95th Annual Academy Awards (2023)

 Oscars were last night.  Here's your recap.  

Jimmy Kimmel hosted for a third time but couldn't seem to get out of his own way, telling repetitive jokes about the Slap, the length of the telecast, and movies versus TV.  

Best Animated Feature went to Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio.

Best Supporting Actor went to Ke Huy Quan in one of the most emotional wins of the night.

Best Supporting Actress went to Jamie Lee Curtis.  I was really rooting for Stephanie Hsu or Hong Chau but if you consider this Oscar a lifetime achievement award for the number of times Curtis has been passed over in genre films, it stings a little less.  

Sofia Carson and Diane Warren performed "Applause", one of the nominated songs and frankly the second best musical number of the night, which isn't saying much.  All the performances except "Naatu Naatu" were low-energy.  Gaga looked like she was on MTV Unplugged, Rihanna seemed sleep-deprived, and David Byrne warbled off-key all over Stephanie Hsu.

Best Documentary Feature went to Navalny, which is the only one I saw in that category so that was lucky.

Best Live Action Short went to An Irish Goodbye, which I think was the only Irish thing that won all night.

Best Cinematography went to All Quiet on the Western Front.

Best Hair and Makeup went to The Whale because of course it did.

Best Costume Design went to Ruth Carter for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever making her the only African American with two Oscars.

Academy President Janet Yang came out in bedazzled choir robes looking like she was going to sentence people to the Phantom Zone.

Best International Feature went to All Quiet on the Western Front.

Best Documentary Short went to The Elephant Whisperers.

Best Animated Short went to The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse

Best Production Design went to All Quiet on the Western Front and so did Best Original Score.  At that point in the ceremony I started to get very nervous about Best Picture because All Quiet was winning too many things.

Best Visual Effects went to Avatar: The Way of Water because it used The Most Visual Effects Without Being Classified as Animated.

Best Original Screenplay went to Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Adapted Screenplay went to Women Talking, as is right and proper.

Best Sound went to Top Gun: Maverick.

Best Original Song went to "Naatu Naatu" from RRR.  Also the correct choice.

John Travolta came out looking like Wooly Willy to present the In Memorium, which left out Kevin Conroy and Charlbi Dean while also looking like a high schooler's attempt to be fancy with PowerPoint.

Best Film Editing went to Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Best Director went to The Daniels for EEAAO.

Best Actor went to Brendan Fraser, as expected.

Best Actress went to Michelle Yeoh just before they dropped the bombshell that this woman has no formal training in martial arts and in fact, trained as a ballerina.  So she's just a world-class athlete, then.  Even more badass.  

And Best Picture went to Everything Everywhere, the populist choice for once.

So there you have it.  I agreed with the majority of the choices for winner and I was pleased as punch that Banshees went home empty-handed.