I know, technically we are several days out from this year’s Academy Awards and you’ve probably seen all there is to know about the night, but here I am. Giving it to you again anyways.
From a high level, if you watched the SAG Awards a few weeks ago, absolutely nothing different in the acting categories transpired, and that was kind of to be expected. Yes, it made it a little boring, but certainly no less deserving for any of the winners. All four of them managed to give speeches that had me sniffing and blinking hard at my television screen. I’ve said this before, but Ke Huy Quan is one of the most adorable human beings on this planet. I hope he finds infinite success from here on out. I certainly don’t think things are over for Michele Yeoh and Brendan Fraser either! Of course, Jamie Lee Curtis always has a nice lineup of work in front of her, but it was nice to see this passionate woman win the thing!
So the acting awards offered no surprises, but honestly, none of the categories offered many surprises, or variety for that matter. Everything Everywhere All At Once and All Quiet on the Western Front dominated most of the nights categories in both above and below the line instances. Having only seen the latter film in the Best International Film category (for now), I can’t really say if any others were more deserving. This was certainly the one I heard the most about. EEAAO has been dominating every single awards show, so I don’t feel like it should have come as any shock that the Daniels took home the directing award or then that their film itself took home best picture. I feel bad in saying that I’ve grown a little tired of the sweep because I like these guys’ work and I really did love the film. I guess it just got oversaturation for me. But hey – yay for the weird little independent underdogs!
Truthfully, I would have loved to have seen Triangle of Sadness win something, but I suppose I’ll just have to be happy with the fact that it got nominated. Speaking of Triangle of Sadness…I was shocked to see one of its very young stars, Charlbi Dean, excluded from the In Memorium section along with countless others! I just don’t really understand how hard it is to get this list made! Somehow it manages to get botched every single year. Otherwise, Lenny Kravitz’s musical accompaniment was very nice, but it was hard to celebrate with so many misses. I also found interesting how they worked around the “Will Smith isn’t allowed at the Oscars for the next ten years” thing by pairing up presenters and doing the actor and actress categories back to back by them. It also probably managed to save them a little time!
Speaking of time! This is the first year where I didn’t have cable to record this show and then tune in a little later to breeze through the commercials. Instead, I watched the ceremony the next day with my cheap Hulu package and suffered through lots of the same commercials, but also so many more freezes. Anyways, this year I think they got it right. It’s clear your average human being isn’t watching the telecast anymore, so why cut out all of the technical categories that film buffs love? This year they were back and I don’t think the show suffered an ounce for it. Also nice was not hearing these people have to yell over music for “talking too long.” I think everyone was instructed to keep it at 45 seconds to keep the show moving, and most did a good job with it. Somehow the show still came in around three hours. Crazy what planning ahead can do!
Overall, it was a nice evening for a season full of great films. It’s crazy that we’re already almost a quarter of the way through this year’s potential nominees. There’s still so many more film festivals ahead! Keep your eyes peeled on the blog for worthy contenders.