronofsky for โthrowing me a creative lifeline and hauling me aboard the good ship โThe Whale.'โย
โAmerican Dreamโ
โEverything Everywhere,โ comfortably the nightโs biggest winner, is a word-of-mouth smash hit that has grossed $100 million at the global box office.
In a plot that is not easily described, Yeohโs heroine Evelyn must harness the power of her alter egos living in parallel universes, which feature hot dogs as human fingers, talking rocks and giant dildos used as weapons.
The film, which features a predominantly Asian cast, was directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert โ two young filmmakers who were previously best known for an oddball comedy about a talking corpse.
Kwan thanked his โimmigrant parents,โ while his counterpart thanked his mother for never โsquashing my creativity,โ including when he had dressed in drag as a child.
โWhich is a threat to nobody,โ he added, to enormous cheers.
Vietnam-born Ke Huy Quan, 51, who was a major child star in the 1980s with โIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doomโ and โThe Goonies,โ completed a stunning comeback from decades in the Hollywood wilderness by winning best supporting actor.
โMy journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow, I ended up here on Hollywoodโs biggest stageโฆ this is the American Dream,โ said Quan.
After the show, he came bounding into the backstage press room, shouting โWow, wow, wowโฆ Can you believe Iโm holding one of these?โ
He shared that โIndiana Jonesโ director Steven Spielberg had grabbed him and said: โYou are now an Oscar winner!โ
Best supporting actress Jamie Lee Curtis paid tribute to her parents Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, both Oscar-nominated actors who never won.ย
โย โAll Quietโ makes noise โ
โAll Quiet on the Western Front,โ Netflixโs German-language World War I, finished the night in second place with four awards.
It won best international feature and best cinematography early in Sundayโs ceremony.
As the night progressed, it also gathered Oscars for best original score and best production design.
But it ultimately could not stop the โEverything Everywhereโ juggernaut, and lost adapted screenplay to โWomen Talking,โ and best sound to โTop Gun: Maverick.โ
Tom Cruiseโs โTop Gunโ sequel had been seen as another potential best picture contender, having helped bring audiences back to movie theaters after the pandemic.
While Cruise did not attend Sundayโs ceremony, the night began with a thunderous flyover by two US Navy jets, soaring at 345 mph over the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.ย
Host Jimmy Kimmel was then lowered onto the stage, and he quickly launched into a monologue which laid into Will Smithโs infamous attack on Chris Rock at last yearโs Oscars.
The specter of โThe Slapโ has hung over the Oscars since Smith assaulted Rock on stage for cracking a joke about his wife.ย
Smith was allowed to stay at the gala, and accept Hollywoodโs top male acting prize soon after, but has since been banned from Academy events for a decade.
โIf anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show โ you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor, and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech,โ joked Kimmel.
โย โNaatu Naatuโ โ
In the nightโs other prizes, โGuillermo del Toroโs Pinocchioโ won best animated film, and โAvatar: The Way of Waterโ won best visual effects.
โNavalnyโ โ about the imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny โ won for best documentary.
Dozens of dancers brought a colorful, energetic performance of โNaatu Naatu,โ the showstopper tune from Indian crowd-pleaser โRRR,โ which won the Oscar for best original song.ย
Academy bosses hope that Oscars television ratings will pick up from recent years, calling in heavy hitters from the world of music to perform the other nominated songs.
A dressed-down Lady Gaga sang an emotional, heartfelt rendition of her song โHold My Handโ from โTop Gun: Maverick.โ
And Rihanna โ draped in diamonds, including over her baby bump โ sang โLift Me Upโ from โBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever,โ which won for best costume design.
Lenny Kravitz performed the annual โIn Memoriamโ segment.