Thank goodness it's over.
Thanks to fire delays in Los Angeles, the 2025 awards season seemed interminable, but Oscar finally has spoken.
Hollywood's big night marked a strange evening for mainstream movies, if such things still exists. Anora, an independent film took best picture, best director, best actress, best original screenplay, and best editing. A $6 million production stomped big-ticket items such as Wicked and Dune: Part II.
The irony emerged early on. The show opened with Ariana Grande singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a bow to Hollywood's fabled status as the nation's Dream Factory. But Academy voters this year had less interest in Oz than in Anora's immersion in Brighton Beach, a slice of New York where the dreams of a sex worker crashed on the shores of reality.
I was mildly surprised that a poised 25-year-old Madison took best actress for her work in Anora. Some speculated that a late surge for Fernanda Torres of I'm Still Here cost frontrunner Demi Moore votes. Say this, though, Madison's victory gave the show a welcome jolt.
Adrien Brody, this year's frontrunner for his work in The Brutalist, snagged an Oscar for best actor and refused to be played off the stage before he finished his acceptance speech. Good for him.
When Sean Baker won best director for Anora, he made a plea for the importance of viewing movies in theaters. Baker said more than 1,000 theaters bit the dust during the pandemic, but it's difficult to think Baker's pitch will stem the tide.
Netflix, the force behind Emilia Pérez, probably shed tears because the movie, which led the field with 13 nominations, won only two awards, one for an emotional Zoe Saldaña as best supporting actress and another for El Mal, which took best song.
Emilia Pérez couldn't even win best foreign film. That honor went to Brazil's I'm Still Here.
So what about the rest of the show? Host Conan O'Brien's emergence from Demi Moore's body in a parodic reference to The Substance was imaginative. O'Brien has a mild-mannered delivery but hit hard with a joke about Karla Sofía Gascón, the transgender actress nominated for best actress for her work in Emilia Pérez.
O'Brien said that Anora contained 479-uses of the "F''' word, four more than were uttered by Gascon's publicist, an imagined response to disparaging social-media posts by Gascon that probably halted Emilia Perez's Oscar march.
Aside from speeches by the winning Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers for the best documentary, No Other Land, the evening was light on politics. O'Brien did add some bite when he joked about Anora's triumphant night.
"Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian," he said. (See the movie to get the joke.)
In what felt like a Grammys moment, Lisa, Doja Cat, and Raye sang themes from Bond movies in a tribute to Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the duo that's ceding creative control of the franchise to Amazon MGM Studios.
Old rockers -- or at least one of them -- had their moment, as well. Mick Jagger presented the award for best song after telling the audience that Bob Dylan had declined the job because he thought he was too old.
Maybe Dylan made the right decision. A Complete Unknown, a film about Dylan's 1960s transition from folk to rock, went home empty-handed after earning three nominations, including best picture.
To catch all of this year's fashion statements, you would have had to watch the pre-Oscar red carpet telecast. One outfit, did, however, stand out for me. In a yellow suit with what I read described as a "cropped" jacket, best-actor nominee Timothee Chalamet looked like he was auditioning to play a bell hop in a Wes Anderson film.
But, hey, I'm no fashion expert. I am, however, a Gene Hackman fan and was glad to see Morgan Freeman introduce this year's In Memoriam section with a measured tribute to the recently departed actor. A little dignity at the Oscars never hurts.
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