Last night’s Oscars ceremony was excellent, and spoke to the importance of setting the right tone up-front. Jimmy Kimmel was perfect for the job – calm, congenial, and above all high road, with excellent jokes that weren’t mean-spirited. He had them at Hello.
Moving the start time to 7 pm ET instead of the customary 8 pm, was fantastic and somehow made the ceremony seem shorter. But the real winner of the Oscars this year was the writers. The ceremony was flat-out well written. Almost all of the presenter bits were not just good – they were great!
The ceremony started out on the right foot with the award for Best Supporting Actress. All five nominees were introduced by five prior Supporting Actress award winners, a practice that continued for all the acting nods. The speeches were interesting, and almost all of them really connected with the nominees. (Especially Jamie Lee Curtis to Jodie Foster and, later, Nicholas Cage (!) to Paul Giammati.)
Winning the first award of the night for her superb work in The Holdovers, Da’Vine Joy Randolph gave an emotional, beautiful speech where at the end she thanked her publicist, which set off a raft of subsequent acknowledgements to publicists, a fun riff throughout the evening.
There were no production numbers which lengthened the ceremony, and I don’t think there was a Lifetime Achievement award, another timesuck. In most cases presenters presented two awards, this also helped move things along. The Best Song performances were great, and it was wonderful to see Billie Eilish’s joy when she received a standing ovation.
Noteworthy Presenters
There were a number of on-the-nose presenters in which the bits directly spoke to the award being presented.
- Emily Blunt & Ryan Gosling’s “Barbenheimer” rivalry.
- A nod to the famous Oscars streaker back in the day, John Cena presented the award in a state of dishabille for … costumes, speaking to the importance of clothing! What a great idea.
- Kate MacKinnon and America Ferrara spoke about documentaries … and dinosaurs.
- Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer had an awkwardly phrased exchange until they started reading the prompts from the writers, driving home the importance of writing.
- John Mulaney’s random but kinda brilliant narration of the entire Field of Dreams plot had absolutely nothing to do with the category he was presenting for but was so good it didn’t matter.
Of Note
- Loved the occasional shots of the Anatomy of a Fall dog “sitting” at the ceremony.
- Loved the backstage shots of all the Oscars on the shelf.
- There were only two flubs. There was a weird bit with Guillermo Rodriguez handing out drinks in the audience. The “In Memorium” section was shown with dancers and musicians, which made it hard to see the screen and identify who was being honored.
The Winners
We had … an upset! Over the course of the evening, Poor Things deservedly won a number of awards, including Production Design. As a result, I wasn’t all that surprised when Emma Stone upset Lily Gladstone for Best Actress. Emma Stone’s performance really was extraordinary and although Lily Gladstone was great as well, the movie was long and clearly the Academy was underwhelmed, as it didn’t win anything. As expected, Oppenheimer won for Best Picture and even though I’m not a huge fan of the movie, it has merit and Christopher Nolan has certainly made a number of wonderful movies (check out Memento.). I generally don’t get too into who wins and who deserves to win but The Zone of Interest had extraordinary sound and I was glad it won.
The High Point
Ryan Gosling going for broke with “I’m Just Ken.” It was joyous and silly and perfect.
Something New!
After many years of lobbying, an Oscar for Casting has been created and will be handed out starting next year. This is long overdue. Casting Directors are usually women, and have been shut down by (mostly) male directors. Good casting can elevate poor material (think Will Ferrell and basically everyone else in Elf), and bad casting can absolutely destroy a movie (think Sofia Coppola in Godfather 3).
My Movie Reviews
I mourn the loss of the middle – movies with decent budgets and actors we have heard of. Nowadays most movies are either independents or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For a while it seemed like streaming services would fill the void left by the studios, but I think Netflix and Amazon have vastly cut their investment in marquis movies. The writers’ and actors’ strike didn’t help, there will fewer releases in 2024 because of the work stoppage.
I have seen all of the Best Picture nominees and they are all worth seeing. They are listed in order of my preference.
