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Join Bradley as he (and sometimes friends) casually dive deep into a variety of exciting films!
Hello, everybody. Bradley here and welcome back into after film a casual film discussion podcast that today is not about a singular film. It is in fact about the entire 95th Academy Awards ceremony. It happened a few days ago. We've all had some time to collect our thoughts, to collect our feelings, to kind of, you know, take a few deep breaths. And what I'm hoping to do with this podcast is just talk about my feelings on the ceremony, the winners, the awards, Jimmy Kimmel hosting, Tom Cruise, not being there, the fucking Little Mermaid commercial. We're going to talk about it all. And I can't wait to do that. Before we get started, though, just a heads up, what's upcoming on the podcast so you can get your thoughts and feelings into after film Pod at gmail.com? Knives Out is still upcoming soon trademark whenever we can put that podcast together, but if you have any thoughts on knives out, send those in. Rachel is hopping on the pod on Sunday. That's when we're recording. You'll probably hear it on Monday or Tuesday to discuss everything everywhere, all at once. After its monster haul at this year's Academy Awards, we are going to take advantage of that film's hype right now to chat about it. So that's upcoming on the podcast. If you have any thoughts on everything everywhere all at once, And then after that, Rachel is taking a turn to pick a movie and we are going to talk about Pride and Prejudice, the one with Keira Knightley. I don't know if there's multiple ones. I enjoy the one with Keira Knightley, and that's the one we're going to be talking about a couple of weeks from now. So if you have any thoughts on Pride and Prejudice, feel free to send those in to after Film Pod at gmail.com as well. There's no need to beat around the bush any more, though. We are going to break this into two parts. The first thing I'm going to talk about is the ceremony in general, and that covers basically anything that wasn't the award winners. So we'll talk about the award winners in the back half of this podcast. We're going to start with the overall ceremony that was the 95th Academy Awards. Just a heads up, if you really enjoyed the Academy Award ceremony, feel free to leave this podcast, a five star review to let me know how much you enjoyed it. If you really hated this Academy Award ceremony, you can still leave a five star review to make yourself feel better about hating the Oscars. And if you thought it was just all right, feel free to leave this podcast. A five star review and just put in the comments Podcast is amazing, but the 95th Academy Awards were just. All right. Let us start with Jimmy Kimmel's hosting. I was, as I was watching this ceremony, I watched all three and a half hours. I had a great time. Overall, I really enjoyed Jimmy Kimmel. I even tweeted about I think it's an after film pod on Twitter. If you want to go follow there. I tweeted about how good Jimmy Kimmel is for this type of ceremony. And it seems that a lot of people didn't love Jimmy Kimmel's hosting. And I totally get that this ceremony overall and Jimmy Kimmel is not my favorite version of this type of thing. And if I were to produce the Oscars for me, this is not what I would come up with, I don't think. But for what they're trying to go for, for a year, that really seemed like they were trying to just just get through it. Just have a normal ceremony with normal shit going on. No one slapping anybody. You know, La-La Land's not coming up to win a best picture. They didn't win, right? Like, they're just like, Let's get three at the end. Jimmy Kimmel did a little skit at the end where it's like Oscars with, like, Oscar ceremonies without incident and went from 0 to 1. That is so clearly what they were going for. Just have the ceremony, have it work out, give out the awards, keep it on time, keep it, you know, drama free. And that's a good kind of starting point for the next ceremony. But I think after last year, you just need a palate cleanser. You just need one ceremony that just goes well. And I think if that is what you're going for, Jimmy Kimmel is the best person for it. I thought his opening monologue was really good. It was about 15 minutes long and I was laughing. I was having a good time with Jimmy Kimmel. I thought his little bits, the bits he tried were hit and missed throughout the ceremony. There are some bits like him going and talking to Malala that just completely missed. There are some bringing Jenny the donkey from Banshees out on stage that for me at least completely hit. But what I liked overall about it is all the bits felt appropriate. They weren't inappropriate, they weren't overlong, they weren't taking away from the Oscar ceremony in any way. They were kind of just, you know, in between awards and commercial breaks, Jimmy Kimmel would pop out for a minute, do a fun little thing, and then kind of pop back in and let the awards ceremony happened until the next commercial break. And I felt like that was a really good pacing choice from them. I felt like Jimmy Kimmel was kind of perfect for that. I am part of the Babylon five. I really love the film. Babylon Even though it seems that nobody else did and I did not appreciate the shot at Babylon losing $100 million, that made me so sad. But overall, just I thought Jimmy Kimmel did a fantastic job. Could it have been a little better? Sure, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. And I think for the ceremony, they were trying to put on, I think it worked really well. And I think as a ceremony that I was watching, that I was trying to enjoy, I thought it worked well enough. So I don't have any bones to pick with Jimmy Kimmel and the hosting the rest of the ceremony. That didn't have a ton to do with Jimmy Kimmel specifically. I also thought it worked well enough and I thought it was put together enjoyably. I thought the pacing of the ceremony was pretty good. You didn't have I think in some years what happens is you kind of stack the awards on one end or the other. You have these weird breaks in between awards where you give out a couple of awards and there's like a 20 minute break for a bit or a gambit or something, and then you're giving out a bunch more awards back to back to back this ceremony and the things they filled it with the Little Mermaid commercial, the Warner Brothers thing, which we will talk about, I thought were strange, but the general pacing of commercial break ends. Jimmy Kimmel does a minute or two like a really quick little bit, and that's super fun. Then we give out two or three awards. Then we have, you know, a commercial, a trailer, you know, something else, a musical performance. Then we go to commercial and then Jimmy Kimmel does a minute or to beat them and give out a couple of awards. The pacing felt really good. Like if I took each half an hour section of the ceremony, which would be seven. Yeah, and three and a half hours, that seven half hour kind of sections in each half an hour sections, you're getting an equal amount of hosting, an equal amount of awards, an equal amount of musical performances or commercials or trailers or whatever. And that pacing carrying throughout the three and a half hours invested me a little bit. Now, the awards part does do a lot, right? If you are watching the ceremony and the people you want to win aren't winning, then you're not going to like the show very much. Right. If you're watching the ceremony and the people you want to win are winning, then a lot of the gaps in the production will be overlooked by you because you're just having so much fun watching your people kind of go and win the awards and give the speeches and whatnot. So it is hard to divorce the two, but I thought the choice in how they paced the ceremony, it worked in each half an hour section. Each section worked better or worse than others. But overall, that decision to have a little hosting skit by Jimmy Kimmel, two or three awards, a commercial or whatever it was, and then their musical performance, then a commercial break, and then Jimmy Kimmel's back from it. And the two that general pacing worked really well for me. And I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope. I hope they just stick with that. It worked well enough and I could watch all three and a half hours without it ever really dragging because of the production. Sometimes it dragged a little bit for me because of the awards and the order that the awards were presented, But overall, the general pacing I thought was great. We also got to present all of the awards, which I am a huge advocate for. I think if you are going to have an awards ceremony and you are going to take all these bits of your kind of artistry, right? So you're this is a ceremony that celebrates making movies. And within that, you as an academy, have decided that the people who act in these movies are going to get acting awards and the people who make the costumes are going to get costume awards. And the people who make the sound are going to get sound awards, etc., etc., etc.. I think it is really mean and rude to have some of those categories given off screen, right? They're kind of either all important to making the movies or they're not important if they're important enough to making the movie that you are giving an Academy Award for it, then it needs to be part of the ceremony. Now, I understand that the Academy makes I think it's more than $100 million a year and a lot of their money from the ceremony. So I don't think that the Academy excludes awards from the ceremony because they want to I don't think