It was also a night to be reminded that my critical tastes are not as out of sync with other people's as I sometimes think.
You see, not only did my #4 film of the year, Everything Everywhere All at Once, take home a stunning seven Oscars -- the most for any film since Slumdog Millionaire in 2008 -- but the third most Oscars were won by my #1 film of the year, The Whale, which picked up a surprise best makeup Oscar in addition to the expected best actor win for Brendan Fraser.
The second most? All Quiet on the Western Front with four. I ranked that only 67th for the year, but that could hardly detract from my overall satisfaction with how things played out.
And that included the ceremony itself. With Jimmy Kimmel casting a comfortable calm over the proceedings after "the incident" last year, this was a competent, enjoyable, and totally unremarkable Academy Awards.
Unremarkable, I suppose, except for the absolute dominance of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which almost made us sick of seeing the charming Daniels on stage. By collecting statue after statue over the course of the evening, EEAAO conspired with AQOTWF to entirely shut out five best picture nominees, a full half of the field: The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, The Fabelmans, Tar and Triangle of Sadness. Of the remaining best picture nominees, one Oscar each was picked up by Avatar: The Way of Water (visual effects), Top Gun: Maverick (sound) and Women Talking (adapted screenplay).
Since Elvis and The Banshees of Inisherin were also in my top ten, I was a little disappointed to see them come away empty handed -- except again, see the whole "nine combined Oscars to films in my top four of 2022" and know that "disappointed" could never be the right word.
And hey, my #2 movie of the year, Don't Worry Darling, even got a mention when Kimmel asked Malala, of all people, whether Harry Styles actually spit on Chris Pine. I couldn't hear what her response was, but those who did, including Kimmel, seemed to think it was funny and/or appropriate.
I could look up what Malala said, but I'm here to give you the same sort of instant impressions I've always given you in the past, free from the reading of ten Oscar recap stories -- as though I were, in fact, writing it in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, like I usually do, rather than mid-afternoon on Monday. That's right, if you read yesterday's post, you know that I saw the Oscars live this year for the first time since moving to Australia, due being off work for the Labour Day holiday. I have enough of my own observations that I don't need to steal anyone else's, inadvertently or otherwise.
So with all the deserved kudos to Everything -- which failed to win an award in only three categories where it was nominated, those being original song, original score and costume design (with Stephanie Hsu failing to win best supporting actress but her co-star Jamie Lee Curtis winning instead) -- let's move on to the page of notes I scribbled as I was watching the ceremony on my projector in my darkened garage.
- Kimmel parachuting in. Nice memorable entrance and a unique nod to "the film that saved Hollywood," Top Gun: Maverick.
- Kimmel mentions that Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraser appeared in Encino Man, making this a bad night for Pauly Shore. It would be even worse when both won the Oscars for which they were nominated.
- Five Irish actors nominated for Oscars? That's a lot.
- Kimmel's Will Smith jokes are good. It came later, but I'll mention it now: When the documentary feature was about to be presented, that being the category where Smith slapped Chris Rock last year, Kimmel quipped that he hoped it "would go off without a hitch, and without Hitch." Good line. I didn't end up posting much during the ceremony -- the notable exception coming in just a moment -- but I at least thought about posting "Will Smith is currently trying to schedule a time when he can slap Jimmy Kimmel." But then I just decided not to delve into that particular controversy. (Hey, Smith has tried to repent. I'm aware of that.)
- He had a good opening monologue but I did think it went on a little long. Having the RRR dancers dance him off the stage was a nice touch.
- Dwayne Johnson is looking older than I've ever seen him look.
- It was interesting to see Ariana DeBose choke up when she read Ke Huy Quan's name. I'm not usually in favor of when presenters let their preference be known, but this was clearly unpremeditated. (Who knows, maybe the enormity of the moment would have made her choke up over any name that was in that envelope.)
- Here was my one post on Facebook while the ceremony was airing: "Yes Ke Huy Quan just thanked Chunk." Chunk, of course, is a character in The Goonies, in which Quan also appeared, and he was played by Jeff Cohen. I recognized the name, though I assume not everyone would have.
