Last month there was some talk -mostly online and fairly brief and unserious- about canceling or postponing this years’ Oscars in light of the devastating fires in Los Angeles. It was a well-intentioned if myopic take that considered the broad optics of the awards’ show but not the institution around it --and awards season more generally- that a lot of workers in Los Angeles depend on. The Oscars is more than just the rich and privileged giving each other gold statues. It means something more, in a practical sense as much as a symbolic one.
 |
And the 97th Academy Awards did illustrate that, much as it may not appease the ceremony’s usual critics in the industry and beyond. But this was an Oscars ceremony that except for a handful of moments, was firmly about the movies, the people that make them, and the work of making them -something reflected both in the show’s format and priorities, and in the colour of its winners. Obviously there are going to be those on the business end of things who will decry its longer than usual length and inevitable low ratings (as though, again, TV ratings matter in this day and age), and pine for the era when the Oscars’ prestige was matched in popularity. But I think that this year’s ceremony followed up on a couple years of the show either finding its roots again or defining its new ones in an appropriate and dignified way.
 |
A good start was tapping Conan O’Brien to host, a man who honestly should have been given this chance about twenty years ago when he was still a late night staple. But he’s certainly one of the better talk show hosts of this century, who’s managed to traverse his post-TV landscape well, attractive to young viewers as he frequently evokes a classic style, and who clearly has a real love for movies and the entertainment world (as opposed to his counterpart of previous years, Jimmy Kimmel -whose smugness about that world indicates he only appreciates it as part of his job). But not only did I have high hopes based on O’Brien’s character but the fact that his being given this role felt genuinely inspired in a way the Oscars don’t often convey. A couple other choices intrigued -such as the abandonment of the Best Original Song nominee performances -there to make the show feel more like a spectacle but often a mixed bag (for every “I’m Not Ken” or “Naatu Naatu” there are a dozen “Be Alive”’s or “It Never Went Away”’s). Would this free up the show for more relevant material or more creative bits? Would it finally cut down the show’s length? (It does not).
 |
The Oscars may have gotten rid of this element specifically, but its spirit endures; and the first thing we see from the 97th Academy Awards is the visual motifs from The Wizard of Oz transitioning into a spotlit performance of “Over the Rainbow” by Ariana Grande. This is the start of a medley of songs from Wicked, the most popular and most successful nominated movie this year, in which for “Home” Grande is joined by her co-star Cynthia Erivo before passing the torch to her for “Defying Gravity”. The camera follows the two of them up close, their finely tuned chemistry on the promotional circuit translating well for the camera -and Erivo especially demonstrates why she’s just this award away from an EGOT. It’s a great opener, blatant though it is in starting things off on the most populist foot possible. But it’s a savvy business move aimed at those theatre nerds who turned out in droves for Wicked, and I can appreciate that breed of outreach, as well as this kind of a showcase that emphasizes the bits of Wicked I liked and none of the stuff that annoyed me.
 |
It is the first and honestly most successful iteration however of the recurring theme of the show that felt the most cheap. The Oscars have in some ways long wanted to evoke the epic capacity of the Grammys or the SuperBowl halftime show. And I feel that especially with just how big and popular both of those were this year, that there was all the more incentive for the Oscar producers to push for that. There were only two more major musical sequences in the show, but they both felt transparent. A supposed tribute to the James Bond franchise which was just an excuse to get Lisa, Doja Cat, and Raye to perform covers of “Live and Let Die”, “Diamonds Are Forever”, and “Skyfall” respectively, with crews of elaborately choreographed backup dancers. Most curiously, the medley began with Margaret Qualley in a slick red dress dancing with various tuxedoed agents wherein she gives the camera several of the same distinctive looks she does in The Substance -one of the more prominent instances of the Oscars seemingly misunderstanding their own nominee. The second performance was of “Ease on Down the Road” from the musical The Wiz designed as a tribute to the late Quincy Jones. Queen Latifah performed it and she’s great, but it felt like a real stretch, especially given that though Jones produced it, he didn’t actually write it himself. Much as the Oscar producers might try, a spectacle event is not in the show’s DNA. And it’s no question that these, particularly the latter coming over three hours into the ceremony, pushed the length of a show that those same producers have been endeavouring to whittle down.