Poor Things is a super polarizing movie – people either love it or hate it. Having disliked director Yorgos Lanthimos’ two prior movies, The Favourite and The Lobster, I thought I would hate Poor Things. Imagine my surprise when – I loved it! Poor Things is funny and weird, with killer production design, fantastic costumes and a journey of self discovery story. Emma Stone is crazy good in this movie, which is all about women, sex, and power!
American Fiction is also wicked smart and funny yet also at the same time heartwarming. The story is a subversive look at stereotypes – black academic writes a “black” book filled with racial tropes that becomes a breakaway hit (sort of a riff on The Producers). The film is creative and the backstory, all about his family and his, well, journey of self discovery – is wonderful. Sterling Brown and Jeffrey Wright are superb.
The Zone of Interest is about the Commandant of Auschwitz and his family who lived next to the camp. The family enjoys luxuries and comfort while, over the fence, the unspeakable occurs. We don’t see the camp itself or the prisoners. Instead, we see the smoke and, more powerfully, we hear the train, the gunshots, the machinery. The movie is not perfect – nothing really happens in the movie. Despite this, I think this was the movie from 2024 that will stick with me the most.
I greatly enjoyed Barbie, especially the production design of Barbieland. Loved the pink, the costumes, the plastic, thought it was fab. As many others have commented, it was a surprisingly subversive script for a big budget movie backed by Mattel. Not all of it worked, but it was entertaining and funny and smart and creative. Much better than the typical blockbuster.
The Holdovers is set in a New England boarding school in 1970. It’s about a teacher, a student and a school cook who spend time together over the holidays. Each character experiences personal growth along the way. It’s a quiet movie, and very well acted, but what is really amazing about the movie is the production design. It looks like it was filmed in 1970.
Anatomy of a Fall is a French did-she-or-didn’t-she courtroom drama about a women charged with murdering her husband. The movie is well written and well acted, and as I mentioned earlier one of the best scenes is played by a dog! This movie builds slowly but pays off.
Maestro is an enjoyable movie and Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan elevate the material. It’s a little arty, but it is interesting to learn about Leonard Bernstein.
Killers of the Flower Moon is long. And sad, as is the history upon which it is based. The first half is very tough to watch. The second half of the movie is better than the first, after old-reliable character actor Jessie Plemons shows up as an FBI agent.
I think I have seen too many Christopher Nolan movies to appreciate Oppenheimer. Like all his other movies, he plays with time. I thought going-back-and-forth between the Manhattan Project and his struggle for a security clearance was an ineffective framing technique. I was much more interested in the Manhattan Project history than the security clearance issue, and think the movie should have had had a more straightforward story. I also vehemently disliked the overwrought soundtrack.
I saw Past Lives on a plane, where it can be hard to appreciate a movie. It is a road-not-taken movie about a love triangle where no one is the bad guy and everyone behaves honorably. I love Greta Lee on The Morning Show and she is very good here as well. It’s just a bit slow.
Other Notable 2023 Movies also listed in order of my preference.
Are You There God It’s Me Margaret – This was probably my favorite movie of the year. Loved, loved loved it. Was sad Rachel McAdams wasn’t nominated, she was wonderful as Margaret’s mom.
Theater Camp – could not stop laughing, so silly and fun.
Nyad – Inspirational sports/swim movie.
Rustin – Very enjoyable movie about Bayard Rustin, gay civil rights leader who organized the March on Washington. Great soundtrack, zippy pace.
The Hustlers – Adam Sandler is likable in a basketball movie.
Saltburn – interesting take on the toxicity of old money but be warned it’s super pervy.
May/December – well acted, also pervy (but not as bad as Saltburn).
Thank you all, as always, for reading. Please let me know what you thought of the movies – comment on blog, send me a text, FB, email, phone, whatever. So glad the ceremony was worth watching this year, and there were no major snafus (slaps, etc.). Please go see movies at the movie theater – it is a much better viewing experience and I selfishly want theaters to stay in business. Until next year!
The Judge 