OSCARS REVIEW 2024
Every year I predict the winners of the Oscars and, for the third year in a row, I got 16 out of the 20 categories I predicted correctly. I got Best Costumes, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, and Actress wrong. Funnily enough, I got these same exact four categories wrong last year, with the exception of Best Leading Actress . I predicted most of the bigger awards correctly, though. The ceremony was kind of boring, especially for such a big year of movies. There were sadly no scandals, just some run of the mill Hollywood stuff.
The most memorable moment was either the performance of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie or when John Cena walked out on stage naked. Additionally, Al Pacino announced Best Picture without saying any of the nominees or the famous “and the Oscar goes to” line. Instead, he just said “I see Oppenheimer”, which was a very unorthodox way to announce the award.
Acting Categories
Unfortunately, I did not get all my acting picks correct. Da’Vine Joy Randolph won for her performance in The Holdovers (which has recently been embroiled in a plagiarism scandal). This was one of the easiest awards of the night to predict, seeing as she has won the award at almost every ceremony she’s attended this season. Additionally, Robert Downey Jr. won for Best Supporting Actor in Oppenheimer, which is also not surprising. The Academy loves to give out lifetime achievement awards disguised as Oscars, and I’m of the opinion that RDJ only won because of his career history. His performance was great, but it wasn’t good enough to take home the statue by itself. I am still of the opinion that Charles Melton should have won the award despite not even being nominated. Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer won Best Actor, surprising no one. His performance was pretty great. The only other person that had a real shot was Paul Giamatti, who was excellent. However, Giamatti’s performance didn’t have as many “epic” moments as Murphy’s. I’m not upset by this win. The one acting award I got wrong was Best Actress. I was almost 100% sure it would be Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon, both for the merits of her acting and the #OscarsNotSoWhite publicity. If she won, she would be the first Indigenous person to ever win the award. Instead, Emma Stone took home the honor for her performance in Poor Things. I think this was deserved, but I do think that Gladstone was snubbed.
Screenplay Categories: Adapted + Original
I correctly predicted the wins for both Anatomy of a Fall, a French courtroom drama written by Justine Triet, and American Fiction, a satire written by Cord Jefferson. I don’t have a problem with Anatomy… because I haven’t seen it, but I personally don’t think American Fiction should have won. I liked it fine enough and I really liked Jefferson’s speech, but it was probably the weakest screenplay nominated in the category. I think Poor Things should have won. It seems to me like American Fiction only because it was a “meta” screenplay about writing, which the academy will always go for.
Design Categories
Poor Things won for Production Design which was one of the most well deserved awards of the night, as such, I correctly predicted it. However, I wasn’t expecting Poor Things to also win Costume Design AND Makeup and Hairstyling. These were all incredibly well deserved, but I’m a little upset that these were the only awards it won besides Best Actress, though. I was a little surprised Maestro didn’t win Makeup and Hairstyling for Bradley Cooper’s nose, but I am glad that it did not. Barbie also had a strong horse in the Production Design and Costume Design races, but I don’t think they should’ve beaten Poor Things.
Technical Categories
Usually one movie wins all the technical awards (Sound, Editing, Cinematography, and Visual Effects), but this year I predicted Godzilla Minus One to win Visual Effects, which was correct, and Oppenheimer to win the rest. Oppenheimer won both Editing and Cinematography (neither of which were especially well deserved) and The Zone of Interest won for sound, an anomaly seeing as the loudest movie usually wins. