by Josh Sewell
Now that the dust has settled on the 97th Academy Awards, my overall reaction is… huh? Both the show and the winners were mostly good, which is a weird situation. Considering the ceremony typically gets bonus points for not being a total train wreck, a genuinely solid event is an unusual experience.
Putting on a live show is tough enough without simultaneously juggling all the massive egos in the room. So, the fact that host Conan O’Brien, his writers and the producers kept things interesting (mostly, at least… more on that in a moment) for almost four hours is a minor miracle.
As for my predictions, I got 18 out of 23 categories right. I’ve done better, but I didn’t mind this year’s track record since so many categories were unpredictable. At least before the ceremony – several of them seem obvious now, but hindsight is 20/20.
I made the mistake of going with my head instead of my heart in Best Animated Feature and Best Actress, which came back to bite me. Oh, well – I’m glad I got them wrong since I was rooting for the winners anyway.
With those initial thoughts out of the way, here are a handful of moments from this year’s ceremony that stood out most, for better or worse:
Better
Conan O’Brien as host
Hosting the Oscars is a thankless task. Screw up and everyone remembers forever. (Remember the Anne Hathaway/James Franco debacle?) But if you manage to do it right, everyone forgets pretty much immediately. O’Brien nailed it by showing he respected the people in the room and film as art, while also acknowledging they have pretty cushy jobs compared to the firefighters who saved a lot of their homes. He also brought the silliness from his classic late-night show with bits like the Dune sandworm playing piano and a brilliant fake ad designed to trick young viewers into theaters by pretending the movie is streaming on a bunch of phones. The Academy would be wise to invite him back.
Anora dominates
It doesn’t always happen, but 2024’s actual best movie won Best Picture. Anora also won for Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing. I’d argue co-star Yura Borisov should’ve also taken home the Best Supporting Actor prize, since winner Kieran Culkin (who was great, don’t get me wrong) was technically a co-lead in A Real Pain. Nevertheless, filmmaker Sean Baker became the first person since Walt Disney to win four Oscars in the same year. (Baker’s victory was even crazier because he won all his awards for the same movie. Disney got his for a few different ones.)
Flow wins Best Animated Feature
Although I love The Wild Robot and picked it to win this category, I was thrilled to see the dialogue-free Latvian movie Flow take home the Oscar instead. Currently streaming on Max, this tale of several animals surviving an apocalyptic flood by taking shelter in a boat is sweet, funny, sad and thrilling in equal measure. Hopefully its victory will ensure more people check it out. I can’t recommend it enough.
Speeches (Part 1)
In the almost century-long history of the Oscars, speeches are frequently the most insufferable part of the ceremony. If you give a trophy to someone with a massive ego and put them in front of a microphone, there’s no telling what’s going to come out of their mouth (see Part 2 below for examples). However, a handful of winners used their moment to make memorable, poignant and historic speeches. That includes the aforementioned Culkin, who used his time to publicly flirt with his wife; Saldana, who honored her ancestors as the first Dominican American to win an Oscar; and the Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers behind Best Documentary winner No Other Land, who pleaded for peace in their troubled region.
Worse
James Bond tribute
It wouldn’t be an Oscar ceremony without an unnecessary montage and/or dance number. This year it was a “celebration” of theme songs from the 007 franchise. To be honest, it felt more like a funeral for a character who was recently taken over by Amazon. I’m not sure why producers felt the need to devote almost 10 minutes of airtime to it, especially considering they got such lackluster singers to participate.
Get rid of Best Song
The Best Song nominees were so bad that producers didn’t even include them in the ceremony. In recent years, you could count on one hand the truly great songs up for this award. Considering the track record, it would be in the Academy’s best interest to replace this category with a Best Stunt Work award.
Annual “In Memoriam” omissions
While the Oscars made the right call in spotlighting recently departed legend Gene Hackman with a stirring tribute from his friend and Unforgiven co-star Morgan Freeman, the organization always seems to exclude many recognizable names in the “In Memoriam” segment. This year, those included Michelle Trachtenberg, Shannen Doherty and Tony Todd. I honestly don’t know how to solve a problem as touchy as this one when we seem to be losing more and more stars each year. But it seems like the Academy should adopt an all-or-nothing policy.
Speeches (Part 2)
Although this year’s ceremony had a lot of heartfelt speeches, you can always count on the Oscars to deliver remarks that make you cringe or roll your eyes. This time around they came from a few categories. The winners of Best Animated Short started out cute, but then the husband got frustrated and snatched the phone out of his wife’s hand. Not a good look. Then the winners of Best Song (an awful number from Emilia Perez ironically titled “El Mal”) tried to lead the audience in a sing-along that went nowhere because nobody remembered their terrible song. Yikes. Finally, when Adrien Brody won Best Actor (for the second time), he rambled for several minutes after rudely cutting off the orchestra when they tried to save him from himself.
Putting on a live show is tough enough without simultaneously juggling all the massive egos in the room. So, the fact that host Conan O’Brien, his writers and the producers kept things interesting (mostly, at least… more on that in a moment) for almost four hours is a minor miracle.
As for my predictions, I got 18 out of 23 categories right. I’ve done better, but I didn’t mind this year’s track record since so many categories were unpredictable. At least before the ceremony – several of them seem obvious now, but hindsight is 20/20.
I made the mistake of going with my head instead of my heart in Best Animated Feature and Best Actress, which came back to bite me. Oh, well – I’m glad I got them wrong since I was rooting for the winners anyway.
With those initial thoughts out of the way, here are a handful of moments from this year’s ceremony that stood out most, for better or worse:
Better
Conan O’Brien as host
Hosting the Oscars is a thankless task. Screw up and everyone remembers forever. (Remember the Anne Hathaway/James Franco debacle?) But if you manage to do it right, everyone forgets pretty much immediately. O’Brien nailed it by showing he respected the people in the room and film as art, while also acknowledging they have pretty cushy jobs compared to the firefighters who saved a lot of their homes. He also brought the silliness from his classic late-night show with bits like the Dune sandworm playing piano and a brilliant fake ad designed to trick young viewers into theaters by pretending the movie is streaming on a bunch of phones. The Academy would be wise to invite him back.
Anora dominates
It doesn’t always happen, but 2024’s actual best movie won Best Picture. Anora also won for Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing. I’d argue co-star Yura Borisov should’ve also taken home the Best Supporting Actor prize, since winner Kieran Culkin (who was great, don’t get me wrong) was technically a co-lead in A Real Pain. Nevertheless, filmmaker Sean Baker became the first person since Walt Disney to win four Oscars in the same year. (Baker’s victory was even crazier because he won all his awards for the same movie. Disney got his for a few different ones.)
Flow wins Best Animated Feature
Although I love The Wild Robot and picked it to win this category, I was thrilled to see the dialogue-free Latvian movie Flow take home the Oscar instead. Currently streaming on Max, this tale of several animals surviving an apocalyptic flood by taking shelter in a boat is sweet, funny, sad and thrilling in equal measure. Hopefully its victory will ensure more people check it out. I can’t recommend it enough.
Speeches (Part 1)
In the almost century-long history of the Oscars, speeches are frequently the most insufferable part of the ceremony. If you give a trophy to someone with a massive ego and put them in front of a microphone, there’s no telling what’s going to come out of their mouth (see Part 2 below for examples). However, a handful of winners used their moment to make memorable, poignant and historic speeches. That includes the aforementioned Culkin, who used his time to publicly flirt with his wife; Saldana, who honored her ancestors as the first Dominican American to win an Oscar; and the Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers behind Best Documentary winner No Other Land, who pleaded for peace in their troubled region.
Worse
James Bond tribute
It wouldn’t be an Oscar ceremony without an unnecessary montage and/or dance number. This year it was a “celebration” of theme songs from the 007 franchise. To be honest, it felt more like a funeral for a character who was recently taken over by Amazon. I’m not sure why producers felt the need to devote almost 10 minutes of airtime to it, especially considering they got such lackluster singers to participate.
Get rid of Best Song
The Best Song nominees were so bad that producers didn’t even include them in the ceremony. In recent years, you could count on one hand the truly great songs up for this award. Considering the track record, it would be in the Academy’s best interest to replace this category with a Best Stunt Work award.
Annual “In Memoriam” omissions
While the Oscars made the right call in spotlighting recently departed legend Gene Hackman with a stirring tribute from his friend and Unforgiven co-star Morgan Freeman, the organization always seems to exclude many recognizable names in the “In Memoriam” segment. This year, those included Michelle Trachtenberg, Shannen Doherty and Tony Todd. I honestly don’t know how to solve a problem as touchy as this one when we seem to be losing more and more stars each year. But it seems like the Academy should adopt an all-or-nothing policy.
Speeches (Part 2)
Although this year’s ceremony had a lot of heartfelt speeches, you can always count on the Oscars to deliver remarks that make you cringe or roll your eyes. This time around they came from a few categories. The winners of Best Animated Short started out cute, but then the husband got frustrated and snatched the phone out of his wife’s hand. Not a good look. Then the winners of Best Song (an awful number from Emilia Perez ironically titled “El Mal”) tried to lead the audience in a sing-along that went nowhere because nobody remembered their terrible song. Yikes. Finally, when Adrien Brody won Best Actor (for the second time), he rambled for several minutes after rudely cutting off the orchestra when they tried to save him from himself.
Reach out to Josh Sewell at joshsewell81@gmail.com or on BlueSky @joshsewell.bsky.social
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