‘A Very Fashionable Winner’ Dominated a Good, Outdated-Common Oscars

This yr’s Academy Awards ceremony restored a few of the grandeur of previous broadcasts by enjoying issues straight. Host Jimmy Kimmel delivered an agreeably standard-issue opening monologue, joking about varied nominees within the room whereas tossing a couple of barbs at titans curiously not in attendance (James Cameron, Tom Cruise). There was nothing flashy or revolutionary about his opening, which is simply superb.

Effectively, perhaps just a little flash—a parody musical quantity, maybe?—would have been good. However in any other case, it was heartening to see the Oscars eschew all of the useless experimentation of latest years and go the normal route. It wasn’t completely anodyne, although; a few of Kimmel’s jokes have been genuinely humorous, like a bit about Nicole Kidman being trapped in an AMC theater for the final two years. (Referencing, after all, Kidman’s viral and gay-famous AMC adverts urging folks to return to multiplexes.) Kimmel wasn’t long-winded—little question a part of the trouble to maintain issues below 4 hours—however his monologue didn’t really feel skinny. That’s an excellent return to kind for the published.

So was this yr’s set, a gold, shiny, vaguely retro building that wasn’t making an attempt to show the present right into a membership, or a cabaret. (It wasn’t a prepare station, both.) The stage appeared like an Oscars stage, gleaming and glitzy with simply the appropriate steadiness of class and gaudiness. Most crucially—for me, a crackpot, anyway—there have been greater than two steps as much as the stage. It’s my strongly held perception that final yr’s slap wouldn’t have occurred had Will Smith needed to climb some precise stairs to get on the stage. The upper stage has aesthetic advantages, too: viewers photographs of well-known actors gazing up in awe and admiration are more practical than after they’re wanting straight forward. 

And massive issues occurred up there! There was a bevy of musical numbers, from a standard-issue Diane Warren track, to David Byrne and supporting actress nominee Stephanie Hsu bringing some avant garde to the proceedings with their efficiency of the nominated tune from Every little thing In all places All at As soon as, to the crowd-pleasing winner “Naatu Naatu” from RRR. Woman Gaga, who up till this weekend wasn’t slated to carry out, gave us a few of her hallmark, delightfully over-egged dramatics, whereas Rihanna delivered an appropriately solemn efficiency of her track from Wakanda Endlessly, in some ways a tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman. We’ll most likely by no means once more see the total blare of corny, ludicrous theater that outlined the Oscars of outdated, however this yr at the very least sought to create a holistic sensory expertise. They weren’t so involved with being cool. 

That doesn’t imply the published didn’t irksomely tinker. Maybe the worst technical side of the night was the routine excessive closeups on presenters and nominees, an odd and claustrophobic selection. It’s unclear what the stylistic reasoning was there—have been they making an attempt to imitate the intimacy of front-facing video content material? Regardless of the decision-making was, the camerawork critically undermined the sense of event conjured up on the prime of the present.

The present’s dedication to brevity additionally started to grate because the night went on. I didn’t love having the supporting actor classes bunched collectively, and I missed having precise presenters introduce every greatest image nominee. I get that it’s onerous to try this when there are ten movies within the class, however the rushed clip reels that performed after commercials made the nominees within the night’s headline bout seem to be toss-off afterthoughts. These movies deserved moments of reflection, not hasty interstitials. The play-offs have been additionally harsh, giving the impression that winner sentiment didn’t matter as a lot as getting the present over as quickly as potential.