Except for the major Best Picture plot twist at the very end (holy crap, that was the most exciting ending of an Oscars night ever) the 2017 Academy Awards was pretty much like all of the others: fab gowns, not-so fab gowns, boring tuxes, borrowed Harry Winston jewels, painful red carpet banter, the occasional political zinger from the host and the In Memoriam montage that our mothers always stay up late for (texting us weepy-face emojis and “I’m pretty sure they missed somebody” and “I can’t believe Marni Nixon is gone” messages).
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And speaking of mothers… (Slick segue). We loved seeing all the actors who brought their moms as their plus-ones last night. Lion‘s Dev Patel, nominated for best supporting actor, invited his mom, Anita Patel, to be his partner in crime for the night. He looked pretty damn good, we won’t lie, but his mom was rockin’ it in a gold and black sari.
Baby-faced (because he’s a baby) Lucas Hedges — nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Manchester by the Sea — attended with his mom, Susan Bruce Titman. Extra mom points go to Titman for planting a big embarrassing smooch on Hedges’ cheek in front of all the cameras. We like your style, Susan.
Our boyfriend Lin-Manuel Miranda (11 Tonys for Hamilton, not that anyone’s counting or anything) was nominated last night for Best Original Song (“How Far I’ll Go” from Disney’s Moana). We forgive him for taking his mom to the Oscars instead of us. He and his mother, Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, wore blue ACLU ribbons on (adorably) coordinated black and white ensembles and pretty much looked like they were both having the time of their life long after Chrissy Teigen had fallen asleep (twice) on hubby John Legend’s shoulder.
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Andrew Garfield upped the parent game by bringing both his mom and dad to the Oscars. Garfield was nominated for Best Actor for Hacksaw Ridge. Things got only slightly weird when Ryan Seacrest asked him about his mother: “My mum is as cool as a cucumber about all this stuff… She’s one of those perfect mothers that would love me if I was a murderer. She would bring cookies, home-baked, and she would not look at me any differently. She might go, ‘I’m a bit disappointed in you for killing all those people.'”
Fair enough. We moms can be pretty ardent in our affections. We won’t judge. Well. Maybe just a little.
We also melted when some winners thanked their mamas in their acceptance speeches. When “City of Stars” from La La Land won for Best Original Song, lyricist Benj Pasek quickly took the mic to say, “She let me quit the JCC soccer league to be in a school musical. So this is dedicated to all the kids who sing in the rain and all the moms who let them.” (If our kids would put down their iPads and go play in the rain, we would totally let them sing, grow up to win Oscars and bring us along, but it’s kind of a struggle.)
And when Kevin O’Connell (who’d been nominated 20 times before) finally won for his sound mixing on Hacksaw Ridge, well, that was pretty sweet stuff for all the mothers watching. O’Connell told the room that his mom — Skippy, who worked in the sound department at 20th Century Fox and got him his first film job — told him the only thank you she would ever need was just for him to work hard.
Quoting his mom, O’Connell said, “‘Someday you can win yourself an Oscar, and you can stand on the stage, and you can thank me in front of the whole world.'” Dang. Mission accomplished. O’Connell continued: “Mom, I know you’re looking down on me tonight, so thank you.”
Oh, like you didn’t need a tissue. Come on. It can’t just be us with all the stuff in our eyes.
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