The Academy Awards remain Hollywood’s most prestigious night, but in recent years, they have also become a lightning rod for criticism. From uneven hosting and drawn-out ceremonies to surprising snubs and shifting industry dynamics, the Oscars continue to reflect both the glamour and the growing pains of modern cinema. Journalist Rehna Azim presents her list of ten defining moments and observations from this year’s Academy Awards.
• 1 | Actors say they won’t do a film unless the script is great but seem happy to engage in unfunny, badly written “banter” when they present an award. Can awards shows simply not find anyone who can write decent jokes? The last truly funny hosts of award shows, in recent years, were Ricky Gervais and Tina Fey and Amy Poehler at the Golden Globes.
- 2 | Awards season is way too long. Several nominees looked exhausted and/or over it, e.g., Stellan Skarsgård and Jacob Elordi.
- 3 | Timothée Chalamet showed more grace both during the show and when he didn’t win Best Actor than the people on stage who ragged on him all night. Like it or not, he will join the pantheon of the acting greats he aspires to. The Academy seems averse to giving young actors their dues early in their careers (it seems to have less of a problem doing so with young actresses). It will be interesting to see which of the current hot triumvirate of Timothée Chalamet, Austin Butler, and Jacob Elordi will get their Oscar first. For now, they seem to be following the trajectory of Leonardo DiCaprio, who didn’t win for superb performances in many films and became the subject of memes where the Oscar was forever out of his reach. He finally prevailed with a win for The Revenant.
- 4 | Leo himself carried the weight of “one of the last great movie stars” alone for Hollywood on its biggest night. “Leo’s hot again,” trilled many across social media, as a slim, tanned DiCaprio graciously took another Best Actor loss in his stride but went up with the One Battle After Another team to collect his third Oscar for Best Picture. What a filmography this man is going to end up with!
- 5 | Jessie Buckley’s stylist finally got it right! Buckley’s sweep of awards season has been astonishing and fully deserved, but her outfits have been more miss than hit. However, the red and pink combination of her Chanel gown was pretty and feminine. The off-the-shoulder red wrap at the top represented the heart and power of her character, Agnes, and the flowing baby pink skirt was the tenderness.
- 6 | The In Memoriam section had some moving moments. Barbra Streisand came out to a podium for her tribute to Robert Redford, suggesting she wasn’t going to sing, but then broke out into a couple of lines of The Way We Were. Her voice may not be what it used to be, but it was a touching moment. However, disgracefully, the section left out a cinema icon. Brigitte Bardot was not even acknowledged with a photo, let alone a montage of her roles. Considering that lesser-known European actors and actresses were shown, it’s hard not to see it as a snub.
- 7 | The ceremony gave a perfunctory mention to superstar Tom Cruise for his honorary Oscar in November but didn’t show any clips. This is a man who has made billions for the industry and is one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Lack of time is no excuse in a four-hour ceremony that expects people to sit through categories such as short animated film—films no one has seen or will ever see—made by a gazillion people, all of whom go on stage and individually want to thank everyone they’ve ever met.
- 8 | Even when actors are told not to do something, some of them feel it’s their God-given right to break the rules, e.g., no politics, not reeling off a list of names of people to thank.
- 9 | In recent years, it’s become common to win the biggest accolade in the industry, be given a stage to reach hundreds of millions around the globe, and still say you feel unseen and unacknowledged.
- 10 | Kate Hawley, who won Best Costume Design for Frankenstein, collected her Oscar from Dame Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief at Vogue magazine, and actually curtsied to her! Getting Wintour to help promote The Devil Wears Prada 2 was a bit of a coup, and Miss Wintour’s comedic timing and line delivery were actually top-notch.
Photos: Copyright©A.M.P.A.S.
