Robert Downey Jr., Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Emma Stone, and Cillian Murphy pose in the press room during the 96th Annual Academy Awards. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Clips this, clips that. The best thing to happen at the Oscars on Sunday night was the return of the group-presented acting trophies. No, they don’t always have to be friends, yes some of those presenter speeches are better than others — but when it works, it’s magic. Lupita Nyong'o noting that Da’Vine Joy Randolph wore her grandmother’s glasses in The Holdovers and saying “what an honor it was to see the world through [Randolph’s grandmother’s] eyes.” Nic Cage talking about Paul Giamatti’s commitment to the lazy eye in The Holdovers and getting a big laugh from the crowd at “Would I have done that? Hell yes.” That’s special, that’s memorable, that’s a moment that means something! A night with only a few suddenly becomes a night celebrating many.
It is hard to get excited for a show that had so many awards sewn up neatly before the night even began. Robert Downey Jr. was going to have the most speech of the night, I predicted, but Da’Vine Joy Randolph was going to have the best. There’s always a movie that peaks around November or December and would sweep if the awards were held two months earlier. This year it seemed like Maestro but was really The Holdovers; it was always Cillian’s to lose.¹ The real races of the night were between Barbie and Poor Things in some of the below-the-line categories like costuming and production design, awards that you could make a good case for going either way. Poor Things took both, deservedly, but I can’t help but think that more than a little Barbie fatigue set in around the Gothams, and definitely by the Golden Globes when the nominations were falling into place.
Gasps and meltdowns went around when the Best Actress envelope had Emma Stone’s name, and not Lily Gladstone’s. My thoughts on this contest have not changed: ...
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