There were two surprises:
Roma did not win the Best Picture category. The trophy went to Green Book.
Glenn Close came up short yet again. Olivia Colman won the Best Actress statuette.
The most interesting storyline of the night was the supposed advance leak of Best Director. At the last minute, the betting odds on Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of “The Favourite,” went from 45-1 to even. The wagering was so crazy that some sites closed the betting in that category. As it turns out, the scuttlebutt was NOT correct. Alfonso Cuaron won, as expected. I guess that made it a good day for bookies, as they got to pocket all that Lanthimos money.
Now we all understand that the “15 minutes of fame” is a figurative expression, but the amazing thing about the 15 minutes for Lanthimos is that Warhol’s prediction was almost LITERALLY accurate. The betting anomalies began on the day of the Oscar telecast, which is pretty much the first time anyone knew who the hell he was. I suppose his 15 minutes of fame are now up, and he can go back to making his weird, small-audience movies. I would not have been able to recall his name yesterday, and I’m pretty sure I will not remember his name tomorrow when I talk about this. I’ll be referring to him as “that Greek dude.”
Maybe he started the rumors, hoping to heighten his brand awareness and thrust his name into contention for major pictures in the future. That would be genius!
I don’t see why anyone calls Olivia Colman’s win a ‘surprise’. Instead it would have been a major surprise if Olivia, the BAFTA winner, the National Society of Film Critics winner, the New York Film Critics winner, and won her own Golden Globes Best Actress Award as well (as did Glen Close). By my tally, Close beat Colman 5 or 6 times in the other critics’ awards from San Francisco, Toronto, Venice, etc., But Colman beat Close 20 times! Again just consider the BAFTA prize: it ALWAYS runs parallel to the Oscars these days and is, in the acting awards, an almost infallible predictor. They’ve awarded the same Best Actress 10 years in a row now. If Olivia Colman had not also won the Oscar after having won the BAFTA it would have been a major upset, no matter how much people were pulling for Close, the sentimental ‘favourite’.
It was a surprise in the sense that Close was an overwhelming favorite in the wagering. The betting odds on Close were 3-19. Colman paid off at about 11-2. If I had thought Colman would win, I would now be swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck.