97th Oscars Wrap Up

THE 97TH ACADEMY AWARDS

Host: Conan O'Brien

Winners: Anora, Sean Baker, Adrien Brody, Mikey Madison, Kieran Culkin, and Zoe Saldaña

Notable Occurrences/Trivia:

+Sean Baker ties Walt Disney with the record for most wins in a single night: four.

+The show begins with a tribute to LA, devastated after the recent fires. It, like many recent award shows, showcases some of the county's firefighters. 

+Third year in a row that a film won 4 (or more) above the line Oscars, along with editing. 

+Anora becomes the third Palme d'Or Cannes winner to win Best Picture following Marty and Parasite. 

+Adrien Brody broke Greer Garson's record for longest acceptance speech by a few seconds. 

+No Other Land, the Documentary winner, did not have a US distributor. 

The Good:

+Conan was a great host. He knows how to work the crowd, and most of the bits killed. The Karla/Anora joke was an all-timer. 

+The LA tribute that opened the show was moving, and could have been longer. There's a lot more films than La La Land for the city, though. 

+Getting the firefighters to not just stand there, but make jokes was a good choice. The Joker 2 joke, followed by Monica Barbaro looking frozen in fear was aces. 

+Cynthia and Ariana killed it. 

+I know the 5-presenter thing has its fans and its haters, and I've been one of its defenders here several times. I thought the tributes for Costume Design and Cinematography were good. Adding that connection and having a co-star of the movie do it was perhaps what was missing. I hope they do this every year for 2-3 categories. In the cinematography showcase, they had images in the split screen. I think they should make more use of the split screen in ceremony. This also keeps some of the presenters relevant to the nominated films. 

+Most of the category presentations were good. At least it wasn't just trailer excerpts. 

+June Squibb being a sprightly comic performer on that stage. "I'm Bill Skarsgaard." Gold. 

+The banter between presenters was decent. Nothing too cringe. In fact, that word came up in the Costume Design presentation. 

+Morgan Freeman's intro to Gene Hackman and the In Memoriam was touching. I thought that segment was mostly well done. Some did not. More on that later.

+The Best Picture clips coming back from the commercial breaks is still a smart move. They added voiceover this year. I don't think they did that the past two years. 

+Margaret Qualley may have stolen the Bond musical number. 

+I liked the hug between Fernanda Torres and Edward Norton after I'm Still Here won. 

+Lots of standing ovations. I like to see it.

+Happy to see the warm reception to No Other Land.  

+Sean Baker pointing out the connection of Mikey when Quentin presented Directing. Whoever cast Once Upon a Time In Hollywood should be proud of themselves.

+Nick Offerman did a good job as announcer. Certainly better than what the Globes did this year. 

+I love love love the shoutout to movie theaters: Conan's bit advertising a place you can go to stream movies and Sean's plee for the theatrical window (something he has done all season). As someone who spent way too much of his life working at one, I know everything that can go wrong in a theater. But when its at its best, its one of life's best pleasures. 

+"When you have a chance of being an Oscar winner for the rest of your life, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." That was smooth, Billy. 

The Bad:

+The severe lack of starpower, yet again. I love When Harry Met Sally and appreciate Billy and Meg presenting, but they should have done one of the screenplays instead of Picture. Love Amy Poehler, but she's also not a big enough name to do 2 of the top 8 awards. I just think maybe the people producing the show don't have the connections those people who produced the show twenty or thirty years ago did. Or maybe all the A-listers are off filming that Christopher Nolan movie. Also, again, more past winners presenting, please. I was watching the red carpet to the Vanity Fair party, and there were people there who were much more relevant to the current film world than Daryl Hannah, Miley Cyrus, and Mark Hamill. 

+Please explain why Bowen Yang and Ethan Slater were in the front row but Mikey Madison and Fernanda Torres were in the third row. (I have no idea where Karla was sitting. LOL) In fact, I can't think of a time the Best Actress winner was not in the front row. The seating is very odd. Why were half of The Brutalist ensemble (Nivola, Martin, Cassidy) on the opposite side of the auditorium as the nominated cast/director? I know its all a big puzzle, but just odd. And Zoe wasn't anywhere near the rest of the Emilia crew?

+As much as I loved Conan, his opening was way too long. Then bringing in Adam Sandler for a bit that mostly seemed confusing, then the musical number about wasting time. 

+Pace the show better. Again, great opening, but the first award wasn't presented until almost half an hour into the show. And only about 4 awards for the first hour??

+Yeah, just jettison the In Memoriam into the sun. So many names left out again, and people online are never happy about these exclusions. In fact, it seems like the media always makes a big deal about who is left off. Just make a little movie like TCM does and put a link to it or play the big names during the red carpet. 

+Outside of the LA montage that opened the show, very little sense of history. I get that a lot of the Academy's history is considered problematic now, but its still worth showcasing some film history. 

+That Original Song clip package lasted forever. 

+Too many winners towards the end getting played off. Lots of small things could have been cut to give them more time. 

+The acting presentations need to go back to the traditional way. I don't have a problem with the last winner in the category presenting the next one instead of the gender swap. I'm sure some of this change was due to them being afraid Karla would get booed or something. Robert and Da'Vine did their best to sell the supporting nominees, but the writing was lacklaster. 

+Please tell me that's the last Bond tribute. Halle Berry presented a Bond musical number 12 years ago, and we saw it happen last night. The Oscars should not be a rerun. I didn't dislike the performance like most did. I'm all for a gaudy Oscar production number, but those performers aren't big enough names and Bond isn't really relevant this year. I think they keep doing these because it feels like its all leading into the living Bonds all being on stage together. And it never happens! I did enjoy how when it ended the camera cut to Bond alumni Ralph Fiennes and Ana de Armas being like "...okay?". 

+Speaking of reruns, how many times can we see Cruz present International Film?

+OMG wrap it up, Adrien.

+Look, I'm a petty bitch. I won't deny it. So I'll say this: I will never forgive Chalamet for being the one who got a K********n to the front row of the Oscars. Fuck him forever. 

Best Dressed:

Really liked Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Moore, and Jeremy Strong. 

Loved...

Felicity Jones is my runner-up.

Selena Gomez is #1, and gets a special mention for being so well dressed throughout the season.

Another award season down. I've decided I need to finally do the "Rank the Last 10 Winners" things. I've been saying I would do it for awhile, but it's overdue. I also want to do a big post with past scores so I have that as a reference point. 

Go see a movie this week! Go see a movie every week!