On March 15, at 6:50 p.m., I signed up for a 3-day free trial of Hulu (with live TV). At 7 p.m., I used it to tune into the 98th Academy Awards, broadcast on ABC and held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The nearly four-hour ceremony was hosted by comedian Conan O'Brien, reprising his role from last year, and featured several firsts, a surprise tie, and way too many absolutely rude play-offs—plus a resolution to the tight race between “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners.” I was rooting for “Sinners,” but, despite receiving 16 nominations (a new record), “One Battle After Another” came out on top with six wins, notably Best Picture and Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson. “Sinners” came in second with four awards (including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan), followed by Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” with three, and the international phenomenon “KPop Demons Hunters” with two. Hamnet’s one win of the night came from Jessie Buckley’s award for Best Actress.
The ceremony kicked off with a cold open that saw O'Brien running through nominated films—decked out in a costume reminiscent of Best Supporting Actress winner Amy Madigan’s kidnapping witch from “Weapons.” His following monologue, which was actually pretty funny, was packed with burns: he poked fun at Timothée Chalamet’s ballet controversy (a recurring motif of the evening), announced an alternative Oscars hosted by Kid Rock, and flamed Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos (who was in attendance), the American healthcare system, and our country’s seeming lack of ability to “arrest our pedophiles.” I found the bits introducing the various presenters lackluster (especially his intro for Priyanka Chopra and Javier Bardem), but the pre-recorded bits, which addressed the present and future of technology, were great and prescient.
Also speaking to the moment, presenting for Best Animated Short Film, Will Arnett took time to emphasize celebrating animation as an art form over AI slop. The win for that category went to the stop-motion short “The Girl Who Cried Pearls.” In the long category, to no one’s surprise, “KPop Demon Hunters” went home with the golden statue. During the acceptance speech, creator Maggie Kang spotlighted the importance of representation and dedicated the award to “Korea and Koreans everywhere.” Co-director Chris Appelhans gave encouragement to creatives to tell their stories, but as producer Michelle Wong came to the mic to give her thanks, the showrunners tried to play her off. She persevered, but later in the evening, after a win for “Golden” in the Best Original Song category—the first K-Pop song to win an Oscar—it happened again. As Ejae finished her speedy sub-minute thanks and ceded the floor to co-winner Yu Han Lee, the music aggressively cut him off and didn’t let up despite protests from the stage and the audience. Though the six-person team got an opportunity to finish their thanks backstage, it was a terrible move from the showrunners, one Kang said was “indicative” of the industry’s bias against Asian creators, and was especially egregious in light of other winners’ longer speeches (e.g., Madigan’s two-and-a-half minute speech).
Something the showrunners got right this year was the addition of the Best Casting category, the first new category to be added in over two decades. The addition of this category makes perfect sense to me; I’ve seen movies ruined by bad casting. What surprised me was the winner of this category: Cassandra Kulukundis for “One Battle After Another.” While I think all the nominees were probably worthy of the long-needed award, the celebrated ensemble casting of “Sinners” made me think that Fancine Maisler would win.
The bigger surprise was a tie in the live-action short category. After firing off a hypothetical list of abbreviated movie names (“West Side Anecdote,” “The King’s Tweet,” “Call Me By Your Nickname,” etc.), actor Kumail Nanjiani announced two winners: “The Singers” and “Two People Exchanging Saliva.” Because the Oscars apparently has open contempt for their winners on the biggest night of their lives, the mic was cut while “Two People Exchanging Saliva” co-writer and co-director Alexandre Singh was giving his acknowledgements. Thankfully, he was allowed to finish his speech, shouting out the film’s international character and reminding that “we can change society through art, through creativity, through theater and ballet, and also cinema,” even in a horrifying world.
Addressing this horrifying world, accepting the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Anderson said that “One Battle After Another” was written to apologize to his kids for the state of the world they will inherit, but with the hope that their generation will be able to improve it. Beyond such vague gesturing, this year's ceremony felt strangely apolitical to me (speech-wise, anyway), which I found interesting given ongoing recent events. However, there were some awardees who used their speech to address current concerns. Winning Best Documentary, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” co-director David Borenstein attributed small acts of complicity as “how you lose your country,” for example, not acting “when a government murders people on the streets” or “when oligarchs take over the media and control how we produce it and consume it.” Co-director and subject Pavel Talankin’s brief, poetic speech called to “stop all of these wars now.” Presenting the winner for international feature film, Bardem, who wore a Palestine pin and a “no a la guerra” (no to war) patch, declared, “No to war and Free Palestine.”
A few winners also used their speeches to shout out to women, which is appropriate considering that March is Women’s History Month. “Two People Exchanging Saliva” co-writer and co-director Natalie Musteata highlighted the majority-women creatorship of the film. Becoming the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, Autumn Durald Arkapaw (“Sinners”) credited every woman in the room for helping to get her where she is.
I believe it’s no mistake that “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” were frontrunners in this year’s creative competition. They are movies politicallyrelevant to today’s moment. In his monologue, O'Brien highlighted the Oscars in these “frightening, chaotic times” as “particularly resonant,” due to its international nature and ability to foster optimism and reflect hope for the future. I’m skeptical of the claim that the Oscars hold that much power or relevance now, but I can’t argue with trying to find hope in a deteriorating world, especially through art. Also, who’s paying $90 bucks for Hulu + Live TV? (Not me!)
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.