 |
But let’s go back to the start and aspects of the show I had fewer reservations around. O’Brien makes his entrance after that first Wicked performance, and fairly quickly establishes himself as someone with a comfort on this stage and a natural taste for the mood of the room. He has the spirit of great Oscar hosts before him like Johnny Carson and Billy Crystal, and can land his jokes more organically as well. There’s the expected but charming use of various movie titles (A Complete Unknown, Nosferatu) as names he’s been called on the Red Carpet -a variation of a joke Steve Martin has done a couple times as host, a decent joke at Netflix’s expense that you love to see, and a few bits that wouldn’t feel out of home on one of his talk shows -like Jeff Bezos being delivered to the red carpet in an Amazon box -no holes, a promise (that incidentally is never delivered on) that long speeches will be interrupted by a shot of a disappointed John Lithgow, or a great a sketch about midway through advertising “Cinemastream”.
 |
What makes jokes like these fun is that you can detect the real cynicism O’Brien has for the streaming era, a sentiment that has unfortunately been absent from the Oscars of late. And his whole intro is wrapped up in a funny parody of The Substance. His only misfire moment comes in a pair of jokes about the misfortunes of Emilia Pérez and the controversy surrounding Karla SofÃa Gascón specifically. Regardless of legitimate outrage, it is uncouth to put that target on her while she’s in the room. It should be noted too a bizarre routine between O’Brien and Adam Sandler, placed in the audience in very inappropriate street clothes, that goes on too long and feels directionless -and just before O’Brien sings a fun song about not wasting anybody’s time (accompanied by Deadpool and a Dune sandworm) with that old-timey song-and-dance verve that is exactly what you’d expect from the guy who wrote the Monorail song from The Simpsons.
 |
He makes sure to pop in throughout the show with some good jokes too though -the best being one he’d been saving in case Anora won multiple Oscars: “I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian” -predictably a huge applause for that, following on Daryl Hannah’s brief pledge of solidarity likewise commenting on recent political upheaval. While I will get to the couple notable exceptions, this was not a night of much political criticism -I suspect the LA Fires may have depressed some of the appetite to make bold stances. It’s a shame but I also can’t blame anyone, and the platform was put to good use through the night for a variety of causes and statements that still resonated. O’Brien ended his monologue with a sincere tribute to LA and the resilience of its people, including all those behind the scenes putting on this show. Later in the ceremony, he had a bunch of LA firefighters come on stage and read off some safe jokes.
 |
This collection complimented a fairly decent roster of presenters including a very fun Scarlett Johansson and June Squibb, an astonishingly energetic Mick Jagger, and Ben Stiller presenting Best Production Design from a malfunctioning stage. Andrew Garfield gives a very earnest declaration of appreciation for Goldie Hawn that borders on flirtatious, and Morgan Freeman introduces the In Memoriam with a sweet personal tribute to Gene Hackman. In a couple previous years, prior winners in the Acting categories would jointly present this year’s award, each singling out one of the nominees.
 |
This year the choice was made to do that for a couple of the ‘lesser’ categories, though arbitrarily just Costume Design and Cinematography -wherein an actor from the each of the nominated films highlighted the work of that films’ artist. A notable structural inconsistency in the show’s presentation, and it would probably have been better if they found another, less time consuming way to highlight these artists and apply the same method to broader categories. It’s noteworthy too that the show switched up the tradition slightly for the previous years’ acting winners -who this year presented for the very award they won. In this capacity both Robert Downey Jr. and Da’Vine Joy Randolph singled out each nominee for special focus before announcing the winner. But later in the show, neither Cillian Murphy nor Emma Stone did the same -likely something they were instructed to cut given the hour. I wish they hadn’t, it was sweet -especially in the first award of the night, where you can see Jeremy Strong tearing up over it.
 |
That award was of course, Best Supporting Actor, and right out the gate was no surprise to anyone who had been paying attention. Kieran Culkin of A Real Pain soared to that win and probably gave the most enjoyable speech of the evening, which naturally began with him complimenting his Succession co-star Strong (though the audio cut out through most of this), and then in very typical Culkin fashion meandered into a great story related to his Emmy speech from a year ago where he announced he wanted to have a third child with his wife Jazz, who after the fact promised she would even give him a fourth if he ever won an Oscar. It was very fun and cute, the cuts to Jazz herself -relishing it apparently- making it even more charmingly idiosyncratic.
