Well, would you look at that. Anora ended up the big winner of the night, picking up 5 trophies (the same 5 I predicted!). In the face of a strange crop of nominees, voters ended up going all in on the film they liked the best. And while Anora feels like an unusual winner, it also feels like part of a bigger trend within the Academy lately of rewarding more idiosyncratic films that speak to a wide swath of voters, even if they don’t initially appear to be obvious Oscar films.
Sean Baker now ties the record for most wins in one night with 4 Oscars. As I suspected, when presented with a crop of filmmakers with no real career narrative for the win, the guy with the most well liked filmography wins. Audiard and Mangold have had good careers, but both are more journeymen than auteurs. Fargeat was too new and backing a horror film, and Corbet just has no real identity yet as a filmmaker to justify giving him a bunch of Oscars yet. Baker hit the sweet spot of auteur and fresh voice, and he was rewarded.
Mikey Madison was a great “surprise” win, but I knew she had it when Baker won everything else to that point. I could tell voters loved Anora, and the nomination felt like the win for Demi. She was great, but her win still would have been for her narrative and not the performance.
Otherwise, it was a mostly good if languid show. It wasn’t among the very longest shows in Academy history, but it felt like it at times. When Conan came on over two hours into the show to say we were halfway done, I was worried, but they picked up the pace. Truly, I’m never that worried about the length of the show, but I do ask that they keep things spritely and fun. While Conan did an incredible job (let’s get him back ASAP), there were just too many decisions that slowed the show to a halt. Why did half the honorary winners get special tributes tonight with song and dance numbers? Why did some actors get long tributes instead of just clips? The show could have been tightened, although a number of decisions I thought were fresh and rewarding.
Having 5 actors from nominated films come out to fete the craftspeople was a nice change of pace from the way they’ve done it in the past, and gave a more direct line between the praiser and praisee. And the way they’ve done handled Song, by having the songwriters talk about their inspiration was great in a year when the songs just weren’t worth performing. And the In Memorium section was largely well done, save for the baffling music choice.
So all in all, a good year for the winners and the show. Fingers crossed Conan can come back again soon, he was a great choice. And clearly we have entered a new era of the Academy that is made up far more by young and foreign voters. What this means for the future is exciting!
Some final thoughts:
- Well, after hyping Hulu as the first time you could watch the Oscars via stream, they really shat the bed. Sounds like a lot of people couldn't log in at the start, and then they cut the feed during the Best Actress presentation. Truly an amateur operation they have over there.
- I went 20/23 this year. I was so close to a perfect score, only missing Animated film and two Shorts. I went out on a limb in a few categories, and they all paid off. None more so than that Mikey Madison call I made, which I am quite proud of.
- So what have we learned about the Academy this year? They favor sweeps again after years of shunning them. The last three years have all been sweeps of a sort. They also want to reward an actor from the Best Picture. So if someone from the presumed frontrunner is neck and neck with another actor, they might just be the real winner. And voters like International films. Two Best Picture nominees this year, and Flow also won in the Animated category. I have to assume Fernanda Torres was also close to a win.
- Indeed, I think my favorite win in any category of the night was I'm Still Here in International. Not only was it my favorite film nominated in any category, but it was also able to stop Emila Perez from winning another trophy. So win-win!
- So let's really talk about the James Bond and Quincy Jones tributes. On the one hand, I like them giving more than a cursory nod towards the Honorary Oscar winners. But by only focusing on two of them, it made the other two feel less-than. And they also didn't let the Bond producers speak, while the Quincy Jones one felt almost like an excuse to get yet another Wizard of Oz related song on the show. I'm all for them reintegrating the Honorary winners into the show, but not sure this was the best way to do that.
- Best joke I read all night: They remembered to include the James Bond franchise in the In Memorium.
So, another year with a great set of winners and a largely successful show. I hope this trend continues as we march towards what will hopefully be an especially great 100th anniversary show in a few years. This year I'm most excited to see how they handle the new Oscar category: Casting. It's been long overdue, and I'm curious to see what kinds of films get nominated, and if they'll be able to convince ABC to include it on the show given they agreed to not add any more categories to the show when they signed their contract. We shall see!
