ABCLast night at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony Samuel L. Jackson delivered an Oscar-worthy performance when he handed the gong over for Best Original Screenplay.
In case you missed it, the Academy panel thought the writers of Green Book did the best job. The three-man team, who told the true story of a tour of the Deep South by African-American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley and his driver Tony Vallelonga, consisted of Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly, and Nick Vallelonga.
You can watch the trailer for their film below:
If you’d noticed a similarity between the surname of one of the non-fictional characters and one of the writers – Nick Vallelonga – you’d be right to.
Nick is Tony’s son.
He helped construct the narrative, which is named for a mid-20th century guidebook for African-American travellers written by Victor Hugo Green, to help them find motels and restaurants which would accept their custom.
Green Book – a film which has won other awards despite only receiving ‘generally favorable reviews’ on Metacritic – has been criticised for alleviating the societal pressure on white people to consistently fight racism and for historical inaccuracies.
It seems the saving grace of the film is mainly down to the performances of the lead actors – Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali.
But Green Book is not the only reason you’d have heard of Nick Vallelonga.
It’s the same bloke who once helped President Donald Trump spread false and Islamophobic accounts of 9/11 in November 2015, with a since-deleted tweet.
In fact, Vallelonga deleted his Twitter account.
But because the Internet never forgets, here’s what Vallelonga Junior tweeted:
@RealDonaldTrump 100% correct. Muslims in Jersey City cheering when towers went down. I saw it, as you did, possibly on local CBS news.
So, you can see why Jackson looked a little like this when he handed over the statue:
You can almost hear him say, “You know you don’t deserve this, right?” pic.twitter.com/i4ciY6Syre
— amber ruffin (@ambermruffin) February 25, 2019
A lot of observers have noticed the comparison between that awkward moment and the joy with which Jackson read Spike Lee’s name in the Best Adapted Screenplay envelope for BlacKkKlansman.
He couldn’t have been more excited… Or less subtle.
And Film Twitter is absolutely here for his performance:
the difference between samuel l jackson presenting green book with an oscar and samuel l jackson presenting blackkklansman with an oscar deserves an oscar
— ellie (@eleanorbate) February 25, 2019
Weirdly, the whole thing came full circle when President Donald Trump this morning accused Spike Lee of being ‘racist’ toward him during his acceptance speech.
It was an accusation straight out of the pages of fake news, considering Lee didn’t mention the POTUS’ name once…
Here’s the trailer for Lee’s brilliant film:
Wonder what Sam’s face will look like as and when he reads The Donald’s tweet. Give the man an Oscar.
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A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.