The 94th Annual Academy Awards were handed out Sunday night. The Oscars were embroiled in controversy before the show even began and controversy extended into the live event.
The Academy decided to move eight awards (including ones for editing, sound, production design, makeup/hairstyling, original score, production design) to a pre-show ceremony and then cut those winners' acceptance speeches into the live telecast. The move outraged the guilds representing those craft categories but that controversy has taken a back seat to a new one.
'Summer of Soul' over 'The Slap'
Let's get this out of the way because the Will Smith-Chris Rock incident from Sunday night symbolizes the problem I had with the Oscar show, which was that too much of it was not about celebrating cinema.
Rock told a joke — one deemed in bad taste by many — that targeted Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, and resulted with Smith storming the stage and slapping Rock. Then, in a moment censored from the ABC telecast, Smith told the comedian to "Keep my wife’s name out your f—ing mouth." To which Rock said, "Will Smith just smacked the s— of of me." That unscripted moment made the audience gasp and immediately dominated social media. Rock responded professionally and went about his duty of giving out the best documentary award. Smith's behavior was unacceptable, hitting someone over a joke no matter how bad or unfunny, it's just not right and distracted from what the show should have been exclusively about — the films and artists who won.
The win that should have had everyone's attention was Ahmir Questlove Thompson's brilliant "Summer of Soul" for Best Documentary. Here's some of what Thompson said during his wonderful acceptance speech:
"It's not lost on me that the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival should have been something that my beautiful mother, my dad, should have taken me to when I was five years old, and this is such a stunning moment for me right now, but this is not about me. This is about marginalized people in Harlem that needed to heal from pain. Just know that in 2022 this is not just a 1969 story about marginalized people in Harlem. This is a story of — I'm sorry. I'm just overwhelmed right now," Thompson said accepting the award.
Streamlined show... not really
Since last year's ratings were the lowest in history for the Oscar telecast, the big push was to streamline the show, make it more entertaining, and bring on people or events that would draw viewers. The show failed on all counts for me. It felt designed to be one long seamless commercial blurring the lines between the show and the ads. So actor Chris Evans appeared in a produced video clip and congratulated Troy Kotsur for the win the audience just saw and then he segued into a paid commercial ad for his new film. Which part was the show and which the commercial? Who knows. And the commercial spots ran right into trailers representing the best picture nominees. Crypto.com was the telecast sponsor and there was a moment of silence on the show for the people of Ukraine and that ran right into an ad for Crypto.com offering to match donations to help those in the Ukraine.
The format seemed designed to reduce channel surfing but not to best highlight the work nominated. It was all just about getting through it all quickly. Yet the show still ran over three hours.
The show opened with Venus and Serena Williams introducing Beyoncé performing "Be Alive" from "King Richard" from the Compton tennis courts where they played. The sisters, displaying glamour and style off of the courts, served as executive producers on the film that looked to the role their father played in their lives. Everyone and everything in the production number was in a shade of tennis ball optic yellow, and Beyoncé and her dancers were completely isolated on the tennis courts. An aerial shot revealed that the fences around the courts were completely covered, perhaps to make sure that no one distracted from the performance, but it did reflect how the Oscars felt removed from the real world.
And speaking of removed, there was no orchestra this year as the show opened with a DJ playing music. I think the removal of the orchestra opened up the area where nominees sat at tables instead of in seats. It gave it a more open look but also a different sound.
What were they thinking awards go to...
And here are just a few of the weird things the show served up. The in memoriam segment had singers and dancers sometimes blocking the names of the dead artists although there were three lovely tributes highlighting Sidney Poitier (from Tyler Perry), Ivan Reitman (from Bill Murray) and Betty White (from Jamie Lee Curtis). The segment ended with a graphic instructing us to visit the Oscars website for a longer list of people who had died. Beloved actors Ed Asner and Bob Saget were notably left out.
In addition, Tony Hawk (skateboarder), Kelly Slater (surfer), and Shaun White (snowboarder) introduced the James Bond at 60 tribute because the lame idea was that 007 was a "game changer." Judi Dench, M from multiple Bond movies, was sitting right there in the audience! Couldn't they have gotten her? Or what about any of the still living Bonds? It made no sense but at least the montage of clips was nice.
Celebrating film landmarks
There were also a number of anniversaries noted with reunions of Wesley Snipes (in the evening's snazziest suit), Rosie Perez and Woody Harrelson from "White Men Can't Jump;" Jennifer Garner, Elliott Page, and J.K. Simmons from "Juno;" and Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and John Travolta from "Pulp Fiction." And a tribute to the 50th anniversary of "The Godfather." That tribute had another odd choice of presenter in P. Diddy and the montage replaced Nino Rota's memorable score with some rap music, which seemed out of place. That might have worked with "Scarface" but not "The Godfather." And why bring out Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro and not even let those actors say a word?
Fan favorites and bad writing
The telecast claimed to want to cut time but new awards were added for fan favorites — "most cheerworthy moment" and "fan favorite film" — all voted on by people on Twitter. There were no presenters and no one to accept these awards and they just played out in strange isolation with Zack Snyder's fans showing their muscle by voting "Justice League" and "Army of the Dead" awards.
The show's attempts at comedy often bombed. It was hosted by three talented women, Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes, but they were rarely on stage and when they were the material was often bad. Although Schumer joked that three women were "cheaper" than one male host.
There was a comedy segment poking fun at the Academy's new museum with Sykes. Hall did a cringe-inducing gag involving hot guys coming up on stage because they needed a private COVID-19 test backstage administered by Hall. Then she felt up presenters Josh Brolin and Jason Mamoa in another COVID-19 test-related joke. That sketch would have gotten everyone canceled if the gender roles were reversed. This was in as much bad taste as Rock's joke.
Some wonderful, historic wins
I was very happy about wins for "Drive My Car" (best international feature from Japan) and "CODA." "CODA" took best screenplay and best supporting actor, and it's win for best picture represented the first such Oscar for a streaming platform, in this case, Apple.
The Academy’s push for more diverse members seems to have yielded diversity in some of the winners. Ariana DeBose made some Oscar history with her win for Best Supporting Actress in "West Side Story." She is the first Afro-Latina and openly queer actor of color to win. She was definitely the best thing in the film and she acknowledged Rita Moreno (who won an Oscar for playing Anita as well in 1962) saying: "the divine inspiration that is Rita Moreno. You're staring at me right now. And I am so grateful. Your Anita paved the way for tons of Anitas like me, and I love you so much."
Her gracious and inspiring acceptance speech for that first award of the night set the tone of diversity.
She said: "Imagine this little girl in the backseat of a white Ford focus. Look into her eyes. You see queer — an openly queer woman of color, an Afro‑Latina, who found her strength in life through art. And that's what I believe we're here to celebrate. Yeah. So, to anybody who has ever questioned your identity, ever, ever, or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this: There is indeed a place for us."
Actor Troy Kotsur, speaking through a translator in his acceptance speech for winning best supporting actor for "CODA" was hands down the most of the night. After joking about going to the White House and contemplating teaching the president some dirty words in sign language, he recalled something deeply personal.
"My dad, he was the best signer in our family, but he was in a car accident, and he became paralyzed from the neck down, and he no longer was able to sign. Dad, I learned so much from you. I'll always love you. You are my hero," Kotsur said.
Other awards: Kenneth Branagh won best original screenplay for his very personal "Belfast" and Jane Campion added one more woman to the best director's circle for her work on "The Power of the Dog."
Will Smith won best actor for "King Richard" and called himself a "vessel of love," while Jessica Chastain won best actress for "The Eyes of Tammy Faye."
Her speech included these comments: "Right now we are coming out of some difficult times that have been filled with a lot of trauma and isolation. And so many people out there feel hopelessness and they feel alone. And suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. It's touched many families. It's touched mine. And especially members of the LGBTQ community who oftentimes feel out of place with their peers. There is — we're faced with discriminatory and bigoted legislation that is sweeping our country with the only goal of further dividing us. There's violence and hate crimes being perpetuated on innocent civilians all over the world. And in times like this I think of Tammy, and I'm inspired by her radical acts of love. We've talked about love a lot tonight. I'm inspired by her compassion, and I see it as a guiding principle that leads us forward and it connects us all and the desire that we want to be accepted for who we are, accepted for who we love and to live a life without the fear of violence or terror."
"Dune" took home key craft awards in the pre-show awards for editing, sound (which also had its two separate categories of mixing and editing combined into one), original score and production design. These awards were abruptly cut into the show with no presenter and just a voice over announcer signaling the award.
Editor Joe Walker gave the audience a light moment as he said in his speech: "In the hands of a skilled 17-year-old, the words ‘Oscar-nominated’ can be used as an insult. In the middle of a dispute my daughter once said to me: ‘Well it’s all very well for you, Oscar-nominated Joe Walker. So, thank you Academy for this upgrade — I need all the help I can get."
"Dune" took home best cinematography and visual effects in awards handed out during the live show.
Even with cutting key categories out of the live show and editing them in as quick bites, the telecast still ran long. My suggestion would be to remove the best song category as an award. Then there would be hardly any songs in movies and those bloated productions numbers could all be cut and we would have enough time for all the awards and acceptance speeches.
All in all, this show made me sad. I know the Oscars have never really been about honoring the best work — popularity, box office and other industry insider shenanigans have always been factors swaying results — but this year the frantic push to get ratings at any cost just exposed the shortcomings in bold relief.
Well another Oscar show down. When the ratings come in then the Academy will decide if the show was a success or not because it is obviously not capable of deciding that on its own.
Full list of winners is here.
