every thought i had while watching the oscars
How is everyone feeling after Oscar Sunday?? This should come as no surprise to anyone subscribed to this newsletter, but I love the Academy Awards. Even in years when I haven’t seen any of the nominees, I am seated ready to watch the broadcast. I had seen most of the films nominated this year, and I did pretty good with my predictions. I correctly predicted 19 of the 23 awards, which might be my best ever. As I watched the red carpet and the ceremony, I took some notes so that I could share my thoughts with you. Enjoy!
The Red Carpet:
My best dressed is Carey Mulligan in a recreation of Balenciaga’s 1951 Flamenco dress. She looked stunning, and it was her final homage to her character Felicity Montealegre, as the gown is from the same year that she married Leonard Bernstein. This new trend of digging into archives for red carpets is maybe my favorite thing going on right now.
Anya Taylor-Joy also dug into the archives for a modern recreation of a Dior F/W 1949 gown. This choice felt bold considering that the dress famously inspired Glinda’s gown in Wicked, and Ariana Grande is in the room promoting the upcoming movie adaptation.
Lily Gladstone’s gown was a collaboration between Gucci and Indigenous artist Joe Big Mountain. It marks the first time that a high-fashion luxury label has collaborated with an Indigenous artist on an Oscars design. I highly recommend reading this Vogue article all about the gown.
Sandra Hüller's Schiaparelli Couture gown was beautifully severe, which I felt was a great nod to both of her performances this year.
The rest of the Barbie cast abstained from pink for the big night, and let America Ferrera really have the pink spotlight. I thought that was a really nice choice, and she looks radiant in this custom Versace chainmail look.
The Awards:
I thought that the opening monologue felt a little awkward, but fine. I don’t really know who I would want to host the Oscars, but I think it needs someone fresh.
I think the addition of a new award for excellence in casting is great. I am going to go ahead and predict that we will see a lot of the awards be thrown at biopic casting.
I love the old winners presenting, and I was very excited when they announced it. However… where were the clips? We still need the Oscar clips! Do both!
I love Rita Moreno, she is a gem of a human. I was so excited to see her. If you haven’t watched the documentary about her, go remedy that immediately.
a living legend!! Lupita Nyong’o still has one of my favorite Oscar gowns of all time, and I appreciate that she seemed to be paying homage to it.
Da'Vine Joy Randolph wearing her grandmothers glasses in The Holdovers is such a special detail, and I cried when she won even though it was maybe the most predictable win of the night. Her performance in the film was so moving and perfect, and she absolutely deserved the win.
I like the choice to put the script text over the clips for the screenplay awards.
My first prediction mistake was for original screenplay. I was still pulling for Past Lives, but I’m not mad about Anatomy of a Fall.
Justine Triet was giving Nicole Kidman at the AMC with that suit. I know that every annoying person on Earth has already made that joke, but it’s true.
The whole ceremony felt very anti-Marvel and I love it!
Having the costumes from the nominated films on mannequins on the screen is a cool touch. I want more stuff like that. It feels like a real celebration of the craft, and it allows viewers to see the work even if they weren’t able to see the movie before the ceremony.
It was a great year for costumes, and I think the Poor Things designs were fantastic and will have a lasting impact. I know many people thought it would go to Barbie. I think it ultimately came down to recreation vs. innovation. Those Poor Things costumes helped to create this entire new world in the film. I loved that the costume designer, Holly Waddington, had on Schiaparelli earrings. It felt like a nod to the surrealism of Poor Things.
don’t even get me started on the statement sleeves in this movie It feels like, in contrast to last year, the nominated songs were actually in the movies this year. Last year, if I am remembering correctly, they felt very end credits-y. I still think that the song from Theater Camp could have been nominated. Potentially over the Flaming Hot Cheeto song.
Speaking of the songs, I thought that the performance of “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” was a highlight of the evening. I loved seeing Lily Gladstone’s reaction. The whole performance felt like such a special moment.
The little montage to salute the stunt performers was nice, but it made me wonder why there isn’t an award for best stunt work?
I knew Robert Downey Jr. would win, but I still don’t agree. To me, that should have gone to Robert De Niro. I did appreciate that he thanked his stylist in his speech.
I love the Godzilla special effects team. They seem like a really fun bunch of coworkers just having the best time. The matching custom shoes are iconic!
obsessed! When it was time to cut to commercial and they said “The 96th Academy Awards are brought to you by Taylor Swift and the Eras Tour,” I almost choked on my pizza. She really is everywhere.
Obsessed with the girl from The Last Repair Shop.
slay diva! Was it sort of random when the whole show stopped because Don Julio paid to have a portion of the show where everyone did a shot? Well, yes! But it was fun!
yes queens! get that check! This joke about the Madame Web script might have been the funniest joke of the night.
Was Zone of Interest winning sound the biggest upset of the night? From what I’ve heard about the sound design of that film, it was well deserved. The speech was one of the only “political” moments from the broadcast, but it was really great.
The “I’m Just Ken” performance was a fabulous reminder that the Oscars could always use more camp. It’s so fun when they don’t take themselves too seriously!
I love dancers. I love to see a dance performance on television. However, why would you do a dance performance for the In Memoriam? It was so hard to watch the dancers and read the slideshow, but maybe that’s just my ADHD. I also hated that at the end they just threw a ton of small names on the screen, and then had a QR code to see more on the website. I would have cut some of Jimmy Fallon’s little jokey bits to have everyone’s name on the broadcast.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t care how long the Oscars are. They happen once a year! Guess what else is really long? The Super Bowl. It felt like they kept trying to shave off time, and kept apologizing for it being long. Let it be long! Show all of the people in the In Memoriam. Have clips. The broadcast wasn’t even as long as Killers of the Flower Moon. Calm down, ABC.
Loved the movie musical montage that played when Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande came out. (I screamed when they showed Liza doing Mein Herr) I loved that they were in pink and green. Just when you thought that we were done seeing pink red carpet looks… goodbye Barbie, hello Glinda!
will we get a “wickedly talented” joke next year?? I was really trying to guess who they were going to bring out for the Best Actress past winners and wrote down “if Cher comes out, I will scream.” I think that was when Nick Cage came out.
Wow Matthew McConaughey is so orange, it is concerning.
I am really happy that Cillian Murphy won. In my opinion, he is the reason that Oppenheimer works so well. The technical elements are impressive, but it’s really his performance that grounds the entire thing. I thought his speech was lovely.
It was Christopher Nolan’s year, and it feels correct that he has an Oscar now.
I have been in the Lily Gladstone army since the moment the credits rolled after Killers of the Flower Moon, so I was really rooting for her. I thought she would walk away with the award, but wow what a performance to lose to. Emma Stone was brilliant in Poor Things, so I can’t say that she doesn’t deserve it. They were two really different performances, and I guess it came down to the Academy’s preference. I would love to see the vote counts because this race had to have been so close. Emma seemed really surprised when she won, I think she might have thought that Lily was going to win too.
I know that the Louis Vuitton team saw the back of that dress and were praying that no one noticed. When she started her speech by informing everyone that the dress broke, they screamed. I hope they had an okay day at work today. Maybe it was good? Lot’s of people are talking about it!
Oppenheimer won, which we all saw coming from a mile away. I think everyone knew it would win even before it came out. Deserved!
