With ninety-two unique films viewed in the cinema during the calendar year and countless streaming releases and catch-ups, 2022 certainly seemed a little more normal in terms of quantity, but the box office and theatrical landscape still have a long way to go before it feels safe to say things have “recovered.”  While dollar-wise, things are looking pretty bright – the domestic gross of 2022’s Top 10 is down only 12% from the 2019’s Top 10, as opposed to down 52% in 2021 – there were still massive holes in the schedule as studios were hesitant to release during waves of new Covid variant strains, stumbled as they figured out how to balance both a theatrical pipeline and a streaming library, and caved to manufactured conservative outrage when they dared to “go woke” – though Disney took the brunt of that battle when they defied the talking heads on Fox News and moved forward with the release of Domee Shi’s Turning Red, Angus MacLane’s Lightyear, and the Don Hall/Qui Nguyen dual effort Strange World.   

The studios became their own worst enemy as cinemas were starved for new content, forced to rely on anniversary runs of classic library titles or PLF rereleases of Top Gun: Maverick for much of the summer.  The drought started with Disney placing Prey straight onto Hulu so as to avoid shared custody of the Fox-originating property with HBO Max had it gone for a more traditional, theatrical release.  While TriStar did pump some money back into the industry with their September release of The Woman King, they played it a little too early resulting in a muted awareness of the Viola Davis picture.  Looking at its performance in the award circuit, which includes a notable shutout from tonight’s ceremony, it should have garnered much more attention as it is a handsomely made historical epic in the vein of five-time Oscar winners Braveheart (1995) and Gladiator (2000). We are in a brave new world when it comes to release windows and this once-safe corridor is proving year after year to be less of a guarantee to award’s success as the season stretches on for – frankly – way too long, and streaming can keep or put smaller, earlier titles onto the radar of voters.  Q4 also saw its share of date changes.  United Artists completely botched their release of Women Talking, kicking the can late in the year with its release date changes leaving audiences confused as to when and where they can see this film; a bit of DeJa’Vu to similarly burned audiences with how sloppily Universal handled their Thanksgiving frame release of The Fabelmans, all but burying their Steven Spielberg memoir.  By the time people even knew there was a new Spielberg movie playing in cinemas, it had already left to live on your least frustrating PVOD platform of choice. 

The absolute worst offender at keeping audiences away from their films this year, however, goes to none other than A24.  Talk about a fall from grace, while they may be a safe haven for creators to tap into and unlock their visions, they lost a lot of goodwill from audiences this year with the games they played surrounding their releases.  Funneling every last cent they could scrounge up in their New York based headquarters to promote Everything Everywhere All at Once with branded hotdog finger gloves and $35 pet rocks, the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film winning After Yang out of Sundance, Emily Watson and Paul Mescal starring God’s Creatures, Elegance Bratton’s powerful reflection on his identity as a queer black man in the military in The Inspection, Charlotte Wells’ highly lauded debut feature Aftersun also starring Mescal who is nominated tonight for Best Actor, and Belgium’s Grand Jury Prize winner from Cannes as well as their nominee for tonight’s Best International Feature Film Close have all been kept away from audiences hungry to see these films. That is to say nothing of Causeway in which Brian Tyree Henry has been nominated for his performance tonight, or the Claire Dennis erotic thriller, Stars at Noon, which have no reported box office numbers.   Those 5 titles that did release theatrically, combined at their widest release only hit 519 screens domestically, whereas the Russo Brothers produced Everything Everywhere, in only its third week, took up 1,250 screens – more than double – and topped off at 2,220 screens in its widest expansion the following week.   

