The Cat's Out Of The Bag -- Or The Envelope -- Nothing About The Bakken -- Monday, February 27, 2017

Updates

March 2, 2017: the two PricewaterhouseCooper individuals who have handed out the envelopes for the past several years will no longer have that gig. Announced yesterday or thereabouts. Had there not been a snafu for the best-picture announcement, imagine the possible speech. Conspiracy theorists might be right on this one.

Original Post 

From a first-person account of what happened at the Oscars, best movie, February 26, 2017:

Within moments of Dunaway announcing La La Land as the Best Picture winner, it was clear something was awry.

“Oh my god, it’s Moonlight!” a stage manager said aloud, and into a headset, while starting to pace. “Oh my god! Oh my god!” As the seconds passed and the La La Land producers, Oscars aloft, were well into their acceptance speeches, the low-level confusion backstage turned into jaw-dropping disbelief.

“Oh my f—king God, it’s not La La Land, it’s Moonlight! He’s got the wrong envelope!” said someone from the production crew, hands on head in shock.  “They read the wrong envelope!”

(While both Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, representatives from PricewaterhouseCooper, the accounting firm responsible for tallying the Oscar votes and delivering each envelope to the respective presenters, were backstage throughout the show, I did not witness the envelope hand-off.)

Does anyone else see the problem here?

Let's run through this.

Over and over and over we are told only two people know the results. Only two people. PricewaterhouseCooper. And the list is not written down. It's memorized. That's what we're told.

Hold that thought.

Okay, let's run through the first-person account.

Warren is handed the envelope. Obviously no one can see what's printed on the envelope; even Warren would have missed it had he not pointedly decided to look at what was printed on the envelope. He thought it was a misprint.

He handed the opened card to Faye who read the winner as La La Land -- looking at YouTube videos of this debacle, there was no delay, no hesitation, no questioning -- Faye read the card and then ...

Within moments of Dunaway announcing La La Land as the Best Picture winner, it was clear something was awry.  [Why is it clear that "something was awry?"]

.... according to the first person account above, at least half a dozen folks -- none of them PricewaterhouseCooper employees, but "someone from production crew" ("hands on head in shock" -- "they read the wrong envelope") and "the low-level confusion backstage turned into jaw-dropping disbelief." ["low-level confusion" -- obviously when there is "confusion backstage -- it's more than just a single person]

NOTE: it was not the PricewaterhouseCooper folks standing backstage that came out on-stage to correct things.

So, how any many folks actually do know the results? It sounds like practically everyone involved in production knows the results.

Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems, from the first-person account, that as soon as Faye read the "best picture goes to...." everyone on the production crew knew she read the wrong card. Considering that La La Land practically won every award but the last award, it would seem that everyone -- if they did not already know the results -- would have had no second thoughts about Faye's words.

This stinks to high heaven. On several levels.

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Hollywood

Sixteen Reasons, Connie Stevens, Mulholland Drive