Another Oscars has come and gone. Many laughs and many tears as well as a beautiful moment of an entire room of professionals collectively deciding Jimmy Kimmel has overstayed his welcome. He won us over with a setup and lost us with a disappointing punchline. It was a bit of whiplash as Kimmel received boos at his shot at SAG president Fran Drescher, while then getting cheers for talking about solidarity between the unions. Maybe the Academy should give no host a shot again or find writers who have better knowledge of movies rather than just knowledge of mistakes celebrities have made in the past. It was utterly painful to watch as Kimmel couldn’t land his joke and kept needling Robert Downey Jr. about his past behavior.
In spite of Kimmel’s bland attempts and uncomfortable sexual harassment of Ryan Gosling, the show was pretty enjoyable. Many presenter jokes didn’t land, but were still charming, like Octavia Spencer and Melissa McCarthy’s double act. There was also the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito bit. It was GREAT, especially as they brought in Michael Keaton, who deliciously mugged at the two actors who have played Batman villains. Though when the two men got to the actual presentation, they lost some steam and had a hard time getting it back.
The best of the best were those fully committed to their bit and transitioned seamlessly to the presentation. John Cena walked out naked to present the award for Best Costumes. Kate McKinnon and America Ferrera’s presentation for the Documentary categories included a terrific bit about Jurassic Park that included a very game Steven Speilberg. John Mulaney pontificated on the strange rules of ghost baseball before he presented Best Sound. Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt squashed the Barbenheimer beef while stealthily promoting their upcoming movie The Fall Guy, about a stuntman in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a clip package of excellent stunt work from the year.
This year also brought back a sweet presentation of five past winners presenting each of the acting awards. Some of the pairs of presenter and nominee were incredibly poignant, others made the best of their very wordy material that some of them had a hard time getting through. A terrific highlight was Sam Rockwell presenting to Robert Downey, Jr. with Downey’s famous line from Tropic Thunder, his last nomination, about not dropping character until the DVD commentary. Nicolas Cage was an odd choice for Paul Giamatti, but like all the others he was given a perfect connection to his gonzo method with Giamatti’s willingness to wear a contact that would mimic a lazy eye.
It’s hard to pick a winner’s speech to highlight as most of them were funny, humane, and absolutely tear jerking. Da’Vine Joy Randolph brought tears to us all and a camera even caught a solitary tear coming down Paul Giamatti’s cheek. Randolph also started the running joke of the night of thanking a publicist. Cord Jefferson gave the rallying cry to studios that one $200 million dollar movie is the same risk as 20 $10 million movies, encouraging them to take more chances. Documentary feature winner Mstyslav Chernov impactfully reminded us that he wishes his feature didn’t exist as it chronicles the ongoing suffering of the people of Ukraine in their struggle against Russian aggression. Johnathan Glazer in his acceptance of the award for International Feature Film gave a stirring address about the parallels of complacency with atrocity in his film, The Zone of Interest, and what is occurring in Gaza as the Israeli military attempts retribution for the terrorist action perpetuated by the Hamas group on October 7th.
The speech that surprised and delighted us all, even herself, was from Emma Stone. After she won her second career Oscar in the highly competitive Best Actress race, she began with a little self-deprecation about her broken zipper and a quick zinger that it obviously happened during “I’m Just Ken.” She then gave us the incredible awww of describing how much she loves her daughter. It’s this kind of spontaneous, genuine moment that makes the Oscars worth watching.
That and they can still pull off a truly spectacular scripted moment. Love Barbie, hate Barbie, indifferent toward Barbie, it can’t be denied that the performance of “I’m Just Ken” was all killer and no filler. It brought the house down if not only for an A-list, nominated actor putting his whole self into his performance, but also bringing in surprise after surprise. Kens from the film! Mark Ronson rocking a pink shirt and guitar! Audience participation! SLASH SHREDDING HIS AX!! The nominated songs this year were an eclectic bunch, the performances were well done by all and this was just the amazing capper to those achievements.
After last year’s love fest for Everything Everywhere All at Once and this year’s avalanche for Oppenheimer, it seems as though we are trending away from the idea that in the expanded Best Picture era, every nominee in the category should go home with something. Past Lives, Maestro, and Killers of the Flower Moon all went home empty handed. Tragically, this isn’t the first time a Martin Scorsese film has blanked on Oscar night after early laurels in fall, remember The Irishman? It’s a trend that has been seen to varying degrees in the past and in a year as lauded as 2023 has been, it is a bit surprising to see two films dominate as much as Oppenheimer and Poor Things did. It certainly harkens back to twenty years prior when presenters had to make it through saying, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 11 times in one night.
All in all, a great spectacle as the Oscars should be and with the new early start, long, but not overwhelming. Seriously, though, Academy, ditch Jimmy Kimmel. He’s had his chance. Get someone new, someone old, or no one at all.