Internationally, Mubi handles many of the studio’s releases, and if A24 continues to play these games, now that Mubi has successfully experimented with their first major theatrical release in Park Chan-Wook‘s Decision to Leave on 169 domestic screens, they may be our only hope at getting to see these quieter, affecting dramas which A24 seems all too happy to push to the wayside when you consider what they took wide – or even moderately accessible – this year.  Between A24’s acquisition and development deals with DirectTv and Apple Studios, gone are the days of ever hoping to see a small, personal film like their Best Picture winning Moonlight (2016) ever seeing a wide theatrical release again.  The Barry Jenkins drama reached 1,104 screens even before its coronation by Academy voters which then saw it expand to 1,564 for its victory lap in the week following the ceremony.  At the risk of decrying claims of selling out, it should be noted that the influx of cash flow to an “original” idea is something that should be praised and is the root of A24’s mission to “create films… with a distinct point of view,” but it is a shame that they spent much of this year laundering this attention to generate cheap, tchotchke junk rather than promoting the deeper cuts from their catalog that provide a far richer experience than watching people pee their pants to unlock secret abilities or sparing with dildos at the tax office.  

But without further ado, since this night is sure to run long enough already and Everything Everywhere by all accounts is presumed to be the big winner of the evening, let’s get this extended Hulu/Disney+ coming attractions reel started… 

Jimmy Kimmel returns to host for the third time and is a pretty safe bet for the Academy.  His opening runs down a quick, but not too damning, run down of some of the top lining nominees as well a few well-placed jabs at the state of the industry, even if it was a low blow to Damien Chazelle’s beloved-but-bombed Babylon.  Just over ten minutes in and we have the first reference to The Slap, but a great callout to both Till and The Woman King turns the uncomfortable laughter into applause for two overlooked titles.  It is a charming opening that capitalizes on the star power in the room, and it really does sum up the year well, but after getting Naatu Naatu’ed off the stage, it is time for the first presentation of Best Animated Feature.   

It is a brutally clunky bit delivered by Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt who both look incredibly uncomfortable under the stage lights, but while the message about breaking free from the notion that animation is a genre for children is important, Blunt says its best: we are already exhausted.  What a wonderful win, though, for Guillermo del Toro, whose heartfelt adaptation of Pinocchio is one of the most exuberant and beautiful films of the year.  Despite his name being inextricably tied to the title, he allows his co-director Mark Gustafson to take the first acceptance speech of the night, a truly gracious act from a man who has finally seen his decades-long passion project come to life. He took a timeless and classic tale, transporting it to fascist Italy while keeping the soul of the story intact and proving how a moral tale can be endlessly adaptable.  Del Toro has such genuine appreciation and love for the art, it is infectious and the perfect tone to open the show with, and thankfully a tone that will carry on throughout the evening. 

The next win here for Ke Huy Quan in Best Supporting Actor, expected and sweet, is nice to see how electric the room got.  His speech, like del Toro’s, is so appreciative and happy.  This love for the art is what makes the movies so special, and the overwhelming emotion and love he has in this win is so sweet as he thanks his family who have always supported him.  Another feel-good win for Jamie Lee Curtis follows as the best supporting actress, but it is a harder pill to swallow since her role is not that great.  It is a messy role in a messy script in a messy film, but again, the gratitude in the speech makes it worth it.  It is just a shame that an actress of her caliber finally breaks free from the schlocky David Gordon Green Halloween trilogy which has largely occupied her time and is being recognized for such a haphazard film.  It feels right in the context of the industry, but it still stings that it came out of The Daniels’ middle school, locker room nonsense. 

Now, the show pivots to a performance of “Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman, a film that probably had an equal spike in google search rankings the morning of the nominee announcement as To Leslie.  With Lady Gaga making a surprise appearance, it is hard to focus on the slowed-down song from a movie almost no one has seen or heard of, being handsomely performed by Sofia Carson and Diane Warren, when the pop anthem remains close to the front of mind. The slowed-down ballad, even with its empowering moments, really drains the energy from the room. 

Breaking for commercials, it is wild that Rolex is probably going to have the best montage of the evening as they will not be tied down to only the Disney and Hulu catalogs; now up to two advertisements by the end of the break.  This show needs to be a safe harbor for all studios – the super bowl for cinema – where teasers for all studios get equal representation and the ceremony itself treats the art as something that is fostered and cared for by the people in the room.  Thankfully, so far the speeches have been very industry-focused, and with luck, this trend will continue through the evening and become the norm. 

