Well, aside from just briefly talking about the actual winners and losers of this years Academy Awards, I’ll also be highlighting the evening’s strangest moments, surprise wins and snubs, and overall if it was worth the wait!
Long answer short, regardless of what actually went down during the ceremony, yes, it was worth the wait. It’s been so long since last year’s Oscars that I almost forgot who would be presenting! But anyways, we’ll circle back to that. The evening started off with a pre-show of sorts, but it wasn’t on a red carpet this year. Instead, there was sort of a garden party feel to it, but it was so nice to see a large group of people together with no masks on that I didn’t even care! There were still stellar gowns and suits, so it was at least a familiar feeling. Also new this year was in between interviews, the Best Original Song contenders’ performances were aired. After an hour and a half wait, we finally got the show started!
The Oscars were host-less again this year, so I felt it was a smart move getting Regina King to kick off the show. I think everyone loves her! She sauntered into the main hall of Union Station (don’t worry, the Dolby Theater will see everyone again next year), as “opening credits” rolled with the presenters’ names. This venue was small, and in an effort to socially distance there were only four people per table, so the whole evening sort of had a fancy dinner party feel. Some of those table pairings made sense, while others really did not. Each presenter got to announce two categories, and were found randomly throughout the theater. One thing I noticed that didn’t necessarily bother me was that virtually no clips from the films were shown! Now, I’ve seen almost everything nominated for the night, but for the casual viewer I’m sure the lack of clips made the evening confusing and boring! Instead, we got little fun facts or stories about each of the nominees. That would have been fun, but the whole evening, no one really knew where to look! I don’t think 50 percent of the audience knew where the cameras were! Not that the cameras did a good job when “focused” on the main stage either.
But that’s neither here nor there. Overall, as far as winners go, there were not too many surprises for the night….until about the two hour mark at least. That’s when I thought perhaps I had blacked out for a little bit. Because all of a sudden I was seeing Rita Moreno coming onstage to announce Best Picture. Um…isn’t this award always saved for last?? Apparently not in all of the history of the Oscars, but at least for as long as I have been watching religiously. I was not the only one exceptionally confused by this move, but nonetheless it happened anyway. Nomadland won, which coupled with Chloe Zhou’s best director win was a sweet moment. After that however, the best actor and actress awards were announced in such quick succession that it sort of was like watching a deflating balloon fall to the ground. Not that Frances McDormand wasn’t worthy of winning, but I had my sights set on Carey Mulligan for the superb Promising Young Woman. Then, perhaps the biggest shock of the night came when Chadwick Boseman, who’s swept all of awards season, lost the biggest prize to the well-deserving Anthony Hopkins! Even worse? He wasn’t there to accept!
I can understand that the producers of this year’s Oscars assumed like much of the world that Chadwick was going to win and it’d be a super emotional ending to the evening, but we all know what assuming does…and sure enough, the producers were made to look like big asses. Also, I felt like an even more sure thing was Nomadland taking director and picture, so why take that moment away from the first woman of color to do so?! This anti-climatic, and somewhat disappointing ending to an already disappointing environment that couldn’t be helped, was not made better by this category structure. Hopefully next year they right this wrong! Now, I will say, in the moment I really enjoyed the ceremony, but upon reflection I felt like we didn’t need to let those speeches go on as long as they did (excluding Thomas Vinterberg’s heart-wrenching one). Nor did we need to extend the ceremony further with a little quiz section, even if we did get to see Glenn Close to “Da Butt” dance. Finally, perhaps the most egregious error of the night was the way the In Memorium section was handled. They picked a rather upbeat song, which hey, celebrate life, but then they decided to roll through the photos along to the tempo of the song! That means I definitely missed a good handful of names. Do better next please.
All in all, I was glad that the Oscars felt a little bit like a sense of normalcy, but this was definitely a rickety one. I think a return to form next year can only help them (I imagine in viewership, too), and add the dang clips back! That will at least break the show up a little bit. A lot of things went wrong, but I’m certainly not upset with what winners came out of the night. Everyone was certainly worthy, whether they were your favorite or my favorite or not. And all Best Picture nominees but The Trial of the Chicago 7 walked away with a win somewhere during the night. For a full list of winners (and losers), click here.