anyone sits around a table goes, yeah, you know what? The costume design stinks. They're like, bit like live action shorts. We don't need we don't need to give that awards. I don't think that's happening. I mean, when sitting around a circle being like, Yeah, fuck the shorts, let's eat them off the off the broadcast, We don't want them at the ceremony, you know what I mean? I think what's happening is they need to get eyeballs on the ceremony to get that deal with ABC to make their $150 million a year or whatever it is. So they can then have the revenue to produce the ceremony to make their museum, whatever it is. And I think certainly for me and certainly for most of you listening, despite all of us, you know, really saying that we appreciate documentaries, we appreciate shorts. No, we don't. No one cares. Right. Like I'm watching the ceremony. And if you had taken all of that stuff out and just given me the awards that I do care about, the best picture, the actresses, the cinematography, those types of things. Right. You are more likely to get more people to tune in for the whole thing because it's only filled with things they care about. The way this ceremony was structured, I understand why there's this temptation to take some of these awards out, because the way this was structured is you had your animation. I'm this is all I don't have any notes. This is all recollection you had. I think Guillermo del Toro was first you had the animated feature award, then you had the supporting actor and Actress award. You'll get some famous people on the stage that people care about. And then you kind of had a whole middle of awards that, you know, people may or may not care about when I guess they cinematography. You're editing. A lot of people might care about it when it comes to, you know, all the shorts and the documentaries. A few less people are going to care. And there is that huge chunk of the ceremony that I think generally people are less interested in. And when people are less interested in the middle of your ceremony, they might turn it off and just catch all the highlights tomorrow. So I understand the temptation and I understand why it happens that some of these awards don't end up on the ceremony every year. But I think fundamentally, if what you have decided is these these things, short films, documentaries, these are things that we value, these are things that we give Academy Awards to because we believe that they are valuable to our industry, to what we do, then you need to find a way to include them in the ceremony, and then it's your job as a production team, as Jimmy Kimmel, as a host. It is your job to find a way to make that stuff more interesting and to make people tune in for that. It's not really fair to just exclude parts of your industry because the people find them less interesting and it starts this vicious cycle, right? Like, how is anyone ever going to find them more interesting if they're not part of the ceremony? People are watching, right? So it is this kind of like chicken and the egg situation. If you take all the shorts and the documentaries and stuff out of the ceremony. Right. And then I'm watching the Oscars and I don't even know those awards were given out. And I just how am I going to know to I didn't even know Navalny was really a thing, right? Like, how many people watched the Oscars? I knew Navalny was the thing or the horse, the mole, the fox and the iceberg or whatever that. Right. These are all things that now people are aware of because they watched the Oscars and they might go back and look, oh, that short. What was there one thing called My Year of Dicks? That's hilarious. You know what I mean? Right? There's got to be someone who watched the Oscars and heard Pedro Pascal say the phrase mire of dicks and go, You know what? I'm going to go watch that. And so I'm happy they included all the awards. I think the order in which the awards were presented could have changed around to to create a better flow to that middle section of the broadcast. But I think fundamentally, all of the categories need to be in there. Everyone needs to be treated with a certain amount of respect if they are if the category is worthy of being awarded an Oscar and that's what you've decided, you need to find a way to put them in the ceremony called the Oscars and make it interesting. Even if people find, you know, the shorts in the documentaries, less interesting because they haven't watched them, because they're not as interesting to them, because they're just interested in seeing their famous celebrities in the big movies. But I think the ceremony did well enough with the fact that they had made the conscious choice to fit all the awards back in. I was happy they were back in. I will admit I was less interested in the middle of the ceremony when those awards were happening, but that is their job to figure out and make me interested. And they kept me interested enough that I watched the whole thing and never once felt like, Oh man, I wish they would take the shorts back out of the Oscars. I don't need this. I thought the presentation of double awards kind of back to back was a really fascinating choice. And I do wonder why they chose to do that. I have heard through kind of the post Oscar buzz. I know I'm doing this pilot. It's only four days after the Oscars and I was just at work and so I couldn't record a podcast. But just since then, I've been able to hear how other people felt about the ceremony and a lot of people felt like they did the double awards where they were do like best supporting actor and best supporting actress back to back because it needs less presenters and having like they didn't have enough people at the ceremony. And so the way it worked was like not enough people turned up like not enough of the real Hollywood star power turned up that wasn't nominated, right? So you had the folks that were nominated were obviously there, but there was a whole list of really famous Hollywood folks that are just skipping out on the Oscars. Tom Cruise and James Cameron are kind of the two ones that were called out in the ceremony. But there's a lot of people that were there. Denzel Washington was at a basketball game, you know what I mean? And so you had all of this star power just not turning up to the ceremony. And so you needed to, you know, take the star power you had and have them present kind of two awards at a time to keep the famous people on stage presenting the awards. And I think it worked right. Like, I have the note as well. I was a little bit underwhelmed with the star power. They're like, just like everyone else. I'm a bit of a I, you know, just like everyone else. I don't know what the word is, but I tune in to the Oscars to see the celebrities. I tune into the Oscars to see these super famous people do this super, you know, frivolous thing where they hand out gold statues to each other. You know what I mean? Like, this whole thing is very silly. And so I'm kind of in on it. And I definitely noticed the lack of star power. And so I wonder if it which way it happened, whether they had made the choice to do the double awards and they paired up people for that, or if they looked at the roster of people that were going to turn up and went, Oh shit, there's not a ton. We can do. And so we're going to have to present the double awards to utilize the people that we do have that can present. Either way, I think it would have been better paced if they had split up some of the awards. I see. Let's say there's a world in which you did. You did the animated feature award. So Guillermo del Toro wins and then you do the Best Supporting Actress Awards and Jamie Lee Curtis wins. And then instead of doing best supporting actor right away, you do a live action short, animated, short, whatever you do. A couple of those ones. Then you go back best supporting actor. And so like every three or four awards, you're doing one of the more popular ones that people are more interested in. And I think that may have been a better pacing decision. Overall. However, I did like the double awards and I think I like the double awards because that stopped them from doing dumb shit in between individual awards and it helped with the pacing overall. I think if you just did one award at a time, it gives too many breaks in between awards for them to fill it with dumb shit that we don't need. And so the double awards worked overall. I think though, it kind of did seem like they were doing that specifically because they didn't have enough super famous presenters there that they wanted to throw in front of the camera to like, attract the eyeballs. And so they were kind of trying to consolidate and condense that. Either way, it worked well enough for me. If I watched the 96th Oscars next year and they were presenting a lot of those awards kind of back to back again, I would be totally fine with that. I think it's time now to talk about the musical performances, and this is just a really hard thing to talk about. Man, I don't know how to say this nicely. I think I think maybe, possibly it is time to just not do them. I don't know what else they'd fill them with. I don't know what other thing you could put in there. I understand the temptation to do them. You have all these songs that are nominated for best. What is it Best Best original song for a motion picture or whatever that award is called. You have all those nominations you want to present them. This is kind of a category that allows you to get famous. People are Lady Gaga, Rihanna. You could have nominated Taylor Swift for where the Crawdads sing. And I do I do think having where the Crawdads sing would be an Oscar nominated film in