This year’s Oscar race offered few surprises, except for a couple of select categories. “Oppenheimer” was the big winner on March 10 with 13 nominations and seven wins, including Best Picture.
Christopher Nolan (“Tenet,” “Interstellar”) finally got his Best Director Oscar for calling the shots on the historical drama about the development of the atomic bomb.
Also, Godzilla, the big green guy or Kaiju, stomped his way to an Academy Award in the Visual Effects category for “Godzilla Minus One.”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph was very genuine in accepting her Supporting Actress golden statuette for co-starring with Paul Giamatti in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.” Giamatti, nominated in the Best Actor category, lost to Cillian Murphy, who played the title character in “Oppenheimer.”
In addition to “Oppenheimer,” the offbeat fantasy-drama “Poor Things,” which drew 11 nominations, won Oscars for Best Actress (Emma Stone), Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design and Costume Design.
The thing that ticked me off was the In Memoriam segment. The way it was designed made it impossible for viewers watching at home to see who passed away. It was so haphazardly pieced together.
“Barbie” the highest grossing movie of the year at $1.4 billion worldwide, began the evening with eight nominations, but only ended up with one win. That was Best Original Song, “What Was I Made For,” performed by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell.
Out of the six major categories, I was correct predicting Best Picture, Best Director, Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr. for “Oppenheimer.”) I was surprised that Stone beat out my pick of Lily Gladstone for “Killers of the Flower Moon” for Best Actress. I also picked Giamatti in the Best Actor category over winner Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer.”
The Animated Feature Film category caught me off guard as well. I predicted “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” The winner turned out to be “The Boy and the Heron.”
All in all, I was very disappointed in the Oscars this year. To me it was just cut-and-dried and not pieced together very well.