The Documentary win for Navalny is another powerful speech from director Daniel Roher who cedes the mic to the Russian Opposition Leader’s wife, Yulia, who addresses her imprisoned husband directly with a message to “stay strong.” This is followed by a much more jovial speech by Ross White and Tom Berkeley for The Irish Goodby who conclude by singing Happy Birthday to James Martin, the star of their short.  Now, it is back to shilling for the Walt Disney Company, and while The Little Mermaid title star, Halle Bailey, is greeted with applause and has so much grace on the stage, that no other studio will be given this treatment is a flaw in this program. 

Jonathan Majors and Michael B. Jordan, fresh off the premiere of their new film Creed III (2023), deliver a really lovely run down on cinematography; something that was missing from last year’s ceremony and that it is celebrating the art form in a fun and engaging way.  Marking the first win for All Quiet on the Western Front, James Friend‘s work is so well deserved.  In a stacked category, All Quiet really stood out for how it captured the horrors of war, something film has long been obsessed with, in a new way that transported audiences to the muddy trenches of World War I Europe no matter how comfortable their couches may have been, or small their phone screens were when they fired up Netflix to watch the German-language nine-time nominee. 

We are now 0 for two on the musical performances tonight, something that has long been a thorn in the side of the program, with the dissonant mess that is “This is a Life.”  The lyrics are elementary, the chords are sloppy, and the vocals are scratchy.  But this is all just “part of the charm” of Everything Everywhere which apparently had a song somewhere in the bloated disaster that it was.  Hopefully, RRR takes home its only nomination later on tonight and the talented team is given a better chance to perform their number than just being the sendoff joke in Kimmel’s opening monologue. 

With a 100^th anniversary tribute to Warner Brothers introduced by Morgan Freeman and Margot Robbie, this is another small step forward to what the Oscars needs to be.  Showcasing the back catalog, impressive as it is, and a namedrop of the upcoming Barbie movie, it is not quite a full-blown integrated trailer reveal as the sponsoring network’s parent company received, but the fact that the show is even addressing the existence of another studio’s property is a step in the right direction. In a perfect world, we would have gotten a glimpse at Barbie here tonight, as well as an equal opportunity for other studios to showcase an upcoming feature like Universal’s Oppenheimer or Paramount‘s Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part 1, which may have also given Tom Cruise a little more incentive to show up this evening.  

Paul Dano and Julia Louis-Dreyfus had an impossible task to come on after Kimmel brought out the real winner of 2022, Jenny the Donkey from Banshees of Inisherin, but they really delivered a charming bit that highlights the work that goes into costume designs while also landing their jokes.  Ruth Carter wins for her work in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and she delivers a touching speech about her mother and honoring the late Chadwick Boseman and the hole he left in all of their hearts.  It is nice that a little shy of the halfway point, the night has remained so positive.  Keeping the energy alive, Deepika Padukone introduced the “total banger” “Naatu Naatu” and we finally have a lively and enjoyable music performance.  Even removed from the film, the song has so much electricity and the level of skill shown by the dance team makes it impossible to sit still in your seat. 

In another improvement over last year, the promotion for the Academy Museum treats it like the crown jewel of the organization that it is instead of a punching bag for cheap jokes and jabs. 

Now, for one of the most exciting categories, Best International Feature. A personal favorite, Close, did not stand a chance against the also incredible All Quiet, which took home the gold statuette tonight for its searing and unfortunately, still timely, damnation, of the act of war.  Truly an incredibly deserving film in a field of incredibly deserving nominees.  Director, Edward Berger keeps the speech light, and hopefully its success tonight will help give Netflix more confidence to continue funding these original and artistic properties. Its cooperation with cinemas to release Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is another good sign of a landscape where both streamers and cinemas can coexist and benefit one another. 

After wins for The Elephant Whisperers and The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, Lady Gaga performs “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick with little fanfare or introductions and an unfortunately extremely closeup angle.  Despite the bare bones set, Gaga proves her star power sitting cross-legged on a stool in just a black tee shirt and torn jeans, and yet, she still commands the screen and receives a show stopping applause from the wild audience. 

