Oscars 2023: A win for out-of-the-box ideas

More Germans and Irish than African Americans won at the Oscars on Sunday night. Also, hardly any women won, except in the categories where only women were nominated (and painfully enough for makeup). Yet there was no fuss, and the ceremony was even surprisingly apolitical. Without big speeches about representation and inclusivity, and full of good fun.

The big winner of 2023 is Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, the film in which mother (Michelle Yeoh) enters a bizarre and devastated multiverse to reconnect with her daughter and save the world. The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director (Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, collectively known as Daniels), Best Screenplay (Daniels), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Kung-Fu Queen Michelle Yeoh) and Best Supporting Actress (Jamie —Lee Curtis). The German All Quiet on the Western Front won four prizes, for best foreign film (above the Belgian Close), best production design, camera work and music.

The surprises of the evening were precisely in the films that did not win anything. As The Fablemans, Steven Spielberg’s nostalgic ego document – ​​in many ways a perfect Oscar candidate. And The Banshees of Inisherinwhich was nevertheless expected to win Martin McDonagh the Best Screenplay award.

Read also: Oscar Campaigns: This is still Harvey Weinstein’s Hollywood

The evening of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a win for studios and creators betting on bold, out-of-the-box ideas. Ideas that aren’t based on books and franchises, and aren’t traditional Hollywood darlings. It was also a victory for the representation of Asian-American and Asian filmmakers in Hollywood.

But that also made it even more poignant that so few black filmmakers were nominated. It seems as if there is only room in Hollywood for the representation of one group at a time. The lack of nominations from female filmmakers was also distressing, especially in the Best Directors category. So it ended up being a traditional Oscar night after all. Annoyingly traditional – reminiscent of a time before #Oscarssowhite.

Scrotum

The three and a half hour long show followed the same pattern as always. Starting with a monologue from the presenter, this year from father humor king Jimmy Kimmel. The vast majority were well-behaved and bland, some jokes sharp. “James Cameron is not here this year, reportedly because he is not nominated for Best Director. Who does he think he is? A woman?”

Immediately afterwards came the awards for Best Actor and Supporting Actress and with that the first highlight of the evening: the speech by Ke Huy Quan, who won for his role in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. He came to America as a refugee, played as a child actor in Indiana Jones and then got no more roles. Through his childlike joy, “keep your dreams alive!” for the first time as good advice.

Such sincere emotion had to be waited for hours afterwards, until Brendan Fraser won for Best Male Actor and with all the excitement he couldn’t remember which side to leave the stage on. In the meantime, the show, as usual, fell into a deep hole. Oscars were kissed, mothers were thanked. The less prestigious awards such as Best Short Film, Best Animated Short Film, and Best Documentary Short received little love. Not even from uninterested presenters – Elizabeth Olsen in particular presented with narcoleptic intonation. Last year, some unpopular categories were omitted to make the show more attractive and shorter. After a stir from the industry, they came back again. Rightly so, the winners of Best Short Documentary also deserve airtime. But it is less fun for the public.

Read also: Read also: A gala, an Oscar and a double cheeseburger

A low point in the show was the performance of the nominated song ‘This is a Life’ by Stephanie Hsu and David Byrne, which sounded like they were singing along with a band in a packed bar. A highlight was the performance of the very strong Lady Gaga, who only heard the day of the show that she would have to perform. And the biggest highlight was when Hugh Grant went off-script to advocate “moisterizer,” comparing his own scalp to a scrotum.

statements

The show was not completely without social, political statements. Sarah Polley won Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking and joked: “I want to thank the Academy for not being mortally shocked by the words ‘women’ and ‘talking’, so close together in one sentence. And there was a performance of the nominated song ‘Applause’ Tell it like a woman. The sentence that the singer uttered in the middle was almost funny: “To each and every woman in the world – give yourself some applause”, because the Oscars are not doing it.

Michelle Yeoh was the first Asian to win Best Actress and gave an emotional speech to all the boys and girls ‘who look like her’. She also inadvertently proved the old acting cliché: that someone who fights back tears is much more emotional than someone who lets them go.

In addition, there was profit from Navalny, for Best Documentary. The wife of Russia’s opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya addressed her husband from the Oscars podium. “My husband is in prison for telling the truth. For defending democracy […] Stay strong, my love.” An eardrum-breaking applause. That was a sentiment on which everyone in the room agreed without discomfort.

For a viewer, the Oscars are hardly entertainment, rather an experience. At an ungodly time, between 1:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., waves of mild humor, emotion, and deep boredom lull you to sleep. Fortunately, viewers in the Netherlands were led in tow by journalist René Mioch, who commented on the ceremony for television channel Filmbox.

It was wonderfully crunchy. Sometimes he was cut before he knew it, or he finished way too early, leaving viewers looking at a still screen for minutes, just fun. With Mioch and his guests, including Frits Huffnagel, you had the feeling that you were not alone in the middle of the night.