These are my thoughts and reactions to the 96th Academy Awards.
Overall, I thought this was a better ceremony. Award show ceremonies can be hit or miss. This can often be attributed to the host. In this case, it was Jimmy Kimmel, returning for the fourth time. I know Kimmel can be divisive, but I do find him funny.
I was surprised that he only made one Trump joke. He’s famously not a fan of the former president. I was happy about that because I hate talking about politics and I hate when people bring up politics at awards shows or other public events. I know everyone has an opinion, including myself, but it irritates me when people constantly feel the need to express them. As I type this statement, I realize the irony of creating this blog to share my opinions. You just won’t see me writing about politics. To me, the best joke was right after Emma Stone won Best Actress. Kimmel quips to Stone and the presenters as they leave the stage something to the extent of “Make sure we destroy that envelope. We don’t want any mixups.” This is, of course, a reference to the 2017 ceremony where Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty erroneously announced La La Land as the Best Picture winner after accidentally being given Emma Stone’s Best Actress card.
It’s funny. I’ve been watching the Oscars regularly for over a decade and Kimmel is the host I most associate with the show.
Past generations had Bob Hope and Billy Crystal. I have Jimmy Kimmel. That’s not to say that I don’t remember other hosts either. I remember Neil Patrick Harris stripping to his tighty-whities on stage like Michael Keaton in Birdman, or at least, I think he did. I remember Chris Rock hosting when the whole #OscarsSoWhite movement was happening and I remember Ellen and the selfie that broke the internet. Through it all, I still think of Kimmel as my resident Oscar host.
At every ceremony, there are always a few surprises. Last night was no exception, but I didn’t find anything to be too outrageous. The Oppenheimer sweep was expected. I’m incredibly happy for Robert Downey Jr. To go from his early supporting performances to his struggles with addiction to superstardom via Tony Stark to a now Academy Award-winning actor, I think is amazing. He is the perfect example of how a person can change their life around. Despite singing my praises about Kimmel, I did think his jab at Downey’s past addictions was in poor taste.
As a huge Saturday Night Live fanatic, it was pointed out to me that Downey is the first former cast member to win an Oscar. Technically, he is the first, but it almost feels like a technicality since he appeared during one abysmal season in the mid-eighties when he was only 20 years old. Eddie Murphy and Bill Murray were strong contenders when nominated for their turns in Dreamgirls and Lost in Translation respectively, but neither took home the gold. Joan Cusack, who was in the cast with Downey, was nominated for two Oscars, and Randy Quaid (also in that era) was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Last Detail over a decade before he joined the cast. Other nominees include Dan Aykroyd (Best Supporting Actor, Driving Miss Daisy) and Kristen Wiig (Best Original Screenplay, Bridesmaids).
I was a little surprised that Barbie was almost shut out. I was confident it would win the one category it did (Original Song), but I thought it would also take Adapted Screenplay and possibly Production Design. In the Adapted Screenplay category, I knew it would be a tough race and that American Fiction was a strong challenger. There was no way Barbie would win Best Picture and it couldn’t win Best Director, so I thought that if the Academy was going to give it a major award, it would be Adapted Screenplay. Plus, nobody was stopping Downey and DaVine Joy Randolph in the supporting actor races, so Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera didn’t have much of a chance. That being said, I think American Fiction was a worthy win. I found it not only to be humorous and satirical but also deeply moving. I do, however, wonder if Barbie would have won Best Original Screenplay if it had been categorized how the writers intended.
It’s also quite impressive to me that with their win for Best Original Song, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell are the two youngest individuals to win two Academy Awards (aged 22 and 26 respectively). They won two years ago for the titular song in No Time to Die.
I love The Holdovers and while I would have loved to see a Paul Giamatti surprise, I knew Best Actor would go to Cillian Murphy. I initially thought the film would win for Best Original Screenplay, but after studying the precursor awards, I changed my prediction to Anatomy of a Fall. Lo and behold, it took home the prize. I also would have loved to see a nomination for Alexander Payne as Best Director. I admired the film’s aesthetic and how it reminded me of a film from the New Hollywood Era (one of my favorite eras of filmmaking). I am, at the very least, happy it took home one award, Best Supporting Actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
Aside from Past Lives (which only garnered two nominations), it wasn’t a shock to me that Best Picture nominees Maestro and Killers of the Flower Moon were shut out completely. Flower Moon’s strongest chance of winning was Best Actress for Lily Gladstone and alas, it did not happen (more on that later). I also wonder if Gladstone would have won if she had campaigned in the supporting category over the lead. She easily could have gone that route.