- Before we move on from Quan, I'll say that only in the past year have I learned how his name is actually pronounced. When I first learned of him in The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, I always chose to pronounce his name as "Kay Hu Quan." At least I got the Quan part right. There were no pronunciation websites back then, nor do I expect most media who would have said his name at the time -- though I may not have heard any -- would have gone to great lengths to get it right. So he's always been "Kay Hu Quan" to me, but I will try to change it to "Key Way Quan" now, especially now that he's an Oscar winner and there's a good chance he is going to become instantly overexposed.
- Curtis wins best actress and delivers this good line: "I am hundreds of people." One of a number of choice lines about the collaborative medium that we would hear on this night.
- Nice touch giving David Byrne hot dog fingers in his song from EEAAO. That's a direct descendant of his famed big suit. Byrne was also the first celebrity whose age I looked up, and the first to guess exactly right before I looked it up. He's 70, and that's what I guessed he was.
- Why did the makeup winners for The Whale take so long to get up on stage?
- Samuel L. Jackson was the next age I guessed. I guessed he was 74. He is, indeed, 74. Wow I'm good at this.
- Ruth Carter wins for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever costume design, repeating her feat for the original Black Panther (and becoming the first Black woman to win two Oscars, I now see looking online. My rules are, I'm allowed to verify facts, just not steal other people's observations). Her line about her mother becoming "an ancestor" this past week was touching. Then later we learn her mother was 101 when she died. So, I guess it wasn't a surprise.
- The RRR song brought the house down, in a typical example of Bollywood's commitment to spectacle. I almost wonder if some of the voting occurred during the ceremony, as I was not expecting "Naatu Naatu" to win best original song (nor its writer to sing his acceptance speech!). But I'm glad it did as the only other two songs that probably stood a chance, from divas Lady Gaga and Rhianna, were blandly inspirational tunes with no staying power.
- Also, why the extreme close-up during your song, Gaga? It looked like she had some kind of rash on her face that they didn't cover very well with makeup.
- Women Talking winning best adapted screenplay might have been a bit of a makeup call for Sarah Polley not getting a best director nom, which was fretted about quite a bit. Although you will recall that I did end up liking that film quite a bit, its dialogue is clunky in enough parts that I don't know if a writing category was the best place for it to be honored. I did like seeing Polley, a longtime favorite of mine, giving an acceptance speech.
- I'm not sure how Walter Mirisch, who I had to google, snuck in to steal the last spot in the "in memoriam" section, when they seemed to have it all cued up for Raquel Welch. He produced In the Heat of the Night, and good for him for doing that, but it wasn't a great way to reach a climax in this sentimental tradition.
- I guessed Mindy Kaling's age wrong, but not really. I guessed she was 47, but before I looked I thought "No, she's only 43." But for some reason I counted the original guess as 47. She's actually 43.
- The editor for EEAAO, Paul Rogers, didn't really win me over with his humble brag that this was only his second film. (Also I quibble with the accuracy of that, as he shows as the credited editor on both Daniel Scheinert's The Death of Dick Long and the documentary You Can't Kill David Arquette. I suppose he was only talking about fiction films.) I know he didn't mean to say "Wow, I'm such a prodigy, I won an Oscar in only my second film" and it was really probably more like "I really didn't expect this given the relative infancy of my career," but then he made it worse by talking about how working with the cast was "the honor of his career." Yes, a career that is only two narrative features long.
- Winning as an original screenwriter -- or was it as a director? -- Daniel Kwan gives another good line about the collaborative process: "Genius emerges from the collective."
- Really glad to see Fraser win. I hope this once and for all silences everyone who didn't like The Whale and thought I was crazy for picking it as my best of the year. I know it won't.
- Michelle Yeoh, you are certainly not past your prime.
- Loved seeing Quan stand to applaud Harrison Ford as he walked on stage to give out best picture, and was reminded again how funny Harrison Ford is. Whenever you think he'd rather be smoking pot on his ranch and is only involved in entertainment for cynical reasons, he starts appearing in every other TV show and movie and giving out the final Oscar of the night. You're an old estabalishment-embracing softie, Harrison, we all know it. You can't fool us.
- Kimmel gets off a final good line about joining Good Morning America already in progress, and exits next to a sign that reads "Number of telecasts without incident: 001."
- In the end I did finally guess one age definitively incorrectly. I thought Kimmel was 56, but it turns out he's only 55.
So that finally closes the book on 2022. Now what do I do with the rest of my day?
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