96th Oscars Wrap Up

 THE 96TH ACADEMY AWARDS

Host: Jimmy Kimmel

Winners: Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Emma Stone, Robert Downey Jr, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph

Notable Occurrences/Trivia: 

+Second year in a row that the Best Picture winner takes home 7 awards.

+Oppenheimer is the highest grossing Best Picture winner since Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings 20 years ago.

+Third year in a row that the Best Picture winner opened before Fall. 

+The show airs an hour earlier than its usual 8/5PM time, but is delayed for minutes due to protests interrupting traffic. 

+Billie Eilish was the first person born in the 21st century to win an Academy Award. Now, she has two. 

The Good:

+"I'm Just Ken" and everything about it. I'm not even a fan of that song, as I thought the other two original songs from Barbie were better. But Gosling is an absolute star and someone that crowd was there for. Turning his co-stars into fangirls and bringing the audience to their feet, it was easily the best performance since "Shallow" from 5 years ago. 

+I got my wish of more past winners/nominees. About 3/4 of the presenters were past winners/nominees. 

+In addition to that, I'm glad more people from the ensembles of the nominated films were in the audience. 

+One thing they have got consistently right over the years is the stage. It looked great, and I love the color changes throughout the night. 

+Lots of cutaways to Sandra Hüller and Messi. After the controversy over Messi not being there, he ended up being a big part of the night. Funny closing the show by him peeing on Matt Damon's Hollywood star. (ETA: Apparently that was not the real Messi. LOL. Oops.)

+The anniversary of the streaker bit - I didn't expect that.

+The comedy bits in the middle worked really well. Kate and America together, John Cena naked, and John Mulaney recapping Field of Dreams, the Twins reunion facing off with Keaton = gold. 

+The show clocking in at under 3.5 hours and moving pretty briskly. See it can be done! It probably helped that two of the winners weren't there. It also helped having presenters do two categories so they aren't constantly introducing people. Doing the Best Picture clips right after the commercial break and having an announcer intro the songs also helped. 

+I loved how the screenplay clips showed fave lines from the movies. The sound clips were also good, and they did the thing with Makeup where they show the actors getting madeover. Love that!

+Lots of standing ovations. It just adds energy, I know some people don't like it. 

+Great speeches, I don't think there was a dud speech of the night. Cord Jefferson, Emma Stone, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Jonathan Glazer, and the 20 Days In Mariupol people were all great. 

+And such a fun bit with Blunt and Gosling. Ryan really won the night. Also cool to give stunts a shoutout. Now, just give them their own category. 

The Bad:

+So Michelle Pfeiffer apparently had a family emergency and couldn't present...

+...thus leaving Pacino to do it on his own. Pacino announced the Best Picture winner without any fanfare - no clip package, no drumroll. Even though everyone knew what the winner was, it still left the evening with an anticlimactic end. I think this is partly why we don't get many of our elder winners/legends presenting. They just seem lost by themselves.

+The five presenter format didn't work as well this time as it did 15 years ago. The men - outside of Nicolas Cage - just can't sell this. The women did better, their writing was better, and some nominees were clearly moved, but I suspect the clips will be back next year. The first time it was done only Best Supporting Actor previous lineup didn't get a standing ovation, this time only the Lead Actress lineup did.

+Perhaps she didn't want to present, but Sissy Spacek was there and I and many others would have loved to have seen her on the stage. 

+The one thing the winner presenters did do was add a sense of history to the occasion. Outside of that and the stunt montage, there was a distinct lack of history and film clips. You know I love those.  

+Actual clips from the Best Picture nominees instead of trailer excerpts or montages, please. 

+The non-Barbie/Flower Moon performances were limp.

+Despite some good comedy in the middle, Octavia and Melissa bombed. That was painful. 

+The In Memoriam continues to be a problem area. It should be easy to get right, and yet we get dancing, names/faces in the background, people left out, etc etc. I've said it before, but maybe the Academy should just make a tribute video like TCM does and leave it off the broadcast. 

+I'm not sure about that hallway where presenters are waiting, winners walk off. It just seemed like everyone was awkwardly avoiding the camera. 

+Some of the transitions: a Past Lives clip ends with the Beetlejuice music into'ing Keaton & O'Hara, and then "I'm Just Ken" after the 20 Days In Mariupol win. Maybe read the room a little more?

+I like Kimmel and have mostly enjoyed his four times hosting, but he's always felt like a placeholder. I hope this is his last time hosting, as there are clearly some great potential hosts waiting in the wings. "Isn't it past your jailtime?" was an all-timer, though. 

Best Dressed:

Ooof rough night for fashion. It feels like fashions have really been off for the past several years at almost every awards. I liked Danielle Brooks, Carey Mulligan, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sandra Hüller, and Greta Gerwig. In the end, I'm going with a tie for Best Dressed for America Ferrera and Zendaya.

Good show overall! And that's it for Award Season 2023. I'll probably just update my Movies Watched List throughout the year until the fall. I know I've stopped doing box-office predictions and trailer postings. I guess this blog will just be award season, horrorfest, and keeping track of what movies I've watched. I am going to do a ranking of 10 previous winners in the top 8 categories. I did it over 10 years ago, so it's now due. 

After last year, I was glad I didn't have to look up how to type TÁR anymore. This year, it was Hüller. Next year...???