The 96th Oscars wrapped up at approximately 10:30pm EDT Sunday. 10:30? You mean the telecast ran under 3 hours? Well, no. The show began a little after 7pm for the first time and heaven forbid the show runs lean and efficiently. Nonetheless, here are the highlights and lowlights, and doing my best to remain apolitical.
* "The Fab Five": This year, the acting nominees in all categories were presented by five previous winners in their category. This last occurred in 2009. We are treated to actors gushing verbally over the nominees' performances. Why not just show the clips of the respective performances? I'd rather be shown than told. Explanations take longer, which is something the Oscars is not adverse to.
* Standing ovation-happy audience. I'd have to review the telecast on my DVR, but I believe each category's winners received a standing ovation this year. Mix that in with the song performances and ovations for presenters like Al Pacino and you have the audience standing much more often than in previous years. Originally, I believed this devalued the ovation if everyone receives one, but since a theme was the solidarity between various trade unions within the industry, I can at least understand why it happened this year.
* Host. Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Oscars for the fourth time. Most of the jokes were flat. My issue with having a host is that you need something for the host to do in addition to the opening monologue. Most times, this leads to lame bits which add nothing to the proceedings except running time. You can feel the seconds and minutes tick away as you realize that time would've been better spent on presenting the next award. We also have the obligatory montage, this year it was a tribute to stunts, and this came after painful banter between Oppenheimer's Emily Blunt and Barbie's Ryan Gosling about which movie made out better this year. Although, former president Donald Trump posted on Truth Social about what a poor job Jimmy was doing. Jimmy's response was pretty clever: "Aren't you past your jail time?"
* Oppenheimer. The movie about the creator of the atomic bomb won 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor. Poor Things finished second in the trophy haul with four Oscars, including Emma Stone as a surprising winner for Best Actress. Of course, art is subjective. Oppenheimer was well-crafted, but overly long and was hit and miss on its dramatic power. I felt Poor Things was a movie only a film critic or an Academy member could love. Despite the performances and its unique look, the message is icky and the movie is style over substance.
* In Memoriam. A segment which causes annual controversy, usually due to omission of famous names who died since the previous year's telecast. This year, the segment was shown at wide angles and in such a way that the home audience couldn't see the names or images clearly. Normally, a close-up is provided, but this year the production team thought we'd be more interested in watching dancers or cutaways of Andrea Bocelli and his son singing. (Which they did very well, by the way). Then, at the very end, a list of names were presented in a circle, which were the names of those who weren't provided images. Even then, I'm sure there were those who were missed which we'll read about in the coming days. One day, they'll get this right.
* John Williams loses out again. The greatest film composer every to score the movies lost out to Oppenheimer in the Original Score category. Williams has won 5 previous Oscars, but his last was 1993's Schindler's List. He is 92 and how many of these scores does he have left in him? I doubt anyone recalls Oppenheimer's score, but we sure know Indiana Jones. One more win would be nice if he is nominated again.
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