The Sun in Yarraville was decked out in pink, as were the eager beavers coursing through its lobby, many of them carrying drinks or posing for photos in the life-sized Barbie packaging.
Meanwhile, my screening of Oppenheimer in one of the Sun's smallest screening rooms was attended by three other men, all older than me.
There were a couple obvious explanations for this last. One was that it was far more popular to attend a 70 mm screening of Oppenheimer at the Sun on one of its largest screenings, though that showing was halfway through its running time, so I wouldn't have seen any of those excited attendees in the lobby or anywhere else.
But I thought I'd collected enough evidence about the relative merits of these two movies to write a post entitled "Barbie wins," which you can find here if you are so inclined.
Nearly seven months later, in the competition that confers on a film its immortality, Oppenheimer has emerged as the ultimate winner, taking home the statue for best picture at the 96th Academy Awards.
It was only my seventh favorite of the best picture nominees at my ranking deadline, and would now fall to eighth behind The Zone of Interest. But it was still my 26th ranked film overall in 2023, so I'm happier about this win than I have been about many of the best picture wins in the past decade.
And as I told you I would yesterday, I watched the ceremony live for the second year in a row -- an hour earlier, as you know, so the 10 a.m. start time basically meant it did not impede on the trajectory of our Labour Day one iota.
Here is what would have been my "live tweets" if I were on Twitter and if it were still called Twitter.
- The Australian television network 7+ is really making me kiss the ring in order to stream the Oscars for free. They've required me to sit through seven ads, in increasing agitation, in order to start watching. Fortunately, the telecast did then play from the start.
- Back to extensively praising the acting nominees. It's going to be a long night.
- How did I never hear Da'Vine Joy Randolph's name pronounced correctly before now?
- Rita Moreno must be the most still-coherent person over 90 in Hollywood.
- Love that Paul Giamatti was seated next to Randolph and had a tear in his eye during her acceptance speech, which was very nice, even if she did not thank him (or anyone else in the film, for that matter).
- I got the animated short winner correct so my first miss of the night comes when The Boy and the Heron wins best animated feature. It was dumb to go against Hayao Miyazaki's last film, even if I didn't like it very much. (Then again my guess, Across the Spider-Verse, was not a personal favorite either. But I knew Elemental had no shot.)
- Okay I liked that adapted screenplay joke by Jimmy Kimmel, who is off to a fairly disappointing start otherwise.
- What are Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer talking about?
- I'm surprised that I correctly picked Anatomy of a Fall to win best original screenplay. I'm also surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be, that they played "P.I.M.P." as accompaniment to Justine Triet walking on stage. (Great, now it will be in my head again for the next three weeks.)
- The Oppenheimer sweep is officially off as it loses best adapted screenplay to American Fiction. (It didn't win for best supporting actress either but that was never going to happen.)
- Cord Jefferson is really likable.
- Billie Eilish comes on stage and I continue to amuse myself by calling her "Billie Eyelash." But I don't know why we need 50 different shots of people reacting to her Barbie song.
- Speaking of possible sweeps, Poor Things is going after all the art and design awards. (And I actually wrote this before it won for its costumes. Unfortunately, best costume was the only one of those things I picked correctly.)
- The John Cena bit was funny. "Costumes ..." (pause for laughter). Good stuff.
- Okay, the reactions to the Killers of the Flower Moon song were many, so I guess this is a thing this year.
- Will Jonathan Glazer winning an Oscar cause him to want to make more movies? I hope so.
- The Gosling-Blunt Barbie-Oppenheimer rivalry bit was funny. When they introduced the montage on stunts, though, I wondered if they were finally giving out an Oscar for stunts and I just missed it on my ballot this year.
- That is one hirsute Sam Rockwell.
- It's taken a long time but Oppenheimer finally has its first win of the night. Robert Downey Jr. seems like he should have won an Oscar before, but it's only his third nomination. Unsurprisingly snarky acceptance speech, but with enough heart.
- The Oppenheimer editor is adorable.
- Okay, as Oppenheimer has now appeared in each of my last three comments, the momentum for it is building as it wins for Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography.
- Of course Wes Anderson did not show up, even though it was expected he would win.
- Wait, what is the movie Flamin' Hot again? (Checks IMDB.) Holy shit it's about Cheetos and Eva Longoria directed it!
- John Mulaney made me laugh out loud with the second rip of Madame Web of the evening, but then I missed most of his bit about Field of Dreams because my wife and son came into the garage needing to get the beach tent. Okay, so much for having the day not impacted by the Oscars and vice versa.
- Picking Oppenheimer to win all the technical awards lets me down again. I should have figured that the sound in Zone of Interest was one of its best bets at an Oscar.
- I think it's funny that England has Mother's Day in March. The English-speaking countries need to get together and figure this stuff out. Australia and the U.S. both have it on the same Sunday in May, but they do deviate on Father's Day (which is in September here). I have no idea when British Father's Day is.
- Okay, Ryan Gosling is reminding me again of how awesome he was in Barbie. Remember when he went away for a few years? So glad he's back, and it looks like Fall Guy will be super fun.
- Wait, Slash?
- Every Oscars needs a bring-the-house-down number. That was it. But thank you for playing, Cheetos movie song.
- When Kimmel continues to make references to his crush on Gosling, he's just saying what we're all thinking.
- Jeez Cynthia Erivo, take it down a notch with the facial jewelry.
- I just realized Mica Levi didn't get a nomination for her Zone of Interest score. And Robbie Robertson didn't get his posthumous Oscar, which seemed like an easy call.
- Really, the other Barbie song wins? Come on Billie Eyelash. It feels like we have a future EGOT here.
- Tina Turner gets the last spot in the In Memoriam section. Not a fan that they never went full screen with it. Didn't learn of any deaths I didn't already know about except one: Lee Sun-kyun, who played the rich father/husband in Parasite. And now via Wikipedia I've just learned a lot of unsavory details about accusations and investigations of drug use that may have led to his suicide. I might have preferred not to know.
- I finally learned how Paul Giamatti did the eye thing in The Holdovers.
- Matthew McConaughey looks a bit like Spock looked after he fixed the radiation leak on the Enterprise in Star Trek II.
- Cillian Murphy wins in his first attempt. This should have been Giamatti's third if they didn't insanely forget to nominate him for Sideways.
- Nolan has eight nominations? That's crazy, considering that many of his films weren't really going for Oscars.
- Sally Field is still adorable.
- Emma Stone wins and Killers of the Flower Moon gets shut out. Seems like the biggest surprise of the night. She gives one of my favorite speeches of the night but I'm maybe a little surprised she's quite so emotional on her second win.
- "Isn't it past your jail time?" NICE.
- For a second I thought they were introducing Robert De Niro to give out best picture, which would be a conflict of interest, but no, it's Al Pacino, looking his age. And acting his age, as he forgets to read the nominees again and gives a completely botched and confusing delivery of the winner's name. But yes indeed, it is Oppenheimer as we all thought it would be.
Past Lives and Flower Moon got shut out, which may be a tad disappointing, but so did Maestro, which was richly deserved.
Just another quick thing I noticed ... the only non-best-picture-nominated features to win Oscars won them in categories where no best picture nominee was nominated. So Godzilla Minus One won for its visual effects, The Boy and the Heron for best animated feature, the documentary whose name I already don't remember for best documentary ... but in none of those categories was there a best picture nominee. Even the best international feature winner was, of course, a best picture nominee.
And so that puts an official final wrap on my Oscars coverage and on 2023 in general. Catch me again this time next year when Madame Web takes home its statue for best picture.
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