I thought 2024 was a better year for movies in general than 2023 as the industry shook off Covid and put out some big movies. There are still headwinds from streaming and sporadic theater attendance, but they are getting there. Likewise, this was a pretty decent Oscars night as well. Jimmy Kimmell returned again and handled things well, with some good opening jokes and a few funny bits (a good one with John Cena re-enacting the Oscars streaker of the 1974 to present, ironically, the award for Best Costume). One good joke was about the addition of an award for casting coming next year, so that now not only do you have to watch an acceptance speech by the actor who beat you out for the job, but also the person who didn’t think you were good enough. I was glad there were no efforts to do a spontaneous interview with some of the stars in the audience, but they did do a couple of nice bits with the seated Steven Spielberg, Michael Keaton, and Robert Downey, Jr. Some of the presenters kept things short and sweet, which is always safe. Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling were funny trading Barbenheimer barbs, but some of the presenters really bombed. Do they have rehearsals? Some of that should be filtered out. To keep things moving they kept montages, tributes, and production numbers to a minimum, though they did present all of the songs. Although another Barbie song won the Oscar, Ryan Gosling hit it out of the park with his song about Ken. There was also a neat performance of a Native American song from Killers of the Flower Moon. The other songs were forgettable, not unforgettable.
One annoying return was having past actor winners gush about the current nominees. They have been doing this for a few years and, while it is a nice idea for past winners to sort of confer blessings on the nominees, it is just, ick. It is so self-congratulatory (both for the former Oscar winner and the current nominee) and doesn’t even work that well most of the time (though the New York Times review said some of these were highlights of the broadcast). It is great when a legend can say something positive about a new star in a candid and supportive way, but this seems forced and just makes me cringe. Plus it is only for actors, so it also sends a message that the Oscars are all about the actors. I fast forwarded all of these. A minor item was that they asked winners to keep their speeches short by not naming publicists and agents, which I only know because one of the early winners said she wasn’t supposed to name them, but then did it anyway (as did most). Most of the winners did a good job of keeping their speeches short, but some just went on and on, which is just annoying. They are staring at a big clock and obliviously go past it. As I say ever year, just cut the mic. I liked that the Best Editing winner kept her speech on topic and brief, like a good editor. Honestly, I don’t mind as much from some of the big stars from movies I actually saw, but I still appreciate it when they wrap up quickly, like Cillian Murphy did. I don’t think the winners of a lot of the minor awards should even get to make speeches, but the winner of best short documentary actually did a very good job. I also think Robert Downey, Jr. did a great speech accepting his win for Best Supporting Actor.
This year there were three foreign movies up for Best Picture despite there being a separate category for foreign films. The only one I saw was Anatomy of a Fall which at least was partly in English. I don’t think it is fair to include those films in Best Picture given that most of the people voting can’t understand the language being spoken (making it hard, in my opinion, to gauge the acting performance or the writing). I like inclusion and representation, but there are a ton of movies and I think the Academy is kidding itself if it thinks it can accurately gauge the quality of every movie produced in the entire world and then say 70% of the best of the best are in English. Instead, don’t even try, but do keep the foreign language category because there are usually some gems there that deserve some recognition.
One thing they have been doing is they show a trailer for each of the movies nominated for Best Picture when they come back from a commercial. It is harmless enough and they seemed shorter this year, but with 10 movies, it is still kind of a lot. But then when they actually go to present the award, they didn’t even list the nominees first. Instead Al Pacino just said a few words spontaneously and then opened the envelope. It is anticlimatic that here is this big award and you don’t take 20 seconds to name the nominees (though I think it would be fine to just name the movies, not all of the producers, who are actually the ones who win the award).