The Oscars were handed out last Sunday and I thought they did a great job with the awards themselves. With the exception of Adapted Screenplay, all of the winners were very deserving. The actors all gave good to great performances. However, the show itself was not as good as the awards.

It began with Janelle Monae singing a song about the films that were not nominated. Now, I am fine with celebrating all the movies made for the year, but this was utterly ridiculous. The night is about movies and celebrating the nominees, not saying these should have been the nominees. Eminem finally decided to show up to sing “Lose Yourself” 17 years after winning the Oscar for it. Do it 2 years ago or wait 3 years and you have an anniversary; doing it now just seems like padding. I think that the singing of the Best Songs were actually pretty good. I can understand about bringing in a choir for one of the songs, but they seemed to show up for every one. Lastly, why did they not have a host, but had the announcer bring out one celebrity only to announce another celebrity? Just cut out the middle man and let the announcer do his job.

Parasite became the first film not in English to win Best Picture. It is also the first to have an entirely Asian cast. Last Emperor and Slumdog Millionaire both had portions in another language and a mostly Asian cast, but also cast Europeans, like Peter O’Toole (Irish) and Dev Patel (born in London). It is also the first film to win both Best Picture and the Palme d’Or since Marty in 1955. I think it is a great film. I’ll have to watch the film again to see how the rest of the film works if you know its secrets. Then, I will do a proper review. I do have to applaud the Academy for going for a film that does not always feel like the normal Best Picture winner and adheres to a particular genre. It is also somewhat critical of rich people, which is most of the Academy.

The acting awards are an interesting bunch since there only Renee Zellweger is a typical Oscar winner playing a real life person. She was also a previous Oscar winner. The other three have been giving good and great performances for some time and were finally rewarded. I wonder what Joaquin Phoenix’s win means for future comic book adaptations. Only five performances from comic book movies have received nominations, all four previous were in Supporting Actor. Those performances are Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprise in Dick Tracy (Joe Pesci won for Goodfellas), Paul Newman as John Rooney in Road for Perdition (Chris Cooper won for Adaptation), William Hurt as Richie Cusack in History of Violence (George Clooney won for Syriana), and Heath Ledger’s win for The Dark Knight. This is also only the second time actors have won Oscars for playing the same characters, assuming they are the same character since the Academy lists Phoenix’s performance as Arthur Fleck rather than Joker. The other time was Don Corleone. Will there be more nominees for comic adaptations as a result of Phoenix’s win or is this a special case because Joker felt more like a Scorsese movie than a comic book movie and it was a psychological drama and not an action movie?

Speaking of comic book adaptations, this is two years in a row that a comic book movie has been nominated. I doubt it is a sign of things to come. Other than Joker’s win for Actor and Score and its other nominations, the only comic book movie to receive a nomination was Avengers: Endgame for Visual Effects, which it lost to 1917. While Phoenix won for a comic book role, none of the other winners have starred in comic book adaptations, although Dern has been in both the Jurassic Park and Star Wars franchises and Brad Pitt, who I am sure has had plenty of offers to star as comic book heroes, had a cameo in Deadpool 2.

Last year, a record number of films about minorities were nominated for Best Picture. This year, not very many made the cut and only two actors who are minorities were nominated. I think a big difference last year was that many of the films nominated were from typical Academy genres while this year they were not. Get Out was nominated as it skirted the edges of being a horror film while Us went all in on the horror. The Academy does not nominate horror films for major awards. Only one real horror film (The Exorcist) has ever been nominated for Best Picture. Dolemite is My Name has a problem in that it is a comedy that is actually funny and the Academy usually doesn’t nominate those. Harriet didn’t get good reviews or any traction for the award season. While the four acting awards were all white, there were some minority winners in other categories. In addition to Zellweger and Dern, there were 11 other women who won awards, including Best Picture. Bong Joon Ho won three of the major awards, a rare feat. The other screenplay was won by a Maori man. Animated Short was about and won by a Black couple. An Asian man won in Makeup. Only time will tell if last year was an aberration or if more films will be nominated. Only a dozen foreign language films have been nominated for Best Picture and now one has finally won. Are there more to come? Only time will tell.