The show itself was fine. The good speeches, witty jokes, and shocking wins were negated by pointless musical numbers, some mean orchestra play offs, and one acceptance speech that will go down as one of the worst of all time and and the best example of what-not-to-do at the Oscars (for those that are wondering, that would be the one for Best Animated Short).
Conan was a good host. It has been awhile since I last saw him perform so I forgot all of his goofy and wacky antics. Luckily, he had a good hit rate with the jokes and his low blows felt more like proper jabs and didn't kill the flow of the show.
12-11 in my Oscar predictions. Big oof. The Big Four, the shorts and documentaries are what really killed me. Honestly, I can't think of a time where I ever failed completely at predicting the Big Four.
I truly, honestly didn't think that Anora would do so well with the Academy. But hey, though I still haven't seen it (I skipped my chance last year so I could see A Real Pain instead), I'm very glad for Sean Baker, the cast and crew for their achievements.
Emilia Pérez. 13 nominations. Only two wins. Seems that everyone in Hollywood finally decided to smell the coffee.
A Complete Unknown. More like A Complete Duck Egg, amirite?
So very happy for Flow winning Best Animated Feature. Would have been cool if it also won Best International Feature but then we wouldn't cheer for...
I'm Still Here with the steal of a lifetime! Man, those Brazilians know what to do when it comes to Oscar campaigning.
I think this ceremony greatly shows why the Oscar Clips for the acting categories is far and away better than the "Congrats, you're swell!" mini-speeches. Because remember people, a lot of people still don't know or have watched these movies and a clip showing their ACTING! is a far easier sell than "Jeremy Strong is great because this one time, he slept in the fan bleachers when I was nominated for Chaplin".
Also, seriously? We just had to do the five presenters thing for Best Costume Design and Best Cinematography? Great way to showcase the great achievements in camerawork by having a tiny box for it.
Dear lord, I wish that deliberate shot of sad John Lithgow was shown after that Emilia Pérez clip for Best Adapted Screenplay aired. "Change the soul", woof!
More mocking for Emilia Pérez came when its director Jacques Audiard was spotted wearing a production hat for the movie while sitting the audience! So lame. You sir are not Spike Lee!
Even more mocking came when Emilia Pérez won Best Original Song. Everybody finally realized, hey wait, these three very white French people wrote this "Mexican" song? Then they go up and Audiard is just walking around like a lost old fogey while the two composers awkwardly belt out a different song from the film.
Why do a song-and-dance tribute to James Bond when no new movie came out or is on the horizon? Also, Raye is an okay singer but she is certainly not Adele.
Also didn't dig the so-called tribute to Quincy Jones. At least Colman Domingo was having fun.
Ben Stiller once again got to a do a great gag as a presenter for Best Production Design. Compliments to the show director for the great camera shots of Stiller being swallowed by the set.
It was great idea having Mick Jagger present for Best Original Song and reuniting Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal as the presenters for Best Film.
At the end of the day, I'm happy for Adrian Brody winning again and completing his comeback story. Great speech as well only for it to get ruined at one point by The Brutalist director looking really ornery for some apparent reason.
And of course, Michelle Trachtenberg was Farina'd during the In Memoriam, yet the producers were able to get Gene Hackman in time despite having three days notice. I was also pissed when I remembered that Tony Todd was left out. Seriously, freaking Candyman got cut yet TV icon Bob Newhart got in!
And that's all I have to say. See you all next year!