Another craft-focused introduction for Best Original Score was delivered by Mindy Kaling and John Cho with the Oscar going to Volker Bertelmann for the machine-inspired score for All Quiet.  That score is so haunting and terrifying and it reverberates in the audience, creeping into the bones of all watching and adding to the fear felt.  It is another stacked ballot, but Bertelmann really knocked it out of the park with this score and it is so satisfying to see it being recognized. 

Elizabeth Banks, director of Cocaine Bear (2023) and…. well…. a bear, come to the stage to present the Oscar for Visual Effects in a charming bit before opening the envelope and awarding Avatar: The Way of Water.  It is not a surprising win, and surely there was a lot of work and care put into the film, but having seen Avatar (2009), The Way of Water offers little new in the way of tall blue alien people. In a way, that it was not overly distracting is a testament to the years of work taken to perfect the underwater camera systems, but the wonder and awe of the first movie just did not land over a decade removed from our first steps on the planet of Pandora.  Also unfortunately, the team accepting the award got cut off on their speech mere seconds after getting to the mic so that they could reset the stage proving the Oscars still really do not value the craft categories that do not bring star power to the show, yet are instrumental in making some of the most memorable movie moments each year.  Kimmel is now stuck doing some crowd work, thankfully no cell phone in sight for another selfie moment, but at the same time he seems to be struggling here and we would have been better off allowing the Avatar team their moment of glory.   

Danai Gurira takes the stage to give another tribute to Chadwick Boseman; something Steven Soderbergh was surely after when he produced the 2021 Oscars and shuffled the presentation order only to award the not-present Anthony Hopkins the Best Actor price for his work in The Father (2020). The curtain rises for Rihanna to perform “Lift Me Up” from Wakanda Forever. The stage is nicely dressed, but the performance is riding on the name alone here.  It is muted, possibly because of Rihanna’s pregnancy, but even still, it does not have the energy needed to really invigorate the room as “Naatu Naatu” or Lady Gaga had. 

Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield jointly summarize the Original Screenplay nominees which goes to The Daniels for their sloppy mess, Everything Everywhere all at Once.  It is understandable that the Academy wants to reward maximalism, but where The Daniels’ script largely fails is that they do not understand when to move on from the joke.  They beat every joke into the ground, pulverizing audiences with the same nonsensical drivel over and over which makes their film nothing short of a punishing affair.  To give them credit, many of the setups are creative and they do garner a chuckle, but at the nth mention of butt plugs or “raccacoonie” it has worn itself out and become tiresome before film Twitter can even get their hands on it to meme into oblivion.  It goes without saying that Tár is hands down the true best original script coming out of 2022, and with luck, history will remember it that way. It is layered, nuanced, and Shakespearean in scope, and the fact that Todd Field has taken a fictional character and made essentially a biopic about her is nothing short of incredible. He achieved that by carefully balancing elements of real life and the freedoms of fiction that created a new world on the page.  In a way, Tár is one of the most stinging satires of today’s ideas surrounding hustle and grind culture, as well as grafting modern sensibilities onto historical figures and the rise cancel culture.  But if the Academy did want to award a big, bold, “kitchen sink” script with one of its top honors, they only had to look towards Chazelle’s largely-ignored Babylon.  Sure, it is not without some faults of its own, but it is at least a complete script with characters, arcs, and motivations as opposed to a gag reel that has been loosely assembled into a film; or to avoid voting for the write-in, Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness is another bold and original choice. 

Sarah Polley comes to the stage to accept her award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking.  It was a masterful script that takes the challenge of translating a novel into a screenplay head-on, making careful changes in an effort to tell the story the way it needs to be told in the new medium.  As mentioned, the film was marred by a terrible theatrical schedule which severely hurt the film’s visibility with audiences, so it is very nice to see it awarded here, and Polley’s impassioned speech was a powerful and beautiful moment that brought some class and grace back to the ceremony. 

