Jordan Peele Wins His First Oscar For Screenwriting (And Likely Not His Last)
Of all of this year’s categories, Best Original Screenplay was surely one of the tightest. We didn’t know who was going to win that Oscar this year, but we had good reason to believe Jordan Peele was going to walk away with it. And sure enough, the “Get Out” writer/director was the winner. And during his moving, impassioned speech, Peele spoke about the struggles many screenwriters face, and how inspiration comes from many. Writing is a lonely process. We know that from experience. But it’s also the voices around us that inspire us and move us to make it work. Peele wrote a great script, and he didn’t forget who brought him on that stage tonight. Many congratulations to Peele for his win!
Roger Deakins Finally Wins That Oscar!
Academy Award winner Roger Deakins. Savor it. Savor that moment. After 14 nominations, the renowned cinematographer finally has his trophy, and this moment feels so, so, so good. It couldn’t have gone to a more deserving visionary, and we’re happy to celebrate his success tonight like we always have here at The Playlist. It’s a shame it took this long. But what can you do? You know what they say? The 14th time’s the charm. Congrats, Roger!
Guillermo Del Toro is Now An Oscar-Winning Director!
Guillermo Del Toro is finally an Academy Award winner! The Mexican filmmaker has long been recognized as one of the finest genre filmmakers in the business. Tonight, Del Toro becomes the third amigo to get the Best Director Oscar. Congratulations to the lovely, immensely enduring filmmaker! It’s a well-deserved award for a film with no shortage of beauty and reverence. We’re looking forward to calling him Academy Award winner Guillermo Del Toro from here on forward. And it’s something we’ll say with great affection.
Worst
This Year Was… Well, Kinda Predictable
Considering how shocking last year’s ceremony ended up being during its final moments, there was no way this year was going to top one of the craziest moments in live television history. And sure enough, this year’s presentation was smoother, more rigid and therefore… kinda boring. You can’t help it. It wasn’t like they were going to try anything crazy again, but you can’t help but get a little bored by the mundaneous of the moment. A safe, unsurprising awards ceremony isn’t something you can completely criticize, but it’s not one you can completely love either. It amounts to a fairly run-of-the-mill awards show.
Jimmy Kimmel’s Awkward Audience Interactions
It’s always a gamble when you do some improv during your awards shows. And while there are some comedians who can make it work, Kimmel’s banter with the crowd was pretty awkward and unremarkable. Whether he was asking a random guy for some weed or making countless “Christopher Plummer is old!” jokes, these moments missed more than they hit, which is a shame because this is where Kimmel usually excels. Maybe he didn’t have as much inspiration this year as he did during his first round of hosting, but these moments came across as tired, scattered, uncomfortable and a bit hacky, truth be told.
The show was damn slow
This show was honestly a bore until Haddish and Rudolph showed up to present Documentary Short and Documentary Feature the Oscars were something of a slog. Even Eva Marie Saint, the 93-year-old Oscar winner, delivered a non-scripted introduction that was significantly longer than it needed to be (word is it played in the Dolby Theater, but TV audiences were wondering where Saint was going with her long, personal monologue). It didn’t help that Kimmel’s monologue was too long and not funny enough (yes, there are multiple people with differing opinions who are contributing to this post), but the show simply had no energy until the comedians showed up. It couldn’t even count on speeches from winners Sam Rockwell or Allison Janney to bring any sort of spark to the proceedings.
What was with the war movies montage?
Excuse us, why did the Academy need to have the Oscars include a montage of war films and a thank you to military servicemen and women during the show? That would have been unheard of even during the post Sept. 11th and Iraq invasion telecasts. Was this literally a blatant attempt to appeal to non-liberal audiences for the show? Well, boy, it certainly seemed that way and incredibly awkward. Can’t wait to ask Academy president John Bailey‘s thoughts on that one.
Sorry, we didn’t need Faye and Warren to return
ABC and Kimmel hyped up last year’s Best Picture flub like it was the golden goose to get viewers to watch this time around. They did so in detriment to the award show’s 90th anniversary (no small feat) and, to make matters worse, invited Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty back to announce this year’s Best Picture winner. Doing so not only was an insult to the filmmakers of “Moonlight,” who had their moment stolen by some idiotic PricewaterhouseCooper accountants, but seemed to disparage the importance of the honor overall. Thankfully, the show was so over its allotted three and a half hour running time that the duo didn’t get to speak very much and Kimmel could only run the joke into the ground for a limited amount of time. Hopefully next year the show moves on and respects the Best Picture honor and the film winning it with a little less crash and a bit more class.
What did you think of this year’s Oscars? Share your thoughts below.