THE 98TH ACADEMY AWARDS
Host: Conan O'Brien
Winners: One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael B. Jordan, Jessie Buckley, Sean Penn, Amy Madigan
Notable Occurrences/Trivia:
+A tie occurs in the Live Action Short category - the first one in 13 years, and seventh overall.
+Autumn Durald Arkapaw becomes the first woman to win Cinematography, which means women have won Oscars in all non-gendered categories.
+Sinners broke the record for nominations - 16, and now breaks the record for losses - 12.
+Paul Thomas Anderson wins 3 Oscars after a total of 14 nominations.
+Cast members of Rob Reiner films assemble on stage for a special tribute to the filmmaker.
+Fourth year in a row that the Best Picture winner won 4 above the line awards, along with editing.
+For the first time in 24 years, a new category is introduced: Casting.
The Good:
+Conan was great. The Weapons opening was perfect. The Hamnet part with Paul's reaction was the funniest of him being inserted into the films. The Jane Lynch YouTube bit and the Casablanca thing with Sterling K. Brown = good bits.
+3 horror films won a total of 8 Oscars.
+The stage looked great! Loved the cutouts during the Editing and Cinematography presentations.
+The Anne Hathaway/Anna Wintour presenting duo being the comedy team we need in the world right now. Anna may have stolen the night with just a dozen or so words. I was ready for Anne's big Oscar comeback - she has 5 movies coming out this year!
+Leo's stache. Turns out this is for the Scorsese/JLaw collab he's currently working on. It works for him. Hottest he's looked in ages.
+Very smart move doing the casting presentation in the five presenters style. Hope they continue to present it that way.
+The tie and Kumail Nanjiani handling it like a pro.
+Teyana Taylor being everyone's hype man. She seemed genuinely happy for so many winners.
+The Bridesmaids reunion and them getting a standing ovation. Actual good bit from them. (Wendi just had surgery on her neck, so that's why she was absent.) "I was just talking about this to a woman I met on a roller coaster." And they mentioned Scorsese!
+I think they kinda sorta nailed the In Memoriam for once. I'm not sure the stars on the Reiner films just standing there wasn't a little awkward, but it worked. And Rachel McAdams speaking about Diane Keaton - I think I might have gay gasped when she came out. Even more than Streisand?? Yeah, they actually mostly got this right.
+To reiterate, Rachel's tribute to Diane was perfect.
+Sigourney Weaver's "Get away from him, you bitch!" to Kate Hudson, then Pedro Pascal queening out over it.
+The light globe thingers for "Golden" were really cool.
+The staging of "I Lied to You" was great with the way the camera was roaming the stage. Li Jun Li! Jack O'Connell! He wore vampire fangs on the red carpet.
+Good on Javier Bardem for saying "Free Palestine" on the Oscar stage. One of the few people there to actually have some balls.
+Massive enthusiasm for Jordan's win.
+Paul's shoutout to the Best Picture lineup of 1975... I watched/rewatched all of those films last year, and what a lineup!
+LOL Even the shorts winner burned Chalamet.
+Nicole Kidman presented Best Picture.
The Bad:
+It gets increasingly frustrating that they can't get the acting category presentation correct. I don't know why they have to constantly try and rejigger it. Cut to the nominee after the clip. And the clips were too short. By the time the applause died down during the clip, it was over.
+The sound mixing was really bad on the live broadcast. I'm rewatching it now on Hulu and I guess they fixed some of the issues after the broadcast because it does sound slightly better. Only slightly.
+Painful presenter banter that just went on and on. RDJ and Evans, and the Pullmans were particularly bad. (Bridesmaids and Devil Wears Prada peeps innocent!) So many of the presenter intros were so long.
+Those awkward shots of people walking offstage just illustrates that they don't know each other and look almost uncomfortable. Shoutout to Demi for actually engaging with Autumn.
+I guess Javier and Penelope are just gonna alternate presenting International Feature Film.
+It makes it so frustrating that presenters get to babble on but so many winners then get cut off.
+Happy for Kidman presenting Picture and love love love Moulin Rouge! and Nic and Ewan singing together, but he's not really big enough to present Picture. And the audience just felt like they weren't there for it, sadly. Felt underwhelming.
+Also underwhelming was the overall presenter lineup. Lots of Disney/ABC connections, so I'm not sure what that means when this moves to YouTube. Not enough genuine big stars. When I saw the Pullmans were presenting together, I thought maybe they were doing a secret intro to Mel Brooks who turns 100 this year. Their movie doesn't even open for over another year. I know many producers have said getting people to do the show is the hardest part of the job, so I'm not sure what they have to do to get more people to present. There were numerous people there from Best Picture nominees, and past winners/nominees like Goldie Hawn, Ed Harris, Sissy Spacek, Kirsten Dunst, Danielle Brooks, and Steven Spielberg. So maybe ask them?
+Very little film history. I grew up on the telecasts that were steeped (yes, sometimes too much so) in film history.
+Both song performances were good, but again sound issues and "I Lied to You" was a little too busy? Why so many special guests unrelated to the movie? Shaboozey just sang one line? And both numbers just kind of ended?
+Diane Warren's nomination streak is embarrassing, but she and the other Song nominees deserved to perform.
+There was a weird parade of C-list young actors on the red carpet at the start. I know there are various ticket auctions and charities/brand ambassadors, but it was a little odd.
+Penn wasn't there, so that category felt like a big whimper. Not counting Anthony Hopkins from the COVID Oscars, he's the first acting winner to no-show since Michael Caine 39 years ago.
+Didn't care for the closing One Battle parody. Let's just watch people leave the auditorium while clips for the show plays.
Best Dressed:
Hard to choose. I liked Rose Byrne, Ejae, Felicity Jones, Rachel McAdams, Demi Moore, Emma Stone, Teyana Taylor, and Zendaya. And I adore Chloé Zhao coming as a Shakespearean witch.
But I'm going with Chase Infiniti.
And that's a wrap on awards season 2025. It was a good one with great winners! Back to the "real" world for the time being.