 |
Following this, in what’s been a refreshing trend, a non-American animated movie, Flow, won Best Animated Feature -the first Oscar ever for Latvia (O’Brien made a “the ball’s in your court Estonia” shortly after). Gints Zilbalodis was very gracious on stage and I loved the touch of the Oscar being animated into the paw of the cat on the screen behind him. Animated Short went to the Iranian film In the Shadow of Cypress, in which the directors Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi awkwardly traded a phone with their speech on it and read the same lines a couple times on how they only just arrived in Los Angeles that day and got their passports renewed the prior day. Their acknowledgement of the difficulty in getting the film made under the Iranian regime was the first of a few instances of non-American authoritarian regimes being invoked.
 |
Best Costume Design was awarded to Wicked, likely the favourite in that category -Paul Tazewell getting to go up on stage where one of his costumes was actually in use -Bowen Yang having worn his outfit from the movie in a joke on himself. Tazewell made a point to note he is the first black man to win in the category, spawning a standing ovation as the audience was informed of that fact in real time. Certainly his charisma is reflected in his work. The Best Screenplay awards came next, with Peter Straughan taking the Adapted designation for Conclave, and Sean Baker winning Best Original Screenplay for Anora. An incredibly humble personality, Baker thanked all of the appropriate people, his crew and the sex worker community for the impact on not just Anora but his career thus far. Clearly, he didn’t expect to be up there again.
 |
But this was the point it started to become clear where the night was headed -in spite of the talk of Wicked, The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, and Conclave each having the capacity to pull off a big night, it looked like perhaps that wasn’t on the table. The dramatic slump in Emilia Pérez’s fortunes that we’ve been witnessing this awards cycle was not wholesale though. And Zoe Saldaña did eventually nab that Best Supporting Actress Oscar -responding to it with a speech emphasizing her Dominican roots, her pride in getting to perform in Spanish, and being an altogether typical emotionally charged award acceptance. Around this same time The Substance nabbed its only award of the evening -Best Make-up and Hairstyling for the greatest ugly prosthetics of the year; and Baker was called back to the stage to accept Best Film Editing for Anora -adorably stunned in a way that reminded me instantly of the Daniels a few years ago. Another good sign for him.
In my opinion the first and only real dud of a win came with Best Production Design going to the mostly effects-heavy Wicked over the architectural spontaneity of The Brutalist. Following this, Emilia Pérez won its second and final Oscar of the night for “El Mal” -the one I would argue it still deserved- and its giddy writers Camille and Clément Ducol created a great weird moment where she began singing a segment of the film’s title song that he only hesitatingly joined in on. The Short Subject Documentary Award then went to The Only Girl in the Orchestra.
 |
The Oscars then might have royally screwed up with Documentary Feature, and maybe a decade ago I’d have had more faith they would. Luckily, they got right the only movie they really had to. No Other Land, the vital record of a West Bank village’s decimation at the hands of the Israeli military, has won an Oscar in spite of its lack of legal distribution in North America. The greatest moment of the night was hearing Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, each so fully defined by that film, speak to the packed Dolby theatre and everybody watching at home on the truth of their movie and the situation it exposes. “No Other Land reflects he harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist,” says Adra, “as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” He says the taboo word and there is no audible booing -a moment of rare pride I feel in the Academy audience. Abraham emphasizes the collaboration of Palestinians and anti-Zionist Israelis on the film, calling Adra his brother and critiquing the separation of freedoms they experience, closing on a direct critique of U.S. foreign policy that the crowd applauds -perhaps not grasping he doesn’t mean simply the policy of Trump. A beautiful pair of speeches, far and away the best of the night and it can only be hoped that they are heard loud and clear.
 |
Perhaps it is a bit weird that the next two awards after this went to Dune: Part Two -me, I was just happy the film didn’t go home empty handed. Best Sound and Best Visual Effects were its sharpest shots though in a year that sadly mostly forgot about the great space epic that opened just ahead of last year’s Oscars. Best Live Action Short went to I’m Not a Robot by a cute Dutch couple, Victoria and Trent Warmerdam. The In Memoriam followed, visually interesting with an orchestra around the big screen while not obscuring the faces and names -though the montage was set in a very dour mood to Mozart’s Requiem (when it started playing I thought we were getting an Amadeus tribute) which maybe was not the most tasteful choice. The Brutalist at last ended its losing streak quite rightly with an award for Lol Crawley’s captivating cinematography. Not long after, I was shocked by it actually winning Best Original Score as well -an accolade it richly deserves but I was sure it wouldn’t win. Daniel Blumberg became the character of the night with his endearingly stilted yet genuine acceptance speech. I’m Still Here was saved an empty cart as well, beating out Emilia Pérez for Best International Feature and allowing Walter Salles to subtly compare the former authoritarian regime in Brazil to the U.S. Shockingly, this was Brazil’s first ever win.
