ONE ONLINE DISCOURSE AFTER ANOTHER: My Reactions to the 98th Oscars

I read a comment online that claimed that One Battle After Another would become known as this decade's Crash. I know art is supposed to be objective, but this comment is preposterous in my eyes. This person further claimed that a similar enough robbery occurred when Oppenheimer beat Barbie. 

I am not expecting everyone who watches these awards to follow the season like a lot of crazy people do...such as myself...but there was no way in hell Barbie was winning Best Picture that year. That would've been the biggest Best Picture upset of all time.

Having said that, Sinners really did have the means to pull off a surprise.

We will get to that, though. 

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THE CEREMONY ITSELF:

There was something very kitschy but classy about the set this year. It felt like a relic of the past, but in a refreshing way. On top of that, Conan O'Brien was back and managed to impress me as the host yet again. I do say that as someone who has been a huge fan of his since childhood, so I am pretty die hard when it comes to him. 

I recall last year when he made the very pointed joke about Karla Sofia Gascon and her infamous Tweets, and I thought before the show that I hope he calls out Timothee Chalamet and his misguided comments about ballet and opera...and he did. Oh, and also him calling out how England arrested their pedophile, but God forbid if we arrest any of ours in power. I also really loved his joke about Jessie Buckley giving birth alone in the woods in Hamnet as being a great example of affordable health care by American standards...the truth hurts. 

The actual opening with him being chased by kids a la Amy Madigan's Aunt Gladys was truly a lot of fun, and it does signal how iconic that character has become in such a short amount of time. 

I do think they got VERY picky and choosy about which speeches to cut off, and at times, it just felt rude. I also see why some might bemoan the fact that they let "Golden" and "I Lied to You" be the only Best Song nominees to perform as it shows a certain disrespect to the other nominees...including perennial nominee Diane Warren. However, it is clear that the two songs that got to be featured were the far and away strongest contenders. I also love that we didn't get any extraneous film bits or random homages, such as the James Bond one from last year. Those are often filler and even with them being very tight with cutting speeches, the show still ran over by 40 or so minutes.... not that this is anything new.

The fact the show starts at 7 now is a godsend. I can still remember how they would start at 8:30 and run past midnight...which was completely unnecessary and brutal. Considering some of us have day jobs that make us want to slap people on a daily basis and have us wake up at 5am, I do love the idea of being able to get to bed before 11.

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THE TECH CATEGORIES:

I don't have much to say about these. The fact that Frankenstein won Production Design, Costumes, and Makeup/Hairstyling was pretty expected, as was Avatar: Fire & Ash taking Visual Effects.

I do think it was interesting to see the results of both Cinematography and the brand-new category of Casting. Most of us suspected that OBAA would win the former while Sinners would win the latter...and then both films swapped. It did signal early on that OBAA was likely going to be the big victor, even if the Cinematography win for Sinners proved it was not out of it yet.

We also got ourselves a rare tie, this time in the Live Action Short Film category. We've only had, what, 3 true ties in Academy history? (1931 Best Actor was technically not a legit tie).

I will say that part of me is still bummed that Jonny Greenwood has yet to win an Oscar for one of his scores. The crazy thing was I left other films thinking about their score more than Sinners, even the snubbed Marty Supreme. In the end though, Ludwig Goransson is such a great composer, so it is hard to begrudge him getting more flowers.

Even with that swap between Sinners and OBAA, I wouldn't the results in these categories are that surprising.

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THE ELITE 8:

Best Adapted Screenplay - Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Even if Sinners had taken off with a surprise Best Director win and a Best Picture victory that would've felt similar in its path to films like Parasite, we at least had the guarantee that PTA was going to finally win his first Oscar. 

This was simply a long time coming. I would argue that in his career up to this point, I would've given maybe 5-6 Oscars for a mix of Directing and Screenwriting. He was so overdue that it was insane. If I am being honest though, I am not sure if I felt a win for him here was as necessary. If we are talking strictly from a dialogue standpoint, I was more impressed with Will Tracy's work on Bugonia. 

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Best Original Screenplay - Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Another foregone conclusion and we can now claim Ryan Coogler as an Oscar winner. I feel like this category was very stacked compared to Adapted. Despite getting unfairly snubbed for Best Picture, I did really love seeing It Was Just an Accident on this list. Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, and Blue Moon all had such strong scripts, and all felt so different from each other that it is hard to determine which I liked more.

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Best Supporting Actor - Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

I was one of the people who wanted to go out on a limb and predict Delroy Lindo even though that was a crazy gamble. Sean Penn won both of the two major industry precursors and that is hard to deny when it comes to predicting...BUT...he basically did no campaigning, didn't even show up to give a speech at either of the two previous award shows, has a bit of a bad reputation, and has two Oscars to his name already.

In the end, his performance was rather strong and that was what carried the day. What a chaotic race that became! Early on, he was seen as the frontrunner and then we kept getting thrown curveballs with his co-star Del Toro sweeping critics' prizes, Elordi winning CC, and Skarsgard winning the Globe. 

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Best Supporting Actress - Amy Madigan, Weapons

To be clear, I really thought highly of all these nominees...but Amy Madigan winning this feels like such an awesome and truly remarkable selection because not only is it a horror movie villain performance, but she was the sole nominee for her film.

Not even Demi Moore could win for The Substance despite winning multiple precursors and being in a Best Picture nominee...but it just seems like this was a year where too much buzz and passion for Madigan's narrative and work carried the day. It also helps that she is just so quirky and delightful and eccentric which only adds to the joy of seeing her get to give a speech.

When I saw Weapons back in August, I walked out of that film saying that I wanted her to get an awards campaign, but I wasn't confident that it would happen. I thought, like many, that at best she would be a filler nominee that would get people buzzing but the fact that critics embraced her and then her buzz took off was extraordinary.  

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Best Actor - Michael B. Jordan, Sinners

It is crazy to think that even just a month ago, most of us felt that Timothee Chalamet's first Oscar win was going to happen. He won the CC and the Globe, and even when many suspected he would lose at SAG as they've never given anyone back-to-back awards for Lead Acting, the expectation was that he'd win BAFTA and that would solidify him as the true frontrunner.

Then, BAFTA gave their prize to Robert Aramayo for I Swear, a film that has not been released in the States yet. I did believe there was a world where Jordan could take SAG but that it likely wouldn't translate to an Oscar. However, once he won AFTER Chalamet lost at BAFTA, I decided to predict him here...even though someone winning an Oscar with just SAG doesn't really happen. There was still a path for Chalamet...and his comments about the ballet/opera only went viral the day after voting closed so it was likely just his snobby/cocky demeanor for months on end that helped cost him.

Plus, they made DiCaprio wait over 20 years for his first and he gave far superior performances to anything Chalamet has done...and I say that as someone who really did love his work in Marty Supreme.

Jordan winning here was a moment and considering I can still recall watching him on The Wire way back when, I love seeing him get this kind of moment.

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Best Actress - Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

One of the true locks of the night and the only acting performance to sweep the season of televised precursors awards (although Rose Byrne did do very well with critics).

Buckley is such a wonderful actress, and it has been such a joy to watch her give all of these amazing and passionate speeches. Her work in Hamnet was powerful and I will always have the image of her wailing at her son's death seared into my brain. 

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Best Director - Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

There was certainly a part of me who was a tad pensive with this one. Was there a world where Ryan Coogler could pull off an upset here similar to that of Bong Joon ho beating Sam Mendes?

I did think it was possible, but the big difference is that 1917 didn't seem like a passionate favorite in the same vein as not just OBAA but Sinners as well. Sam Mendes also already had an Oscar to his name while PTA was immensely overdue. 

I do think it is a shame we have still yet to have a black person win in Best Director. It feels even more jarring to think that we've had films like 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight win the top prize, but McQueen and Jenkins didn't get a Directing prize.

In the end, PTA winning his first Directing Oscar is about as gratifying for me as when Scorsese finally got his...except I admittedly feel this was an even better win. 

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Best Picture - One Battle After Another

I can understand why some would take issue with the film, or at least the first act as Teyana Taylor's character is a bit much and hard to connect with. I know that I admittedly struggled with the film and didn't begin to truly love it until it moved on to the portion where Chase Infiniti came into the picture. 

I say this as a cis white man, so I guess take that as you will, but I think the reason the film worked for me was that in the end, I love the absolutely ridiculous take it had on white supremacy. I almost get the sense from some of the online discourse that people feel like the film somehow glorified the racism. 

One could argue that the black fetishism was a bit uncomfortable to say the least, but also...that felt like the point to me. Sean Penn's character is evil and unrepentant...and the people he is eager to impress are just as vile. 

DiCaprio's character of Bob, while a hero of sorts, is bumbling and is buoyed up by immigrants, like Benicio Del Toro's immortal Sensei, and the help of such women of color like Regina Hall's character of Deandra. 

To me, I took the film as an example of two big themes: we need to rely on the youth and that immigrants/POC need to be embraced. Oh, and the third theme: White Supremacists are certainly dangerous, but it is fun to belittle them.

And with that, we end this very long and rather bizarre award season.

I will need to look more into the films that are due to come out in 2026 as some of the offerings do seem to be very up my alley, not to mention the return of some really wonderful filmmakers.