A Reel Opinion: Oscar Night - The Good, The Bad, & The Glorious

The 95^th Academy Awards happened last night. It was a night of history, emotion, and capped off with the sci-fi/fantasy romp EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (or EEAO, for the sake of brevity), winning seven Oscars including Best Picture. Here’s how it all landed in The Good, The Bad, and The Glorious. 

 

THE GOOD

 

-Host Jimmy Kimmel, hosting his third Oscars, seems to have moved into the echelon of veteran Oscar Hosts like Billy Crystal and Bob Hope; solid, confident, and fully aware of all that comes with the Academy Awards. His entrance was spectacular (a TOP GUN parody that had him parachuting in), and 99.9% of his jokes landed. There was also no ignoring the elephant-in-the-room matter of last year’s SlapGate. The self-awareness was welcome. 

 

-After a few years of tinkering with the format to make the show more hip or shorter, the Academy finally seemed to give up on that and return to a conventional show. All the awards were presented live, there were no stupid online polls, and the three-and-half-hour runtime was embraced. It all felt familiar and comfortable. 

 

-The efforts to make the Oscars more modern or accessible took an odd turn this year, with in-show promotions for Disney’s upcoming film THE LITTLE MERMAID, and a promo for Warner Bros’ 100^thanniversary. It was different and a little jolting, but celebrating films of the past, present, and future is what the Academy should be doing more of. 

 

 

THE BAD 

-While we did get a good look at THE LITTLE MERMAID, and WB got to quickly promote THE FLASH, there seems to be a need for more exclusive trailers to run during the commercial breaks. Take a page out of the Super Bowl breaks and give people a reason to look. 

-Not necessarily bad (or good), but as this Blogger correctly predicted, frontrunning films TAR, THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, and THE FABELMANS combined for zero wins. The real surprise was ELVIS going home empty-handed as well. These are all good films and worthy to be nominated, but they just went up against a juggernaut in EEAO. 

 

-The In Memoriam. Lenny Kravitz appeared to perform Calling all Angels, and while he sounded great and the song was perfect, the presentation of our departed actors and filmmakers left a lot to be desired. The graphics were odd with a blurring effect when two faces appeared, and there were no clips with sound of their performances. And they left out Tom Sizemore, Anne Heche, Paul Sorvino, and Melinda Dillon. 

 

-Best Song going to Naatu Naatu from the Indian action film RRR. Voters had to be second-guessing themselves after Lady Gaga blew the roof off the place with her performance of Hold My Hand from TOP GUN: MAVERICK. The former feels like it will be forgotten by next week, while the latter has the potential to keep flying for a long time. 

 

 

THE GLORIOUS

-Speaking of Lady Gaga, she was originally not going to perform due to her filming commitments, but at the last minute pulled it together. The queen lost her dress and makeup and appeared in a stripped-down, back-to-basics performance…and then later was back in the dress and makeup. Amazing performance and effort. 

 

-The German-language film ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT nabbing four Oscars. The adaptation of the classic war novel un-surprisingly won Best International Feature, and then swiped Cinematography, Production Design, and Original Score. The Oscars should have no boundaries, and this leap across the pond was an important one. 

 

-As this Blogger correctly predicted last week (HERE), all four acting wins were packed with emotion, as all four were taken home by long-time favorites. Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis (for EEAO), Mummy-killer Brendan Fraser (THE WHALE), veteran Michelle Yeoh (EEAO), and seeker of rich-stuff Ke Huy Quan got his fortune and glory (EEAO). Quan was the most satisfying and enjoyable win, and he was perfectly greeted on-stage by his INDIANA JONES co-star Harrison Ford when EEAO won the big one. 

 

-Speaking of greetings…Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian to win Best Actress, and she was handed her Oscar by the first black woman to win Best Actress: Halle Berry. 

 

-EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE winning Best Picture. The sci-fi/fantasy drama took home seven Oscars, including three for acting. It had been in the lead since the start, and if the reactions from the audience were any indication, was really beloved by Hollywood. In the last 20 years only two films that fall into sci-fi or fantasy have won Best Picture (RETURN OF THE KING in 2003, THE SHAPE OF WATER in 2017), and EEAO makes it three. This was an important step forward for the Oscars, as it shows that a great movie, and a great story can take on many shapes and forms. And that’s what the movies are all about. 

 

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See all the winners HERE.