any way, shape or form would have been fucking bonkers, but it would have got Taylor Swift to your ceremony. And so this whole thing does exist in a way to get super famous people to perform at the Oscars. But I just think the musical performances, they're often not very good. They're often either calibrated for TV or for the room, but often don't do well. They don't pick a lane well enough to be good either. So all the performances just come off a little strange. It kind of feels like they don't have enough time to rehearse it. They kind of bring down the mood. Most of these songs in most years are a little more sad, a little more downbeat, a little more down, low tempo, right? So you're having all this excitement of, you know, famous people getting their gold statues and this like big high of, you know, reaching, reaching the peak of your power. You are you are being awarded with an Oscar. You are at the top of Film Mountain if you are winning one of these awards. And then we're just going to go and cry for 3 minutes, You know what I mean? Like, it just it doesn't work. Not to not to was the best performance for sure. It was very, very, very good. I enjoyed the not to not do performance, even enjoying that, though. I just think maybe it's time to find something else to do with this time. Make the show 20 minutes shorter. I don't know. I just think that this is not a good use of our time, especially with the, you know, Lady Gaga, it seemed, was asked to do it last minute because Tom Cruise didn't show up. And that's not something I had thought during the I thought the performance was weird during the ceremony. It was only since kind of hearing other people could pontificate about the fact that Tom Cruise didn't show up. And so they needed something from Top Gun. And so they were going to ask Lady Gaga to do it. It was kind of last minute. That all makes sense to me. That's not in the original opinion I had, but that type of thing. That's what it kind of felt like. And so if that's where we're at with the musical performances, how about we just find something else to do or find a way to make the musical performances exciting? Maybe you just have musical performers that have nothing to do with the films, and that would be weird too, in a different way, but I think that would maybe weird in a better way, right? Like, let's say you have four or five songs that have nothing to do with the awards, right? You just have four or five, you know, superstars that are there performing one of their one of their songs, right? So you get Taylor Swift to show up and sing one of her songs, get Harry Styles to show up and sing one of his songs. You get whoever is really famous to sing one of their popular songs that's on right now. What would happen is you would lose that connection to the films, which I think is weird and strange and would be weird and strange to watch. But I think at least you could handpick popular, high quality, high intensity songs, right? That that kind of keep with the vibe of the ceremony from really famous people who will attract eyeballs to your ceremony. Right. If Taylor Swift and Harry Styles and these kind of people are performing a song that people want to listen to because it's on the radio, it's on the Spotify charts, it's something that they are interested in. If Billie Eilish turns up to sing a song at the Oscars, I think that if we're going to do musical performances, just commit to them being the best performance for the ceremony and not songs that were in the end credits. The other thing too, So a lot of these songs aren't even in the film. A lot of these songs are in the end credits, sequences of the movie. And so like, yes, they're from the movie, but they're not really from the movie. I don't know how to explain what I like. I know that for the award it counts, but there is a disconnect there. The Lady Gaga tune for Top Gun is not in the film Top Gun. Like the film Top Gun Maverick ends, and then you're in the credits and then Lady Gaga comes on. It's the same with Titanic, to be perfectly honest. Like this Celine Dion song for Titanic, right? Like, you don't hear her singing during the film. Like you hear the theme of it, right? But the film ends and then that's when you hear her singing is the end, the end credits. And so it's not like for all of these songs, they are integral part of the film while you are watching it, if that makes sense. I don't know if that's making sense, what I'm saying. All I'm trying to say here, though, is the musical performances are awkward. They are. They are awkwardly rehearsed, they are awkwardly performed, they are not always the correct vibe for what's going on the Oscars. I think to me it should be a non stop vibe. It should be a non stop from beginning to end celebration of awesome things. People made movies. This is an awards ceremony. Everyone being awarded every time an award gets given out. There should be one person who's ecstatic. And for people who are disappointed that they didn't win an Oscar, you know what I mean? Like, that should be the vibe. This is this is an awards ceremony and having that vibe kind of be killed by every musical performance just stinks. And so I I'm out on the musical performances overall. If they insist on doing musical performances, I think it might just be better to commit to doing the four or five most popular songs that fit with the vibe of your of your production and not for songs that are nominated for Best Original Song. I understand that I'm creating a new level of weirdness by implementing that change, but I think at least it draws more eyeballs to the ceremony. And it's less awkward than listening to a song that was in the end credits of a movie you didn't watch being performed poorly in an auditorium when they did not have time to rehearse properly. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? I feel like I'm getting a lot of emails about the musical performance take, but that's that's where I'm at with the musical performances. I only have a little bit left to talk about with the ceremony. Before we get to the award winners, let's talk about the Little Mermaid commercial politely. What the fuck is going on? I mean, I don't know how to say this nicely. The Oscars is a celebration. The Academy Awards are a celebration of all film, right? All films that were released in the calendar year that were that qualify for the Academy Awards, that is what we are celebrating. And for Disney, who owns this is a whole shebang, like Disney owns. ABC and ABC broadcast the ceremony in America. So I'm Canadian. I watched it in Canada. I did not watch it on ABC. I still have to watch the Little Mermaid commercial. Right. But for Disney, who owns ABC? Right. Who is the is the company that broadcast the Oscars for them to kind of shill for their own movie, to have people come up onto the stage and present a trailer for their own film at their own ceremony, that's not meant to be about them specifically. It's meant to be a celebration of all films I think is wildly inappropriate. I think that is wildly, wildly inappropriate. Now, there's been some reporting since then that what actually happened is that ABC made available a couple of slots that you could buy for seven or 8 million, and you could use that slot for whatever you wanted. And Disney purchased Disney just to Disney, just happened to purchase a slot of their own ceremony and they wanted to use it for a Little Mermaid commercial and a Little Mermaid trailer. And then Warner Brothers also purchased the spot and they wanted to use it for the 100 year Warner Brothers thing. The Warner Brothers thing I think is great. I'm pro this as a general thing. I don't know how to how do I I'm trying to figure out how to make my opinion correct but separate it a little bit. What it feels like happened is that Disney just took a spot in their own ceremony to shill for their own movie, which I think is wildly inappropriate. When you decide to host the Oscars, you are committing to a certain amount of neutrality because the ceremony is not about you, right? It's about it is about the people that are there. It's about the people that are nominated and it's about the films and the people that are winning these awards. And if you make good movies, you will get a lot of publicity there. A24 this year won a lot of fucking awards and they're going to get a lot of publicity from this. If Disney makes a lot of good movies that get nominated, then when the awards they will get publicity by making the good movies just like everybody else, or at least making the movies that people nominated. Right. What's inappropriate is to just kind of skip that whole process of making the good movies and to just put trailers into your show, which is inappropriate. However, I am, generally speaking, pro this kind of thing. I think what might happen is here we go. Instead of the musical performance, let's take those out. I've just saved you 20 minutes. No more music at the Oscars, no more musical performances. And then each studio gets a trailer. For now, the whatever. I don't know how many studios there are, how exactly this would work, but you got Disney, you got Warner Brothers, you got Universal, you got Sony, you got A24, you got maybe one or two others. And they each get a trailer for their upcoming movie Where is my Oppenheimer Trailer? Where is my Barbie trailer? Where is my trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon? These are all big movies made by different studios that are all coming out this year. Why am I not getting those trailers? Why is the only trailer I'm getting, The Little Mermaid, which just seems inappropriate, right? So I'm not I don't know how to articulate this opinion in a way that's fair, that makes sense. Where Disney could participate without being kind of shilling out its own thing in its own production that they should be neutral in. However, I'm generally pro this idea that the Oscars is a ceremony that is celebrating the last year's awards while also looking ahead to the most anticipated films of next year. I don't know how you decide with those anticipated films. Ah, I don't know how you decide which studios get, which spots. I don't know how you decide exactly how this works, but there is a way to do this that's genuinely exciting. Where I am looking forward to the films of that. I am looking forward to the films that have their trailer placed during the Oscars, and I think that's such a fun thing. Like here are the Oscars. We are celebrating the last year in film and how amazing it was. And we're we're getting hyped up for the next year in film with Oppenheimer, with Barbie, with the Killers of the Flower Moon, with all of these films of which we are seeing the trailers during the ceremony. So I'm not I'm not against the trailers during the ceremony thing. I'm not against war. I thought that was pretty cool, to be honest. I didn't mind the Warner Brothers thing at all. So long as we are, so long as there is a system by which studios can purchase time at the Oscars. And assuming that everyone had a fair shake and that you're not just pricing it so much that only a select few studios could even participate, right? As long as all the studios had an equal chance. Maybe you only have three star slots and each studio each studio puts a presentation forward that they would use that slot for. And you draw three out of a hat, are you Bingo. I don't know exactly how you do it, but Warner Brothers using their slot that they bought for a 100 year of Warner Bros. I that was super cool. It was a nice montage. I think that's a great way to use that time. I think that more of that kind of thing at the Oscars is great. I think, hey, you know, we are celebrating this year in film. Warner Brothers is a studio that has made a lot of bad films, but a lot of films that we like. They've been awarded at the ceremony. They've been around for 100 years. Let's celebrate that. I'm into that as an idea. I think this execution, though, is fucking terrible, especially The Little Mermaid bit and also separately, the Little Mermaid trailer. The Little Mermaid trailer sucked. It was terrible. There is no world in which the ceremony that awards Avatar the way of Water for its VFX, specifically the underwater visual effects can play that Little Mermaid trailer. Have anyone enjoy it? Like did anyone watch that Little Mermaid trailer and think any other thing? Oh man, this looks shit compared to Avatar. That was the only thing going through my head. It's like Disney. Live action movies are pretty bad and I don't really like them, but that's a separate thing. But the whole time I was like, Oh no. Oh dear. If you were going to do this at all, don't do it like anywhere near Avatar winning for its underwater VFX. That's a mistake. So yeah, the whole thing was weird. It was messy. I didn't like it. I'm pro the concept in general. I hated this execution very, very, very much. And that does it for the ceremony. I think I covered everything I want to cover. Let me know your thoughts on the ceremony, but just sending an email to after film part of gmail.com or an after film pod on Twitter. All of those kind of links are in the show notes below. My overall thoughts. Just to summarize, I really enjoyed the presentation. It could have been a lot better, but it could have been so much worse. It was a serviceable presentation. The ceremony was great. Jimmy Kimmel was fine. I just I enjoyed it enough. I watched for three and a half hours. At no point because of the production was like, Man, I wish I was doing anything about watching the Oscars right now. I happily watch the Oscars instead of the Last of US finale. At no point during the Oscars was like, Man, I'm going to turn this off. And then, you know, watch The Last of US finale and just watch this tomorrow morning. I was enjoying it enough that I watched all three and a half hours and had a great time and was invested in it. However, there's a lot of room for improvement and there's a lot of room to within the same parameters without revolutionizing the ceremony from this point to make it a little bit better with things like musical performances with a few more, you know, well-thought out bits from Jimmy Kimmel with uncoupling the double awards. There's there's some thing with not doing the Little Mermaid commercial there's some room for improvement. But overall fine ceremony, fine hosting everything was an acceptable level. No one got slapped. No one got up on stage and won the award than didn't win the award. And then Moonlight won. You know what I mean? None of that shit happened. I could watch the entire thing and feel good about it, which is great. Let's talk about the award winners. I'm not going to talk about each and every single award winner here just because the podcasts have been 19 hours long. Let's start with some of the broad headlines and then work our way back. And I had to talk about the awards that I was really excited about that I had lots of feelings about. And then at the end, I'll kind of scroll through all of them to make sure I catch all the ones that I think you might be interested in hearing my opinion on the top line coming out of the award winners is that everything everywhere, all at once absolutely dominated. I think they won seven awards. They won three acting awards. Only a couple other movies have done that. I believe they have the most above the line wins in Oscars history. There are films that have won more Oscars than everything everywhere all at once. But a lot of those wins were below the line. It was very rare for a film to win multiple acting awards, letting alone a let alone three of them. It won best picture I felt easily, which is insane. And I think for me, everything everywhere, all at once was not my favorite movie of last year and other then there was a there was a period in the pre Oscars where I really wanted Top Gun Maverick to win. And the reason why I wanted Top Gun Maverick to win is not because it was at all the best movie, but it was a great film and it was a film that people watched and that people liked. And it wasn't, you know, a typical Oscar bait kind of film. It was just a film that was that showcased a movie star that was in the made $1,000,000,000 that was of high quality that people watched and I think were the Oscars is kind of leading itself astray, as I always feel like it's hesitant to award things that people watched. It kind of goes through cycles where it like a thing being popular and having people watch it is not a good indicator of whether or not it should win awards. And I agree whether or not you should vote for a thing to win an award is a kind of metric, and it has a bunch of different inputs, right? You know, people might vote or nominate something because of the ten year, right? Even this year we had someone win an award almost exclusively because people liked them and they've been acting for a long time, not because the individual performance was worthy of the award. And what I find with films is they they really struggle to award movies that people have. And I think sometimes that's okay. I do agree that that should not be your only metric, that sometimes the best films, the best constructed films, the best is really subjective. Everyone's going to come up with their own criteria. Sometimes the best films are the ones that did not make a ton of money that not a lot of people watched. Right. But I've really felt that this year was a great year to award something that people watched and that people enjoyed and that people loved and that people felt something about. Right. And everything everywhere, all at once perfectly encapsulates that vibe. This is a movie that is deserving of the award. There are reasonable arguments to be made for a few other films in this category. I think of TAR or the Fable Men's or Banshees have in a share, and I'm going to miss a few, but there's a few other films in this category where if they won Best Picture, you'd be like, I get it, that's a good movie. But with things like Tar or the Fable Men's or Banshees of Venice, Sharon you don't have that in-built hype. You don't have legions of people that have watched those movies that feel some kind of way about the hell. I would have been fucking stoked personally if Aftersun won Best Picture. I think that's the third best movie or the second, second or third best movie of last year for me personally, right? So for everything, everywhere, all at once to not only win best picture, but to sweep a lot of these big awards was such a feel good thing to watch. Everyone can just feel good about that. Are there films that deserved Oscars that did not get them? Yes. That is sometimes how the cookie crumbles. But to watch a ceremony where such a feel good film, that meant a lot to a lot of people, that made a lot of money and that a lot of people have watched for it to be so successful. For all of the actors from that film who are winning awards are people who you can root for, who people who are people you want to win, who are people who genuinely seemed overwhelmed by the support. And to have a film that wasn't baiting for the Oscar to have a film. This is a film with a character named Deirdre Bo. Deirdre This is a film with dildos and butt plug fights. This is a film that has hot dog fingers and multiverses. This is not a film that ten or 20 years ago