For Achievement in Sound Editing, the Oscar goes to Top Gun: Maverick for recording fighter jet engines.  The sound was well done, but compared to the other nominees it all seems very by-the-book.  In a way, it would be almost impossible to end the evening without sending Maverick home without at least one statue, but despite the symbolic achievement of finally hitting cinemas after years of Covid-related delays, it was not really that memorable of a film. 

Heading into the announcement of Best Original Song, it needs to be stated upfront that End Credit songs should not count.  This is not a discredit to the people that worked on the songs, let them be eligible for a Grammy, but as for the Oscars, the song should need to be incorporated into the actual film itself and not just tacked on to the end as a marketing tool.  Taking that into consideration, “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, “Nobody Like U” from Turning Red, or even “Sunny Side of Summer” from The Bob’s Burgers Movie should have taken the spots filled by Everything Everywhere‘s “This is a Life” and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s “Lift Me Up” in tonight’s race, but thankfully tonight’s award goes to M.M. Keeravani and Chandrabose for the electric “Naatu Naattu” from RRR marking history for India with its first win in this category. 

John Travolta introduces the In Memoriam segment right at the three-hour mark meaning we are officially over time and with five awards left to give out.  Lenny Kravitz takes to the keys for what is always a touching segment, and this year will honor some major titans of all aspects of the industry who have passed. In an effort to save time, the full montage can be accessed by a QR code, but with better time management in the early parts of the show, these artists could have received their tribute on air to the audiences at home without having to rely on a second screen. 

The backsets for the introduction to Achievement in Editing call up memories of young Sammy splicing together his first films in the overlooked The Fabelmans, but instead, the Oscar goes to Everything Everywhere proving that many of these craft categories go more to the “most” than the best. Paul Rogers seems grateful and he certainly made some sense of the pile of footage laid at his feet by the frantic directing team so it is not totally undeserving, but as with most of the people involved with the film, the hope is their next project will be something better.  

Kimmel returns to the stage to vamp, and while his jokes here are quite good and he is getting more pointed with the politics of the day, we on the east coast are tired. 

Idris Elba and Nicole Kidman take to the stage to present The Daniels with the Oscar for Best Director for Everything Everywhere and now we have to endure another cringe speech from Daniel Scheinert.  Daniel Kwan needs to cut ties and go his own way because he seems to be the heart and soul behind the duo, and going solo would allow him to create something truly universal and powerful that is not dragged down by its reliance on crude humor in an effort to be memorable. It was just a hunch before, seeing Scheinert’s involvement with The Death of Dick Long (2019), but watching his behavior across the award’s cycle, it has solidified the hypothesis that the real talent in this duo comes from Kwan. 

Jessica Chastain and Halle Berry present the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.  Tonight’s winner is Brendan Fraser in The Whale.  As with Quan, these comeback performances that are receiving such acclaim are so touching and the emotion is swelling tonight.  Since the 2018 GQ article by Zach Baron, “What Ever Happened To Brendan Fraser?,” the question really got us thinking about where this 90s star went and how his absence has been felt. The Whale simply would not work without Fraser in the role as Charlie, and the actor is overcome with emotion as he accepts the award in front of his peers and his family, and a lovely shout-out to his co-star, Hong Chau. We as an audience are lucky to have him back, and hopefully this will open more doors for the actor in affecting dramas that really allow him to help us reckon with the human condition. He was so exciting and thrilling to watch in The Mummy (1999) or as George of the Jungle (1997), but these more mature roles really allow the actor to tap into something the blockbuster fare kept away from him.

