Katie Rife's discussions

I grew up around this area, and they are WILD. Pattinson’s in particular is all over the place. Most of ‘em are more generic Southern than specifically Appalachian.

He was very nice about the Van Gogh question. You obviously can’t hear it on the page, but his tone was more “let me go off on this thing for a minute” than “you’re a moron and I’m mad you asked me this.”

Good night, and good luck to the Parasite team dealing with their hangovers tomorrow. 

Wow, Parasite takes home Best Picture, the first film not in English to win this award. We touched on this in our Film Club episode on the movie, but it’s really been remarkable how well Parasite has been received by American audiences as well as critics. There have been a lot of jokes on stage tonight poking fun at th… Read more

More screaming at AV Club HQ. This is a historic first!

Nice to see Jane Fonda made bail in time for the Oscars. 

Joaquin Phoenix wins for Joker, his first Oscar out of four nominations. There’s been some pushback against method acting—of which Phoenix is a devotee—in recent months, and I tend to agree that it’s interesting that no one ever seems to go Method playing a nice person. But Joker was lucky to have Phoenix, without… Read more

My queen returns! This time she knew she was going to be on stage...

I’m starting to hope against hope, Dowd...

Massive wealth and worldwide fame are also pretty good rewards, Bernie Taupin, but his and Elton John’s gobsmacked reaction to winning the Best Original Song Oscar for Rocketman is precious. Cynthia Erivo’s EGOT will arrive soon enough, and Randy Newman, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, and her husband Robert Lopez have two… Read more

Sigourney Weaver not being able to pronounce Hildur Guðnadóttir’s name is very relatable. I have to copy and paste it every time.

Why even pretend that the Best International Feature award was ever going to go to anything besides Parasite? Pain And Glory and Honeyland were both great, but this award was Parasite’s to lose, given that the film received six nominations overall. And Bong seems to be in high spirits—he even said something nice about… Read more

Bombshell wins for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, an expected choice given that the Academy frequently awards makeup artists who can make one famous person look like another famous person. Very sweet to hear Kazu Hiro give a shoutout to his mentors Rick Baker and Dick Smith, though. 

Rebel Wilson and James Corden in cat suits patiently waiting for the 1917 guys to finish their speech was pretty funny, though.

Michael McCusker and Andrew Buckland win Best Editing for Ford V. Ferrari. This very workmanlike film was very slick and professional in its driving scenes in particular, which had a great sense of forward momentum; that being said, this is another diplomatic response on my end, as I would have preferred to see Parasit… Read more

The song is whatever, but I am never, ever sad to see Randy Newman.

Oscars producer: “We need something current! For the youth!” Read more

It’s a GREAT song, Dowd. Talk about a lung stretcher! 

Additional congratulations to birthday girl Laura Dern, who was having quite a weekend even before she won an Oscar. 

And now comes the portion of the evening where Dowd and I look at each other and go, “did you watch these?” In all seriousness, though, congrats to the crew and the subjects of Learning To Skateboard In A Warzone (If You’re A Girl), which you can stream here.