The 92nd Annual Academy Awards

Love surprises at the Oscars and no one can deny that Parasite being the first foreign language film to win the Best Picture Oscar was a surprise. Though it was not my choice for Best Picture, I did rate it and think that it was more than a worthy recipient of the award. As for the show in general, there seemed to be an air of experimentation in the air as they seemed to try several changes in accustomed formats and there is one that really worked for me. I loved the way the clips of the acting nominees were displayed, showing multiple scenes effectively edited together and switching from one film to the next. As for my specifics:

BEST ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES: Brad Pitt (loved his shout out to stunt coordinators and to DiCaprio); Laura Dern (loved her shout out to her parents); Joaquin Phoenix (his speech actually had me choked up); Also loved when Best Director winner Boon Jong Ho announced that he was going to drink until the morning


WORST ACCEPTANCE SPEECH: Renee Zellweger, it started off Ok, but she got a little full of herself and started rambling. I thought that girl would never get off the stage. Glad she won though.

BEST DRESSED: Charlize Theron, Regina King, Mindy Kaling, Scarlett Johansson, Lin Manuel-Miranda, Salma Hayek, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Sandra Oh, Penelope Cruz, Elton John, Brie Larson, Renee Zellweger

WORST DRESSED: Brad Pitt, Diane Keaton, Timothee Chalamet, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Gal Gadot

FAVORITE "AWWWW" MOMENT: Laura Dern honoring her parents; Elton John and Bernie Taupin sharing the joy of their first Oscar win; Joaquin Phoenix quoting his late brother.

ODDEST USE OF SCREENTIME: Eminem performing "Lose Yourself"...it was OK to see him onstage but why? But what was the point of him performing that song at this particular ceremony?

MOST SURPRISING WINS: Obviously Best Picture for Parasite, but also Best Animated Feature going to Toy Story 4 and Visual Effects going to 1917...loved 1917, but that film was not about Visual Effects.

BEST MUSICAL MOMENTS: Idina Menzel doing her Frozen 2 song though she easily out-sung the other ladies on stage with her; Cynthia Erivo's song from Harriet and Sir Elton's song from Rocketman


BEST PRESENTER BANTER: Steve Martin and Chris Rock; Will Ferrell and Julia Louis Dreyfuss

I agree with best presenters Gideon. Those were the two best combos.

For me though, it is getting a little old that we are seeing the same type of formats. Hope many years are we going to be shocked by the winner at the end. I'd like some shock in the other big categories.

It's been at least four years in a row that it's felt the same in that regard. Of course, this could still be me being pissed about the La La Land and Moonlight fiasco. La la Land is so much better of a movie.

I think the problem is that the Oscars don't really control that, and can't, as long as they come at the "end" of the awards season.

We know who's going to win most acting nominations because they give out other acting awards beforehand and there's even overlap between voting bases and the like. The potential surprises are for awards that don't have a lot of other equivalents and/or which use larger voting bodies or different voting methods, which is why Best Picture can still surprise. But by the time we get to Oscar night, actors and actresses have already won or lost a lot of awards.

Nothing they can really do about that, other than voting differently or weirdly just to surprise us, which obviously is much worse than having a few rote categories each year.

Well I for one was very happy with how predictable the acting awards were.

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This is neat. Note the date:

I know you were happy with the Best Actor winner, Miss Vicky...loved his speech, I actually got a little choked up.

I loved everyone shouting up,up,up after the academy rudely cut the parasite crew off, also loved Bong Joon-Ho giving respect to his fellow nominees and Roger Deakins winning

I got a little choked up as well.

Although part of that was just me being so happy to finally see him win after almost 20 years of waiting and hoping.

It was awesome seeing him up there...he should have won for Gladiator...he was the best thing about that movie.

I think I'd enjoy it more if Oscars were first then in that case.

I was getting pissed when he was talking trash about people who drink milk.

Was Toy Story 4 really a surprising win? Disney films have won 13/19 Best Animated Feature awards (and eight out of the last ten) so unless something proves truly exceptional like Into the Spider-Verse then it just makes more sense to expect whatever the Mouse put out to take the prize.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

He's been a vegan since he was a child and an outspoken animal rights activist for decades.
It was what I expected from him.

No comments. Master.

Most of those were won by Pixar during a time when they had split from Disney as I recall. I’m sure another can chime in and correct me if I’m wrong.
However, your overall remains correct. Animation is rarely a surprise, or at all.

I was surprised that Toy Story 4 won because I had been hearing serious buzz about I Lost My Body and was sure it was going to win.

I see that the Oscar awards program was again down another 20% in viewership from last year. One has to suspect that the general public does not want to hear people who live in fantasyland proselytize, and tell others what they should believe and how to live their lives.

Yep, it's the equivalent of me winning employee of the month and ranting on and on about unregulated pet food.

Does anyone else think that perhaps The Farewell, should have been nominated for best foreign language film, even though it was American produced? Or was it perhaps not nominated cause there were just better ones?