“How bad were the Academy Awards this year?” he asked at the podium to boos from the crowd.
During Thursday’s campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado, President Donald Trump criticized the Oscar-winning Korean film Parasite and took aim at fellow award winner Brad Pitt during a speech that targeted recent events in pop culture.
Speaking at the podium in front of his supporters, Trump asked, “How bad were the Academy Awards this year?” He went on to say, “And the winner is… a movie from South Korea! What the hell was that all that about? We’ve got enough problems with South Korea, with trade. On top of that, they give them the best movie of the year. Was it good? I don’t know. Let’s get Gone With the Wind back, please? Sunset Boulevard. So many great movies.”
Continued Trump, “I thought it was ‘best foreign film,’ no?” as a reference to how the category was previously referred before it became known as best international feature film.
Neon, the U.S. distributor for the pic, responded minutes later in a tweet, saying, “Understandable, he can’t read.”
Earlier on Thursday in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for an upcoming issue, Neon co-founder Tom Quinn was asked about the discussion that Parasite, not being an American film, might not deserve to win best picture at the Oscars. “I don’t know,” he said. “That sounds a lot like a Trump tweet. So it doesn’t make any sense.”
Trump later brought up another Oscar winner from this year’s awards ceremony, which took place earlier this month. Referring to best supporting actor winner Brad Pitt of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Trump said, “And then you have Brad Pitt, I was never a big fan of his. He got up, said a little wise guy thing. He’s a little wise guy.”
In the actor’s acceptance speech, Pitt reflected on his childhood and early start in the film business before briefly mentioning the end of Trump’s impeachment trial. “They told me I only have 45 seconds up here, which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week.” He continued, “I’m thinking maybe Quentin [Tarantino] does a movie about it. In the end, the adults do the right thing.”
Holding up a copy of Time magazine later in his speech, the president called an unnamed journalist a “Trump hater,” adding, “I won’t use her name because it’ll make her too famous.”
“Time magazine, they don’t like me. I don’t like them either, by the way,” Trump added about the publication. “This year I got beaten out by Greta [Thunberg]. You know Greta?” he asked to boos from the crowd. Thunberg was named Time’s Person of the Year in December.
Further into his rant, the president said, “Last year I got beaten out, but when the world revolves around one of us, we should be chosen.” As he continued his speech, Trump held up pages from other news outlets that covered the 2016 presidential election, mostly with poll results from the primaries where he was leading.
