Every year, I watch the Academy Awards. If you don’t, I recommend it. This is a night of glitz, glamour, and the best drama you’ll ever watch. But don’t worry; I am here to give you a quick summary of the Oscars if you missed them.Â
First up: some positives! Conan O’Brien did a great job hosting, keeping things light and fun without being mean-spirited. Kieran Culkin won his first Academy Award for his performance in A Real Pain and delivered my favorite acceptance speech of the night. Wicked’s Paul Tazewell also won his first Academy Award for Best Costume Design, making him the first Black man to win the award. Â
It was a big night for international animated films. Flow won Best Animated feature, making it the first time a Latvian movie has ever won an Oscar. The Iranian short film In the Shadow of the Cypress won Best Animated Short Film, a great accomplishment for filmmakers Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi and the third Iranian film to win an Academy Award. Sohani and Molayemi said in their acceptance speech that their plane had just landed several hours ago, and they’d been having problems with their visas, making their win even more incredible.Â
The independent film Anora took home the top prize of Best Picture. Producer Samantha Quan shouted out young filmmakers in her speech, urging them to, “tell the stories you want to tell.” The director Sean Baker won four Oscars, setting a record by becoming the first person to win four Oscars for the same film. This win by Anora also broke awards season tradition, as it did not win the SAG best ensemble cast award—the film Conclave did. The last three films to win Best Picture also won this award, making the Best Ensemble award a sort-of predictor of what would win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This deviation proves how unpredictable awards season truly is.Â
Now, we get to the mess. Mikey Madison won the Best Actress award for her titular role in Anora, in a major plot twist. Demi Moore was the favorite to win the award after having won a SAG award, a Golden Globe, and a Critic’s Choice award for her performance in The Substance. Fans are feeling slightly bitter about this snub considering the message of The Substance is about Hollywood devaluing older women. I haven’t seen either of these movies (life is crazy for me right now), so I can’t comment on whether Madison deserved her win or not. What I can comment on, however, is the live feed’s baffling choice to cut to Moore immediately after Madison finished her acceptance speech. Why did they do this? To stir up trouble by showing Moore being understandably upset about losing an award? In my opinion, this was a shady camera decision. Moore seems to be at peace with things, though, posting a lovely message to Madison on social media. Can we stop pitting women against each other? Please? Â
A film that has been plagued with controversy this awards season is The Brutalist. Clocking in at over three and a half hours, it stars Adrien Brody as an immigrant architect trying to achieve the nebulous American Dream. However, AI was used in The Brutalist to perfect actors’ Hungarian dialects and to create visual elements like architectural drawings. This backlash has been so strong the Oscars are considering requiring films to disclose whether they use artificial intelligence. This didn’t stop Adrien Brody from taking home the Best Actor award, though his acceptance of it was a bit…strange. Firstly, on the way up to the stage, he took a piece of gum out of his mouth and THREW IT at his girlfriend Georgina Chapman. WHAT. Then he delivered a five-minute speech that broke a record for the longest Academy Award acceptance address. This, I fear, is a record no one needed to surpass.Â
Finally, we get to the film that has had the most press—good, bad, and ugly: Emilia PĂ©rez. This movie has been besieged on all sides, from the Mexican community to the transgender community to the musical community. Finally, a film that brings everyone together. This intense backlash did not stop it from winning two Oscars, though. The first award went to Zoe Saldaña for Best Supporting Actress. She delivered a very emotional and heartfelt speech, but her attitude in the press junket rubbed some people the wrong way. A Mexican reporter asked Saldaña a question about the film’s representation of Mexico, and she replied, “For me, the heart of this movie was not Mexico. We weren’t making a film about a country.” This did not sit well with viewers, who pointed out online how the movie centers around Mexican drug cartels and gangs. But the most meme-worthy moment was still to come. The movie’s song “El Mal” won Best Original Song, and the writers Clement Ducol, Camille, and Jacques Audiard went up to accept their award. Then, out of nowhere, Camille began to sing. For no reason. And it wasn’t just one or two lines, either. It was almost twenty seconds of painfully uncomfortable singing. Of course, people online have been having a field day with this. At least it was funny.Â
Ultimately, the Oscars were a night of thrilling highs and borderline-comedic lows. But it was also some of the best television ever.Â