The academy awards were full of emotional highs. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” swept the night by winning seven awards including Best Picture. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert gave heartfelt thanks to their parents during their acceptance speeches for Best Original Screenplay and Best Achievement in Directing. Kwan went on to talk about his struggles with imposter syndrome, while Scheinert also thanked his teachers. Paul Rogers said it’s crazy that he won the Academy Award for Best Editing for his second film ever. All of the winning actors and actresses received standing ovations. As a surprise to some, Jamie Lee Curtis won over her co-star Stephanie Hsu and “Black Panther’”s Angela Bassett to win Best Supporting Actress. In her speech, Curtis thanked everyone who helped her to get to that point, saying to everyone “we just won an Oscar.” Key He Kwan took home Best Supporting Actor in — you guessed it — “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” After being dealt one of the worst hands in Hollywood, he claimed that “This is the American Dream.”
Michelle Yeoh made history as the first Asian woman to win Best Actress. It felt like everyone wanted this movie legend to win. She said “And ladies, don’t let anyone ever tell you you are past your prime.” Best Actor was a tough back-and-forth between Austin Butler in “Elvis” and Brendan Fraser in “The Whale.” Though, in the end, Fraser won the award. “All Quiet on the Western Front” gave “Everything Everywhere All at Once” a run for their money by winning four Oscars: Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Score and Best International Feature. Most films, unfortunately, went home empty handed. Others only won one Oscar each. To name some examples, “Top Gun: Maverick” won Best Sound and “Avatar: The Way of Water” (to the surprise of absolutely no one) won Best Visual Effects. The exception, however, was “The Whale,” which won Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Actor for Brendon Fraser’s breakthrough performance.
Guillermo del Toro won Best Animated Feature for his version of “Pinocchio.” In response to the constant state of animation, he said “Animation is cinema,” not a genre, and it’s ready to be respected. These winners were a diverse group of firsts. From “Black Panther”’s Ruth Carter being the first Black woman to hold two Oscars, to the previously mentioned Michelle Yeoh becoming the first Asian woman to win Best Actress. Host Jimmy Kimmel made many jokes throughout the show, especially in terms of Will Smith’s slap last year. He said that if anyone came up on stage mad, they would need to get through people such as the Mandalorian, Spiderman and Fabelman. After a smooth ceremony — where all twenty-three were presented during the live show — Kimmel flipped a sign called “Number of Oscars Telecasts Without Incident” from zero to one.
This Academy Awards was a large improvement from last year’s awards. Instead of some awards not being in live ceremony, all twenty-three awards were broadcasted on the main show. Thus the show was better paced. Plus it had much more focus on the award winners and emotional speeches than anything else.
Billy Wikol is a first year English major. WW993420@wcupa.edu