Julia Roberts presented the Best Picture Oscar last night and when she said the words “Green Book,” I was hoping that it was another PriceWaterhouseCoopers fuck up. But Green Book really did win Best Picture. Marie Kondo, who was at the Oscars last night (pics in the gallery), should’ve grabbed Green Book before the show, declared it doesn’t spark joy and trashed it before it had a chance to win anything. Damn you, Marie! You had ONE job!
Before and during awards season, Green Book got covered with shitty press after more shitty press from Viggo Mortensen casually dropping the n-word during a Q&A at a screening to screenwriter Nick Vallelonga’s anti-Muslim tweet being brought back out to Peter Farrelly apologizing for once flashing his dick at actresses and co-workers as a gag to the family of Dr. Don Shirley (who Mahershala Ali plays in the movie) saying that the movie was full of lies. The Shirley family was especially pissed about how the movie claimed Dr. Don was estranged from his black family and the black community. But none of that stopped Green Book from beating Roma, which was pretty much the frontrunner.
You would think that since Green Book is about Dr. Don Shirley, the filmmakers would thank him during their Best Picture speech, because if he didn’t exist, they wouldn’t have a movie or a little gold man. But they didn’t thank him, and when they were asked about that in the press room, Nick Vallelonga (who is the son of Tony Lip, played by Viggo in the movie) blamed it on nerves (uh huh) and said Mahershala thanked Don Shirley, who died in 2013, in his speech. Nick then dribbled out a steamy stream of HUH when asked why he didn’t talk to the Shirley family while writing the script.
“Don Shirley himself told me not to speak to anyone. He told me the story he wanted to tell. He protected his private life and all the other things about him, miraculous things, he was an amazing man. He told me, if you’re going to tell the story, you tell it from your father, me, no one else, don’t speak to anyone else. ‘That’s how you have to make it. And also don’t make it until after I pass away.’ So I just kept my word to that man. I wish I could’ve reached out to Don Shirley’s family, I didn’t even know they really existed until after we were making the film. We contacted his estate for music, and then we invited them all to screenings and discussions. I personally was not allowed to speak to his family per Don Shirley’s wishes.”
And here’s that mess of an explanation in moving picture form:
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