Taking that into account, it feels so strange that Michelle Yeoh’s win for Best Actress in a Leading Role, like Curtis’, just does not make sense because they are such poorly written parts.  Coming into the night, it was Yeoh v. Blanchett, and while Yeoh’s talent as a performer is great, she struggles to make sense of her role in Everything Everywhere.  The running joke is that the Academy awards their best acting prizes on who is doing the most – the biggest, loudest, most outrageous performances – and that describes Yeoh’s performance here to a T.  It is not her fault, The Daniels have given her a poorly written part to make sense of across the punishing 140-minute cluttered disaster of a film, so in that sense, yes, Yeoh does deserve this award for making sense of an asinine script and juvenile concept while Blanchett had the benefit of a meticulously crafted role from Field as Lydia Tár.  The most frustrating part about this win is that her character, Evelyn, is a one-note miserable person through and through, and there is no growth or arc.  She is so destructively toxic that she drives her daughter to become a world-ending sorceress in every conceivable timeline her life could have taken, and it ends on the saccharine note that we do for the family because what else do we have?  To send that message wrapped up in a queer narrative is so out of touch with reality and downright damaging, but oh! look we are wearing hot dog fingers, and now we are copying In the Mood for Love, and now we are rocks in the desert because nothing truly matters so we have no choice but to love one another, and it is all just supposed to be okay?  No!  Evelyn is just as manipulative and rotten at the beginning of the film as she is at the end, only she has learned to hide it a little better so as to keep her family underneath her and burdened by her abuses.  The counterargument here can be that Lydia Tár is the same evil and manipulative beast of a woman at the start of the film as she is at the end, but the big difference here is – not just that Lydia is a more competently constructed character and narrative – but that there is a loss as a consequence due to her actions and she has to rebuild herself is where the two films are drastically different.  We see the arc complete itself. By all accounts, Evelyn is the villain of her story and she gets away with it less some crocodile tears and a performative hug.  Lydia, too, is the villain of her story, and she loses everything, and while Tár ends short of us knowing if Lydia has learned anything from her ordeal, Evelyn does not even bother to try and is given no reason to as she ends the film with her family once again under her grasp.  Digression aside, as that is mostly levied back at the poor writing behind Everything Everywhere, the sentiment expressed by Yeoh in her speech is tender and full of kindness which does help to salve the baffling mystery of this film’s success, but as with all tonight’s winners attached to The Daniels, it is hopeful that their next projects will be something more palpable. 

Finally, at 30 minutes overtime, Harrison Ford takes to the mic to announce the frontrunner Everything Everywhere as tonight’s big winner with seven total wins.  With its crowning here tonight, it is hard to believe that the BAFTAS got it right, now two years in a row with their Power of the Dog over CODA win in 2021 and All Quiet taking home their top prize this year.  Hopefully, though, now we can button up the obsession with this derivative film that thinks it is about breaking the chains on generational trauma while still promoting conditional and transactional acceptance, and we can let its memory fade from our social consciousness in the same way the passwords to our 2007-era Tumblr blogs have, which is, coincidentally enough, where the already dated oh-so-zany internet humor which this film peddles feels at home.  Everything Everywhere, while not the worst-made film of the year, is the biggest mess of a film in recent memory – a big swing and a miss on just about every critical level punctuated by its less-than-unanimous victories across the major critic’s circles for their top prize – and if Curtis’ claim that The Daniels have “changed the landscape of cinema” is true, then we have a very troubling future ahead of ourselves. It is nice to see the Academy recognize some of their deserving and previously passed-over talents – Yeoh, Quan, and Curtis are all great performers in their own right, they are burdened by a less-than-stellar film and all deserve more respect than to be remembered for their work in “the matrix with butt plugs.” There is always talk about how the winners have fared one, five, ten years down the line, and while Everything Everywhere may have captured the zeitgeist, which to be fair, acting as a barometer of the times is one of the functions of the Oscars, with any luck Tar, Banshees, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking will endure as the true standout films of 2022 worthy of praise and admiration while Everything Everywhere will go one to be seen as just the necessary vehicle to honor some of Hollywood’s most beloved performers and spring-board them into the next fulfilling chapter of their career, far far away from whatever over the top mess will surely be shot out of The Daniels’ printer next as they frantically try to capture whatever it was that spoke to audiences with Everything Everywhere and will surely result in an even lesser work because they will be too focused on outdoing themselves in an already over the top endeavor into the inane.