As acclaimed as the film was, it doesn’t surprise me it was shut out. Scorsese’s last film, The Irishman (also a three-and-a-half-hour-long epic) was shut out despite receiving ten nominations (the same amount as Flower Moon).
I have mixed feelings about Maestro. I didn’t care for the movie, but I was impressed by all the preparation Bradley Cooper undertook in writing, producing, directing, and becoming Leonard Bernstein. I think Cooper is not only a great actor, but also a great filmmaker. Since A Star is Born was one of my favorite films of 2018 (it came out on my birthday too), I was upset that Cooper did not receive a nomination for directing. He was also omitted for directing for this movie too, but that didn’t bother me.
The fact that Cooper is 0-12 on nominations intrigues me. I have a feeling he will end up like Al Pacino, winning an Oscar later in his career for a “lesser” performance. I do find it interesting that of his twelve nominations, only five are for acting (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper, A Star is Born, and Maestro). That means seven nominations are for other aspects of filmmaking. Five of those nominations are for Best Picture (American Sniper, A Star is Born, Joker, Nightmare Alley, and Maestro). One is for Best Adapted Screenplay (A Star is Born) and the last is for Best Original Screenplay (Maestro). Just some food for thought here.
Let’s talk about Poor Things. I mentioned in my predictions that Production Design and Costume Design were among the hardest categories to predict because the same five films were nominated and each one of them seemed more than worthy. I split my vote giving Costumes to Poor Things and Production Design to Barbie. I think Poor Things was deserving of all three technical awards it won. I imagine Willem Dafoe’s makeup alone secured the team their win. I should clarify. When I made my initial predictions, I hadn’t seen Poor Things. I finally watched it on Hulu the night before the ceremony. All I can say is that it wasn’t my cup of tea. It was just too weird for me.
That being said, I absolutely agree with Emma Stone’s win. I know she was neck and neck with Lily Gladstone and I would have been just as happy if Lily won. Emma Stone is truly the best part of this movie.
And while we’re on the subject, I normally enjoy Mark Ruffalo, but I wasn’t a fan of his performance here. He looked like he was having a blast playing this arrogant douchebag Duncan Wedderburn, and maybe it’s a testament to his acting skills that I hated him so much? Who knows? I will say that if they were only going to nominate one supporting actor, I would have much preferred Willem Dafoe as Bella’s deformed father figure Godwin Baxter. Both Ruffalo and Dafoe got Golden Globe nominations, while Dafoe got the SAG nomination and Ruffalo the Academy Award.
Some odds and ends here. I was glad the stunt performers received a shout-out, but I thought it was a bit of a letdown. Seeing as the Academy announced plans to add the Best Casting category to next year’s ceremony, I was anticipating the segment would end with a similar announcement. It was a nice recognition for the stunt performers, but I would rather see an award for stunt performers over casting directors. No disrespect to casting directors, but how do you decide who wins an award in casting? It seems pretty similar to the SAG Award for Best Ensemble but with the praise aimed at the casting director instead. I don’t know. I would just like to see an award for stunt performers. I think they’ve been overlooked for far too long. I also snicker at the possibility of Tom Cruise winning an Oscar for stunt performing before acting.
The last thing I’ll mention is that I felt the ending was a flop. They brought Al Pacino out to present Best Picture. It was the 50th anniversary of something. I didn’t hear what, but doing the math, it was either the release of The Godfather Part II or his nomination for Serpico. I know that they had been showing clips of the nominees throughout the night, but I think they deserved to be recapped before the announcement. I thought maybe the omission was an error on Pacino’s part, but it was later revealed to be an intentional act by the producers, aimed to save time. Then when we went to read the winner, he didn’t use the phrase “And the Oscar goes too…” That’s pretty much one of the only requirements for presenting at the Oscars. Instead, he just looks at the card and says “My eyes read Oppenheimer.” How anticlimactic is that? I admire Pacino, but that presentation was a trainwreck. There was probably a good two or three-second gap before the production team behind Oppenheimer realized they won. He didn’t say it with any certainty either. I find it fitting that Kimmel was the host for the craziest Best Picture reveal in my lifetime (Moonlight/La La Land mix-up) and one of the most anticlimactic.
I said it at the start of my post, but I was happy with the results of the evening. I think it was one of the better ceremonies. There were enough surprises without being outrageous. I think that pretty much sums up my thoughts on this year’s Academy Awards. I don’t know how to end this post, so I will just wrap it up by saying thank you for reading.