 |
Then the long night started to come to a close with the last round of awards. Defying Timothée Chalamet’s upswing from SAG, Adrien Brody did ultimately succeed at winning his second Academy Award for Best Actor for playing a European ravaged by the Holocaust. His was one of the longer and more interesting speeches of the night, as he hinted at the fragility of being an award-winning actor so young and the perceived failure to live up to it between The Pianist and now. At the same time he exerted some control now as a two-time winner, successfully stopping the orchestra from playing him off before he could thank his parents and end on a message of combating hate. It was surprisingly one of the more moving speeches of the night -clearly a very meaningful moment for Brody at this point in his career.
 |
Best Director immediately after sealed the deal for the winner of the night. Brady Corbet might have ever-so-slightly been the favourite, but that Oscar had Sean Baker’s name on it (Corbet did get out of his chair to applaud his indie compatriot rather nicely though). Here, Baker made sure to endorse the moviegoing experience and called to support independent cinemas -a very cool thing to do on a night where Netflix had a ton of nominations. And Baker, probably the most down-to-earth Best Director in recent memory, was intensely likeable in his urging of distributors to prioritize theatrical distribution and even for parents to foster that love of cinema to keep it alive for a new generation. As if to hammer that point home, a voice of that new generation followed him to the stage as -in a mild upset- Mikey Madison won Best Actress over seeming favourite Demi Moore (and you can already hear the The Substance-themed hot takes). Madison earned that prize though, and while her speech wasn’t terribly unique, except for one lovely statement of solidarity with sex workers, her delivery of it was a compelling display of her high emotions and exuberance with the art of filmmaking.
 |
And so to little surprise, Billy Crystal (who’s still got it) and Meg Ryan proclaimed minutes later that Anora had won Best Picture, becoming only the fourth movie (after The Lost Weekend, Marty and Parasite) to take home both the film world’s most prestigious trophies. Baker found one more thing to say and that was a resounding tribute to and glorification of independent cinema, and seemed to proudly take on the mantle of this moment being a triumph for the indie scene writ large -of a kind not seen since Moonlight. The entire cast of the movie was uproarious, there didn’t seem to be a trace of ego from anyone involved. The Cinderella Story that went so wrong for its titular character came true in the best fashion for Anora the movie.
 |
It will certainly be interesting to look upon this Oscar race historically, and the suspicion I have that all the love, goodwill, and traction that Emilia Pérez seemed to have back in January migrated to Anora in the wake of that movie’s series of controversies. Two wins of thirteen nominations next to five of six certainly looks a little lopsided. But then, Anora has proven an extremely popular movie -as beloved by many an average moviegoer and critic as it was by the voters out of Cannes. And though some might resort to calling it safe, it most assuredly is not plain or in any way “Oscar-baity”. And though I personally would have preferred The Brutalist, a grand epic was crowned already last year. I love that Anora is so different from Oppenheimer, which was so different from Everything Everywhere All at Once. The 2000s and 2010s are behind us. Oscar is interesting again.
 |
The Academy Awards were needed this year, and though this telecast wavered in places structurally, showed off more bluntly just a little bit of desperation, and in fairness probably did run too long, I liked it a lot. Even most of its mistakes were done with some good faith and with an eye for not losing the movie celebration of it all that it is meant to be. And sure, it could have taken more risks, injected a little more creativity into the stuff that already works. Perhaps some of the speeches could have hit harder, risen to the moment in a more explicit way. But I feel at its root, this show epitomized well the Oscars’ values in ways that can never be predicted or calculated by the usual metrics or overseers (even Nick Offerman, who served as the announcer this year). This was a good, fun, and satisfying awards show -O’Brien should absolutely be asked back next year. And after averting what appeared to be a three-year curse, with 2019’s disappointments and 2022’s unmitigated disaster, the Oscars are on stable ground -perhaps on the verge of something better. In light of that, I’m happy to be a fan.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jordanbosch.bsky.social
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Comments
Post a Comment