is even nominated for Best Picture. This is not a movie. When They were met. You know for sure that anyone making everything everywhere all at once was not thinking, this is this is how I'm getting my Oscar. This film is getting an Oscar. This film. The editor of this film edited his second movie. You know what I mean? This is just such a feel good story for everything everywhere, all at once. And well, it wasn't my favorite film. I was I was happiest that it won and I was rooting for it to win. Aside from maybe Top Gun, not because I thought it was the best movie. I think it's in the top five, but because it is the type of movie that the Academy needs to award more. It is a movie worthy of that reasonable people. And a lot of people obviously think it's the best movie of the year. Right. And I just the overall top line about everything everywhere, all at once, just dominating the above the line awards is so deserved and such a feel good story and just such an amazing a moment in moment for the Academy. And I just I don't know where we go from here. I don't know if this is the kind of movie that ever gets this kind of attention again. I don't know if the Academy is moving away from these typical Oscar movies, which I think Tara and Fable mean specifically. Are these kind of typical Oscar bait movies. I think Tara is a movie that in the right year also wins a ton of awards and best picture. And I wonder if we're moving away from this kind of thing or if this is a blip in the system where there's this one year where everyone got behind the movie with Deirdre Beardmore, hot dog fingers and buffalo fights, right? But it's it's also a film that utilizes these weird kind of storytelling devices like multiverses and those types of things to really tell a story that people enjoy. This is fundamentally a story about generational trauma and overcoming that trauma. It is a story about family. It is a story about, you know, how how man, I don't even know how I'm doing a podcast about this film on Sunday. So I got I got to find out how to describe how I feel about it. It is about the kind of thing that most movies that people really enjoy are about, right? This is a film that is taking a very different path to get to where it gets to at the end, but where it gets to at the end. It feels familiar in the really great movies that we watch. And so I could not be happier for everything everywhere, all at once. And I'm just so stoked that it swept these awards and that these all of these awards, with the exception of one, you can feel really, really good about with the everything everywhere all at once. Sweep though, comes some films that were really, really great that didn't win any awards. Tara Banshees of Into Sharon and Elvis won nothing. Now, I am not personally upset that Elvis didn't win anything, but I really loved the band. She's a vintage Cher and I really loved Tara. And there are other films that I really love to at least Top Gun and Avatar, the two kind of big blockbuster movies of the year. They won Sound for Top Gun and they were VFX for Avatar, so they won something. And I think people will look back on the ceremony and going, Tara, Banshees and Elvis not winning anything is very strange and maybe will look like a mistake in hindsight. That's the other thing too, is how does this look in hindsight? Do people look back on the ceremony and go, Oh man, everything everywhere, all at once was truly that great and I'm happy you won that many awards? Or do people go, You know what? I was super into the Michelle Yeoh story and I'm super happy she won. But I think I would give that award to Cate. So Tara gets in or I don't know how people are going to feel about it, because right now everyone just is in the feel good, everything everywhere mode. And I don't know how people are going to feel about it later, but I do think the kind of headline Tabone She's an Elvis, not winning anything is a little bit like, Ooh, I wonder if in a couple of years people will look back and go, Some of these awards should have been shuffled around. What I will say, though, is that this is the kind of thing that happens with awards ceremonies. They are zero sum games. You either win the award or you do not win for best picture. Are ten films nominated, right? Everything everywhere, all at once wins, everyone else loses. It's not like there's a second place award and a third place award. It's not like you get the gold Oscar for first place in the bronze Oscar for third rate Women Talking didn't win best picture the same as Triangle of Sadness. Didn't win Best picture the same is all quiet on the Western Front. Didn't win Best picture. It doesn't matter how many votes they got, it doesn't matter how people feel about them. You either win the award or you do not win the award. Right? There's no ranking system other than that. It's a zero sum game. And when you have this zero sum game and you have a movie like everything everywhere all at once, that is genuinely competing in all of these categories and the movie people loved, it's going to win all the awards and not winning awards, I don't think says anything about the quality of these movies. I don't think Tara is any worse because they didn't win any awards. I don't think Banshees is any worse because it didn't win any awards. I think those films are still just as good as they were, and in a different year, it's possible they would have won awards. Right? There's this happens all the time at these kind of shows where you had the right performance or the right film in the wrong year. Right. Like anyone who was at the 1997 Oscars, the 1998 Oscars, who is competing with Titanic, There's a lot of things that lost to Titanic that would win in any other year, Right? There's a lot of performances this year, right? That if you put them in another like think about this. Just think about this. Okay. At some point, a green book, a film that happened and a film that we watched, a green book is a Best Picture Academy Award winner. And so if you put Green Book in all the other years of the Oscars, it's probably not winning best picture. If you put like I think of how many let's do this, let's just as a thought experiment, how many films were nominated for best Picture and did not win, that if they were put in the Green Book here would be Green Book right? The I can think off the top of my head of a whole bunch. Right? This list is a mile long. And so sometimes it's not about the movie or the performance. Sometimes you just catch in the wrong year. In most years, I think Cate Blanchett for Tara. But she she was up against Michelle Yeoh. She was up against everything everywhere, all at once. She was up against that that story, that narrative that a fantastic film. And she didn't win. Right. And I think if this performance happens last year or next year, it's possible that Cate Blanchett wins the award. And so these are zero sum games. You are either winning the awards or you are not winning. And so, yes, I think it'll look strange looking back on this ceremony from the future and going, Oh, Tara was great and didn't win anything bad. She's was great and didn't win. And sometimes that's how it goes. Sometimes really great movies don't win anything because of the categories they're nominated in, because of the other performances or films in that category. And you know what? I think that's okay. I think if you are a fan of Tara Banshees or any of the other films that didn't win anything, you maybe you're a fan of Elvis. I'm not a fan of Elvis. I'm a huge fan of Austin Butler, but I'm not a fan of Elvis. Right. If you were a fan of Elvis, I'm not trying to keep this from you. If you are like, Man, I really wish Elvis would have won something. Elvis is not a worst movie for not having won anything. You can just go back and watch it and it's just as good as it was the last time, if that makes sense. So I think overall, I'm okay with Tar Banshees, Elvis, these types of films not winning any awards, I think that's okay. at the end of the section, I kind of want to go through all of the awards I felt really good about. So what we're going to do right now is there is a few that I'm not sure about and one that I really didn't like. And let's go through those. Let's just get the bad vibes out. But I do want to talk about them. The first is the Babylon of it all. I loved the film Babylon and not a lot of people liked the film. BABYLON And that was patently obvious by the fact that Babylon did not win in the categories it was nominated in, and those were production design and score in production design. I am not that sad, but I still like I when I watched Babylon, I felt so overwhelmed by the production design in the best way possible. I think for all the faults of that film and there are many and I love them all, the production design is unquestionably incredible, A-plus stellar production design, and I think the production design and all quiet is good. I think that is a good film. I love that film. I think all quiet on the Western Front is a great film. I really enjoyed it. I think the production design is genuinely worthy of the nomination. I think the production design in Babylon was better and it kind of felt like people liked the other movie more. And I do. It does kind of suck when that happens, when you kind of there's no there is no objective way to quantify any of this. But I just had this general feeling that at least for me, I thought the production design quality of Babylon was sufficiently better than everything else in the category that it does feel a little upsetting that it didn't win. I'm happy for all quiet. It was probably my second place pick in in that category, but I do. As that was happening, I was like, Oh man, that kind of sucks. And that's part of what I was saying earlier. If the people you are hoping win win the awards, if you're an all quiet on the Western Front fan, right, you're feeling really good in that middle part of the ceremony. If you're a Babylon fan, you're feeling pretty terrible in the middle part of that ceremony. And then we get to score. And this is where I had the bigger problem I just in. HURWITZ And the score for I'm going to make sure I have that name. I should take better notes. What I'm learning with this podcast is that I should take better notes. Justin Hurwitz, American film Composer. This is the guy that did Babylon, right? Yeah. Okay, cool. I had the name. Right. Good, good, good, good, good. Justin Hurwitz And his score for Babylon is fucking bonkers. It is so good. It is so much better than everything else in the category. And again, all quiet on the Western Front has a good it's a good score. I don't think it's a great score. I don't think it's a score that elevates the movie other than the like the da da da. I think that was pretty cool. But the score in Babylon, I don't think any reasonable person, however you feel about that movie could possibly leave that film and go. That score sucked. I think the only reasonable thing to feel about the score in that film is there's a lot of things in this movie. I didn't like the whole back half with Tobey Maguire put me off. This is just me pretending to be someone who didn't like this movie because I love this movie. But fucking hell, that score was incredible. I thought this. I thought this was a robbery. I thought this was that. I thought this was pure highway robbery. I would have been fine if you had told me Babylon wins. No Oscars. That's totally acceptable. Especially when films like Tar and Banshees aren't winning. I'm okay with that. But in the categories it was nominated in, I felt like production design felt more like not robbery. I think the production is not at all quite as great, but it did feel like, Oh, this would have won if people just like the movie more, the production design is actually better, but people didn't like the movie and with the score I felt that way more. I felt this was actual robbery. I thought the score in Babylon was so transcendent and so incredible that all the other scores in the category were not even close to it. And that's just my personal feeling. Maybe you feel differently, but it does. It does suck when you know you feel so strongly, which is the best in a category and you're trying to vote on the best. And then things like whether or not you liked the movie come into it because it's not really how you're meant to be voting. But at the end of the day, that is how people vote. And you know, my morals on this are not perfect either. There are a lot of people that I'm rooting for because I like them and I like their performance and because I liked the movie they were in. Right? So when you're voting, it is impossible to separate how you felt about the film from the award. But I think in score, the gist is score. You don't even need to watch it. That's the thing. Writing score you can use like in production design, you do need to watch the film to see it and score. You don't get the Felix full experience, but just like don't watch the movie that you don't like, That's fine. Just turn on Spotify, go to the Babylon soundtrack and just fucking listen to it. It is sensational. I think Babylon not winning score is genuine highway robbery, and I was really sad about it. And I think the other award, there's one more award that I really didn't feel good about, and it sucks that I don't feel good about this because I love the person, but I think it is really unfortunate that Jamie Lee Curtis won first supporting Actress for everything everywhere all at once. And there's a few reasons I feel this way, and I do want to preface that. I really do love Jamie Lee Curtis, and I think she is a fantastic actress who commits herself to genre movies. And it's really unfortunate that the Academy does not appreciate genre movies. Now, maybe this is changing because everything everywhere, all at once just swept a whole bunch of things, right? And Jamie Lee Curtis should have been recognized before this for a lot of other performances. However, the Oscars are not about you're not theoretically in quotation marks, not about your past work per se. Right. It is about the performance in the movie in which you were nominated in that calendar year. And with that, I think there are a handful of supporting performances that weren't nominated where Jamie Lee Curtis was. And so I don't think Jamie Lee Curtis performance is even in the top five to be nominated. However, within the five that were nominated accepting the nominations as they are, it is so easily to me the fifth best performance out of the five that two have the definite fifth best performance out of the five when I just feel bad and I don't know if that's making sense. Like it's so clear to me that Jamie Lee Curtis won for anything other than the performance, right? People like Jamie Lee Curtis, the sound of Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis is something people can get behind. And people really loved the film Jamie Lee Curtis was in. And those two together were enough to get her over the line and the performance was fine, right? The performances, she's good in the film. It's not a bad performance, but it is not a performance that I think is worthy of an Oscar. And so I did feel really bad about this. Jamie Lee Curtis win because the other performances were better and who did it come at the expense. So I don't want to think that's not fair. Who did it? Who did it come at the expense of is not a fair way to analyze this. But Angela Bassett better performance didn't win also has a narrative like Jamie Lee Curtis. She also has the overdue narrative. This is not Angela Bassett. It's best performance. It's arguable she should have won the last time she was nominated. And so if you wanted to vote for the overdue awards, right. Someone who deserves an award that hasn't got it yet and maybe this performance wasn't their best, but we'll give it to them here. I think you should have gone for Angela Bassett. I think if you wanted to vote for the best performance, I think Carrie Condon had the best performance and then she's a winner share him. And so I think if you wanted to vote for the best performance, I think there's another clear option there. I think there's a few other I think there's four other clear options, because I think Jamie Lee Curtis had the fifth best performance, but at least in my opinion, Carrie kind of had the best performance out of the four. So if I'm a voter for the Academy and what I want to do is vote for the best performance, I don't think you vote for Jamie Lee Curtis. I think you pick Angela Bassett. I think you pick Carrie Condon. I think you pick Stephanie Shue. All right. I think these are all better performances. Who else was nominated? Who am I missing? Who am I missing? I'm missing somebody. And it was better. And now I'm forgetting. And I don't want to be embarrassed on a podcast. Give me 2 seconds. It was Hong Chow in the. Well, that's the performance that I was missing. And I think if you want to get if you want to vote for a better performance, I think Hong Chow's performance is better than Jamie Lee Curtis is. But the thing that really gets me and the thing that really bothered me about Jamie Lee Curtis winning is that if you liked the movie and I get it, you're not meant to be voting on whether or not you liked the movie. In the actor categories, you are meant to be voting on whether you thought this was the best performance, right? And when we get to Brendan Fraser, that was a movie. People clearly didn't love a whole ton, right? That was a movie that was not nominated for Best Picture. That was a movie that a lot of people a lot of people do love it. A lot of people don't like it, you know what I mean? And Brendan Fraser was still able to overcome. Right. And maybe that's because his performance was the best in most people's eyes. Maybe that's for other reasons. But within this ceremony, there is a precedent for someone winning an acting award in a film that didn't win much else. It won the Makeup and hair award, right? But it's not winning any of these other above the line awards. So within this ceremony, there is an example of someone like Hong or Kerry Condon winning an award in a in an acting category where the film doesn't win much else. Same with Angela Bassett. Black Panther has won other award for costumes. So within this ceremony, there is an example of that happening too. But the thing that makes me the most grumpy about this award win is, is that if you liked everything everywhere, all at once and you wanted to award someone from that movie, Stephanie Shue was there on the same ballot in the same movie. It is hard to quantify performance. Is this hard to quantify? Who gives a better performance than someone else? What makes a performance good, Right? And oftentimes the performances that get rewarded are the ones that have high emotion attached to them or a lot of, you know, character work to do. If you're playing an addict, if you have these big sequences like the marriage story is a great example, right? The clips of Adam Driver just crying and screaming, you know, if you have this really high emotional range, you have to hit, right? If you're someone like Austin Butler and you have to do all these costumes and the singing and the dancing and the choreography, right? Those the types of performances that are out of the normal range and into something kind of a little more spectacular, but often get awarded and in everything everywhere all at once. Stephanie Shue has more to do. There is more. She has a higher range of acting she has to accomplish for her character. So her skill level to accomplish her goal needs to be higher. Her part in the film is more important to the film. They're both undeniably supporting roles in the film, but her supporting role is more important, and I think she does a better job with it. I think the actual performance is better. So if you have more to do right, you have to. How do I put this? If you have to hit a higher range of acting, if you have to employ a little more in your acting, your part is more important. And you actually did the performance better. I think that you are unequivocally worthy of the award over the other person. And so I think for Stephanie Shue, I do feel really bad because I think her performance was simply just better than Jamie Lee Curtis is in the same movie. And so I think no matter how you want it to go, if you want it to nominate just the best performance, you would not pick Jamie Lee Curtis if you want it to nominate the best performance from the movie you liked, Stephanie Shue was the better performance there. And if you wanted to nominate and give the award to someone who is overdue for an award, who really deserved it but hasn't got one yet, Angela Bassett was right there. And so I think that Jamie Lee Curtis winning just really feels bad. I don't want to harp on it for too much longer, but man, that was the one where she won. And I was like, This sucks. This doesn't feel good. This I'm happy. Jamie Lee Curtis won, and there's a certain amount of catharsis to her getting an Academy Award that maybe in 20 years when it's like Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis pops up, I'll forget that this is why she won. But in the moment, it feels real bad. Now we can talk about all the awards that I really loved, though. So we are going to start because I'm Canadian, I'm Canadian, and I have to start here. I did not realize how badly I wanted Sarah Polley to win the Adapted Screenplay Award for Women, talking until it was called out on the stage. for those who aren't aware, Sarah Polley is Canadian. She's a bit of a hometown hero. For me, I thought Women Talking was a phenomenal, phenomenal film. I knew it had no chance in best picture. I think the screenplay for Women Talking is genuinely exceptional, a genuinely worthy of this award. Regardless of how I feel about Sarah Polley, whom I love dearly. And so this film is literally women talking. That is what it is. There are I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it. There are women in a barn and they talk for 90 minutes and that is it. It is a it is the screenplay of all screenplays. It is literally people acting out a script of dialogue. Right. And it's just exceptional the writing in this film is just exceptional. And when all Quiet went on that string of wins, I just felt it was happening. I just fell all quiet on the Western Front was going to win Adapted Screenplay and that, you know, Sarah Polley's chances were kind of waning away. And I just I went. When the presenter got up to presented the screenplay, I had to resign myself to all quiet on the Western Front winning. And when Sarah Polley's name was called, I was watching it in my bed at work. Those who don't know I work in like a forest and I kind of live there in a little cabin. It's really cute. And I was watching it there and I jumped out of my bed and I did the whole yeah, I was like, so pumped and excited for Sarah Polley. But it was also at that moment in the ceremony when All Quiet didn't win Adapted Screenplay, that you knew that everything everywhere, all at once Sweep was coming, which is also something I could feel great about. So I just wanted to shout out Sarah Polley. If you have not watched women talking, watch. It's not a feel good movie. You're not going to watch women talking and feel good. You are going to watch women talking. Oh, holy fuck this. This script and this screenplay was, you know, written the hell out of this is incredible. This is sensational. And Sarah Polley deserved this award. And I was just so happy for her. I was really happy with the blockbusters in the awards. They won Top Gun Maverick for Sound, which I thought had the best sound. I won a couple of bucks betting on Top Gun Maverick winning sound, which was nice, and Avatar the way of water winning best visual effects. It obviously has the best VFX in any movie released this year, so I was happy that that won. And I think it is good to reward films that people had seen. Best makeup and hairstyling for the Whale is a pretty controversial win. A lot of people feel all kinds of ways about the makeup and the suit and the prosthetics that were used for Brendan Fraser. However, no one can deny that. Probably whether it's problematic or not is is a debate we can have. Whether the use of the prosthetics and makeup and hair was well crafted and well done, I don't think is up for debate. I think, you know, separate from how you feel about its deployment in the film, I think it is really exceptionally done. There are a few other films here that did get left out. I would have been happy if Elvis one or Black Panther won as well. I think the makeup and all quiet is fine. You know, if it won, it's just part of, you know, everyone liked all quiet. That's cool. I don't remember the makeup and hair being that great in the Batman, though. So kind of whatever. But you know what? I'm happy enough with the way a winning best costume design going to Black Panther was fun. I think we can all just root for Ruth Carter to win more awards. She's fantastic. And I think, you know, if Ruth Carter is nominated for the best costume design award, you can probably feel really good about her winning. I believe she won for the first Black Panther. And so this film is not nominated for anything else, I don't think. Or if it is, it's a couple of below the line awards. And so it was easy to believe that Elvis was going to win here and Elvis would have been a fine winner. I think Babylon would have been an okay winner. I've not seen Mrs. Harris goes to Paris. I don't know if everything everywhere all at once would have been that the costumes are good, but I don't know if they're sensational. But I think Black Panther is a completely worthy winner here. And I was surprised that it won. And then once it did win, I was surprised at how good I felt about Ruth Carter getting to go up again and win another Oscar for best costume design. Original screenplay went to everything everywhere all at once as this big kind of above the line sweep, winning one of the screenplay awards. I do think this is the one I would take away from everything everywhere, all at once if I were to go back in five years and say which award. If I had to take one award away from everything everywhere, all at once and give it to somebody else, I think I'm giving this original screenplay to either Tarr or Ben. She's of in a Sharon triangle of sadness in the fable means I think I think the Fable means is a much better screenplay, the triangle of sadness. But I think banshees are to going away with nothing does feel a little weird. And I think at least one of them getting this screenplay award is, I think those films rely more on their screenplay than everything everywhere, all at once does. And so I think it would be fair to kind of take this one away and give it to either of those two films. But overall, I'm never going to be upset about everything everywhere all at once. And this is very different from the Jamie Lee Curtis thing because I think this is all close enough. That's just a matter of taste. I think in this category you have everything everywhere all at once. Banshees, Tarr and even the fable ends and try. You have five choices that are all worthy of the award, right? And you then within that you're picking the one that you like. That makes sense, right? When there's no clear over the top frontrunner, Picking the movie you like is totally acceptable. Right? And so I think everything everywhere, all at once is a is a great winner here. Best director going to the Daniels. This was my pick for best director. I think the obvious second pick is Todd Fields for Tarr. Other than that, I don't think people like Steven Spielberg for the fable means, but I don't think the I don't think Martin McDonagh or Ruben ÖSTLUND were really doing anything profound in their directing. I think worthy of the nomination. They are Oscar worthy directors, but I think, you know, it's either the Daniels or Todd Field for me, and I was super happy that the Daniels won. They were my take. I think the direction in everything everywhere, all at once is sensational. And I'm so, so glad that they got the chance to go up to give their speech. And the speech is you could feel good about, too. And it was it was just incredible. I was so happy for the Daniels to win for everything. Everywhere, all at once. Kiwi Kwan winning for best supporting actor was the obvious choice. I think in this category there is only one pick and that pick is Kiwi Kwan. If I were to pick a second it would have been Barry Keoghan in dances of in a Sharon But Kiwi Come was the favourite. He won all the precursors except for the BAFTAs for Barry Keoghan and won and he deserved it. He the story, the narrative. This is where everything comes together perfectly unlike Jamie Lee Curtis, right? Where not only is the performance, I think the best one. Not only does he deserve the performer, deserve the award based on the merit of what the criteria of the award is, there's that there's the comeback story. There's the him hugging Harrison Ford. There's the him looking at the camera and going, Mom, I won an Oscar. Like, the whole fucking thing was I think the best part of the show was Kiwi Quinn winning the Irishman Arianna Dubos kind of her voice cracking when she opens the envelope and says the name like D.R. It's just it's so good. It's so good. Kiwi Kwan winning for best supporting actor was the highlight of the night for me. It was higher. It was a the Sarah Polley moment was was a true highlight for me. And this eclipsed it, right? It was just and it wasn't a surprise and we knew it was going to happen. But if it hadn't happened, I think if Kiwi Kwan did not win this award, the whole ceremony has a different feel to it. This was the only choice. This was the obvious choice. This was so well-deserved. And holy shit, it felt so fucking good to watch him win this award. Michelle Yeoh, was also such a feel good win in Best Actress for everything everywhere, all at once. The only two options here were Michelle Yeoh or Cate Blanchett. I think everyone else is a very distant, very, very, very distant kind of three, four and five here. I can't even believe Andrea Riseborough and Ana de Armas were nominated separately like that. So whatever. But Michelle Yeoh wins here, the second person of color to win in the best Actress category, I believe the first Asian actress to win in the best actress category. That has to be true because Halle Berry is the other actress. So that has to be true. And so that is just such a feel good moment for Michelle Yeoh. And again, all of these stories, this narrative, this group, the groundbreaking nature of her winning, coincides with her genuinely giving a performance worthy of the award as well. It's not like it's not like people just voted for the narrative. You could also feel so good about this performance that it all comes together and her winning. Is it just it's just amazing. It felt so to watch her win. It felt for the longest time that Cate Blanchett was going to win for Tara. And it just the momentum seemed to be rolling. Michelle Yeoh was way. And then the SAG award happens. I awards happened and I think that's what kind of flipped it here. And I think Michelle Yeoh winning is the correct choice. It's the choice that's going to feel good. When you look back in ten years, I think you're going to be so happy that Michelle Yeoh won this award. It was so well-deserved and the Academy took a risk the way the awards were, because the Academy doesn't know who's going to win ahead of time and so when they had Halle Berry kind of go up and announce and be the presenter for the award, you're doing it to cement this moment. You are the first person of color to win the award, to be awarding it to Michelle Yeoh. And then if she calls Cate Blanchett, then that's going to be really awkward. So the Academy took a risk on the fact that they thought Michelle Yeoh was going to win. It ended up happening, and I just so, so happy did so well-deserved for Michelle Yeoh. Brendan Fraser for best actor is one that I don't really know how to film because I do not think it was the best performance. I think I did the podcast. This was the one pre Oscar podcast that I managed to do. I loved Austin Butler's performance. I liked, I loved Colin Farrell's performance. I love Paul Mescal, his performance, Bill Nighy performance. I didn't end up watching Living. It's good. It's made me worthy of the nomination. It's not a winner for me and. So I think Brendan Fraser's performance is genuinely fantastic and him winning. I don't go, Oh man, his performance wasn't good enough to win. It's just because they like Brendan Fraser. I do find it interesting though, that Austin Butler didn't win. That was the it's clear the Academy didn't like Elvis, but they liked Elvis enough that it has a Best Picture nomination and the whale doesn't. So they clearly like Elvis more than the Whale and Brendan Fraser. He's someone you can feel good about voting for. He seems like a genuinely nice, humble dude who feels that really, really a lot of gratitude for the opportunity to be on the awards circuit, to be going around, to be winning things, to be giving speeches and seems to be genuinely grateful so you can feel really good about voting for him. I think the person I really wanted to win was Colin Farrell. I think he had the best performance. I think when I did the rankings there was Colin Farrell and Paul Mescal for me. Paul Mescal was never going to win. I don't think enough people watched Aftersun I think those who did his performance are so subtle that it's not the kind of performance that the Academy Awards are. I think I think Paul Mescal needed another moment or two in that film of real kind of emotional range to have chance here with Austin Butler, you just get its full action packed from beginning to end. It's a great performance with Colin Farrell. You do get these small moments where you can get really really emotional with it is it is more similar to Paul Mescal, his performance, but I think he has a few more opportunities to really shine for the clips in the tiktoks. And then when you're announcing the performance, right, when you have those little clips that play, when they're announcing the nominees, he has a few more kind of Oscar beatable clips. Colin Farrell does. And he was my favorite performance. But I think Brendan Fraser, he gets those moments in the whale where he gets to have that immense kind of emotional range and he's saying, I just want to know that I've done one thing correctly with my life or whatever that line reading is, and he just delivers it while sobbing, while crying. And it's just that's the kind of performance the Academy likes. And he wins it here. I don't think it's not deserved. I'm Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser feels good and the performance is certainly good enough to warrant the win. And it was between and Austin Butler. I just feels this one just feels like I thought there was a better performance. So I was kind of rooting for the person who I thought had the best performance, which was Colin Farrell. But hey, you know what? You know, the Oscars aren't about me. I can't win. I'm also super happy for Brendan Fraser. Regardless of what you think of the Whale, I think the performance of Brendan Fraser is equally better when you consider that the script for the Whale, The more I think about it and the more I hear other people talk about it. He has to do a lot of work to make that script work, and I like the whale far more than most did, and I think he elevates that film in a way that if you replace him with someone who doesn't do as good of a job, the film falls completely flat. So a worthy award win for Brendan Fraser just didn't feel particularly great for me because I was rooting for someone else. But hey, that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes. There's a few other awards here I should probably touch on. Best cinematography goes to All Quiet on the Western Front. I really loved the cinematography in that movie. I know a lot of people have picked something else. I am super stoked with this when Elvis Tarr I think are both suitable winners. Place of all quiet on the Western Front, but I really like the cinematography in that movie and it was my pick to win. I thought it had the best cinematography. I don't know what that says about me. If you really love the cinematography and Elvis and Tarr, which I also did, but I thought that was a super kind of worthy winner for All Quiet on the Western Front. Film editing goes to everything everywhere, all at once. That was a little up in the air as well. I think everything everywhere, all ones only works because of its editing. I like Paul Rogers. His speech was great. His after show speech was fantastic about how people like him often win these types of awards, and he's very conscious of who he's mentoring and who he's kind of bringing with him on his editing journey. I like the reveal that he edited this whole thing and like a super messy premiere pro timeline that's just fucking rad as hell. So everything about Paul Rogers winning I am super supportive of, and it's another one of those awards where he deserves the win and you can feel good about it. Are there other editors here that could have won that you could have felt good about? Absolutely. But this is such a good win for everything everywhere. And Paul Rogers and I think that's it. That's all that is going to do it for the 95th Academy Awards. A recap By yours truly. I know I'm not the best person to be doing this, but the whole point of the podcast is they're not really the best person to be doing any of this at all. So if you enjoyed that after Film Party at gmail.com with your thoughts at after Film Pod on Twitter, hit the show notes for a whole bunch of links to a whole bunch of different social media kind of things coming up on the podcast. Are knives out at some point? If you want to get those thoughts in, we have everything everywhere all at once being covered. We got Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley being covered. Thank you so much for listening. And until oh man, until the next, which I hope I don't have to think about till December again, I really invested a lot of my emotional space the last couple of months into the ceremony and broadly was super happy with it. I if you had asked me how I was going to feel, probably pretty bad and I feel pretty great overall. So what a turnaround for the Oscars to make me feel that way. And I think that's it, though. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you all. And I will see you in the next one