The 95th Academy Awards, held on March 12 and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, made history. Despite awkward red carpet interviews, inflated egos taking stage, and an unflatteringly long runtime, this year’s Oscars left a better taste in the mouth for film fans than previous years.
Jimmy Kimmel previously hosted the Oscars in 2017 and 2018, both of which were not particularly great shows due in part to Kimmel’s lack of charisma or talent as a comedian. Instead of improving on his past mistakes and writing some clever jokes, Kimmel decides to take the easy route and make blatant jokes about the celebrities in the audience and last year’s disaster that was Will Smith’s slap.
The wins were another befuddling decision by the Academy, specifically with Best Supporting Actress and Best Animated Short Film. Jamie Lee Curtis won the former for her role in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” which was a good comedic performance. However, when compared to the other nominees, her win left some viewers with their heads scratching.
Stephanie Hsu, also nominated for “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” gave a much more powerful performance that was completely believable despite the film’s wacky concept. Hong Chau, nominated for the “The Whale,” and Kerry Condon, nominated for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” were also two solid picks that were debatably better than Curtis.
Best Animated Short Film went to “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.” This is a tragic decision seeing as other nominations like “My Year of Dicks” and “The Flying Sailor” displayed wild creativity in their animation style and storytelling. Perhaps these films were not picked because of their mature subjects and visuals.
The Oscars have a long history of perceiving animated films as children’s entertainment or as a singular genre, but those notions may have been broken by the night’s winner for Best Animated Feature Film, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.” When accepting the award with the producers of the film, Del Toro said “Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre, and animation is ready to be taken to the next step.” This win gave the ceremony a bright spot in its rather long runtime of nearly four hours.
Other highlights included Brandan Fraser’s emotional win for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Ke Huy Quan’s ecstatic win for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” win for Best Picture. While Cate Blanchett’s leading performance in “Tár” was much better than Michelle Yeoh in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” Yeoh’s win was historic. She is the first ever Asian woman to win Best Actress in Leading Role.
The 95th Academy saved itself from being a complete mess with emotional wins and fantastic speeches. The quality of the show stepped up from previous years, but will that save the Oscars from becoming an irrelevant pop culture event? Viewership jumped up as well this year, so perhaps the Oscars may be trending back up if they continue to increase the quality of the show.
Alex Ross
Alex Rossis a third-year Communication student at Lock Haven with a focus in Journalism. This is his second year as an active member of the Eagle Eye and has been the Arts and Entertainment editor, News editor, and an active writer. He focuses on writing reviews for the A&E section, but has written stories for news, sports, and opinions. Outside of the newsroom, Alex enjoys record shopping, reading classic literature, and analyzing films. Alex hopes to work for a film or music news site as a writer or editor after graduation.
