Oscars 2017: 8 Ups And 6 Downs

1. Despite The Fiasco, La La Land Is Still A Big Winner

When La La Land was named Best Picture, it was a fitting end to an awards season that has been intent on awarding it at every possible opportunity. It'd been crowned Best Picture winner since its Venice debut last year, and at last we were getting the coronation ceremony.

Alas, it wasn't to be, after Moonlight was eventually revealed to be the rightful winner. That's a big win for the movie, which is a beautiful piece of art - if not, y'know, as good as La La Land - but the whole saga means La La Land feels like a loser now, despite picking up the most awards on the night.

It can feel hard done by not to win more, even outside of Best Picture - it should've had Film Editing, Costume Design, and at least one Sound award. but still, six awards from a possible 14 gives it the same record as All About Eve, which isn't bad company to be in. Those awards include a first Oscar for Emma Stone, and Damien Chazelle becoming the youngest Best Director in history. It's practically been forgotten in the wake of what happened, but La La Land was still a big winner, and deservedly so.

It's also worth mentioning again how impressive it is that Moonlight - which ended up with three Oscars - won Best Picture. It wouldn't have been my choice, and that's an objective call as much as a subjective one (it's superior in the technical areas, and even the Academy agree it's a better directed movie). But still, a movie like Moonlight, with the themes it tackles, winning the night's big award is noteworthy, and a real step in the right direction for the Oscars and, hopefully, the industry as a whole.