My belated thoughts on this year’s Oscars

OK so at this point, it’s probably a little untimely of me to be talking about the Oscars. I’m sure most people have already said what needs to be said, but I wanna also offer some of my own two cents.

I don’t really have much to say about the ceremony itself. I enjoyed Conan O’Brien as the host, the musical numbers were a highlight and the acceptances speeches were all pretty moving — especially the ones from Autumn Durald Arkpaw (whose Best Cinematography win for her work on Sinners was well-deserved if you ask me) and Maggie Kang (for her work on K-Pop Demon Hunters), but overall, I personally felt last year’s ceremony was a little bit more entertaining from what I remember. As for the winners, I have no issue with One Battle After Another being the big winner of the night, especially if it meant Paul Thomas Anderson finally winning an Oscar. Personally, I was hoping that Sinners would be the Best Picture winner but alas, that wasn’t. Ah well. They’re both excellent films in my opinion and at the very least, Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor, which is pretty awesome. What’s also pretty awesome is the fact that Amy Madigan won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Weapons. I was already pleasantly surprised to see that she was nominated to begin with but I was extremely happy to see her win. Aunt Gladys was such a terrific villain and Madigan played the role to sheer perfection.

Of course, the big non-surprise of the night — aside from the new Avatar winning Best Visual Effects and Frankenstein winning for Best Makeup — was Jessie Buckley winning Best Actress for her role in Hamnet. I haven’t seen it yet, but Buckley is undeniably talented both as an actor and as a singer, so it’s great to see her get recognition for her talent. I also wasn’t surprised to see Frankenstein win in most of the technical categories, K-Pop: Demon Hunters winning Best Original Song or Sinners winning Best Original Score, but I was surprised to see F1 receive a nomination for Best Picture. Don’t get me wrong. I liked that movie a lot but I’m not sure if I’d consider it Best Picture material. It’s a likeable crowdpleaser for sure, not unlike the high-concept movies that producer Jerry Bruckheimer made his name with in the 80s, but even I thought it was a bit on the formulaic side. Still, it’s kind of cool to see a mainstream blockbuster like F1 in the running for Best Picture and its win for Best Sound was certainly deserved.

I was personally fine with Sean Penn winning Best Supporting Actor for One Battle After Another, but my personal choice would’ve been either Benicio Del Toro from the same movie or Delroy Lindo for Sinners. I can’t really comment on Stellan Skarsgard in Sentimental Value or Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein since I haven’t seen either film yet, but I’m pretty sure they were both good as well. Honestly, even though both films were nominated in all the big categories — and took home many of the big awards too — I still kind of feel like Sinners and One Battle After Another were slightly snubbed, especially when it came to the acting categories, but that’s just because the casts in both movies were all wonderful. Aside from the actors who were nominated in both movies, relative newcomers Miles Caton and Chase Infiniti gave star-making performances in their respective films and Hailee Steinfeld and Jack O’Connell were both brilliant in Sinners, but I think that’s what happens when you have two movies with equally mesmerising ensemble casts. There are sadly gonna be a few performances lost by the wayside and I’m assuming that the Academy introduced the “Best Casting” award as a way to remedy that.

So, that’s really all have to say about the nominations and winners. I still haven’t seen some of the other big Oscar contenders from this year like Bugonia, K-Pop Demon Hunters or The Secret Agent, so I can’t say anything about them beyond being pleased that they got some buzz, even if Bugonia and The Secret Agent wound up walking away empty-handed.

One other thing that I do wanna talk about with this year’s Oscars is how it seems like the Academy is finally starting to loosen up ever so slightly when it comes to the horror genre. Last year was certainly a step in the right direction with Nosferatu and The Substance being big award contenders so seeing the likes of Sinners, Weapons and Frankenstein featuring prominently in the awards race is reason enough for to be hopeful that the genre’s viability at last year’s Oscars wasn’t some fluke. Is that a sign that the horror genre is finally being taken seriously by the Academy? I don’t know, but what’s interesting is that the films being nominated are still recognisably horror at their core. As Catherine Corcoran says in her article for Bloody Disgusting:

“This year, just like other years, horror didn’t evolve into something “awards-friendly.” It’s still angry, still violent, still political, still messy, still emotional, and uncomfortable as hell. The genre didn’t change to meet the Oscars. The Oscars simply ran out of ways to pretend horror wasn’t already at the center of the conversation.”

Yeah. I think that sums it up pretty well. Yeah, you could argue that films like Sinners and Frankenstein are more horror-adjacent but they both wear their pulpy influences loud and proud. Likewise, The Substance is hardly “awards-friendly” with its grotesque imagery and overt body horror but it still managed to receive nominations for Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Even if it didn’t win any of those awards, that’s a big deal. Horror films being nominated for Best Picture or Best Director used to be the exception, but I’m hoping from here on out, it’ll be the norm.

So yeah. That’s all I wanna say about this year’s Oscars. It was a good show and I’m curious to see what’ll be in the running for next year’s Oscars, although I really hope that ending joke about Mr. Beast being the next Oscars host will stay that way.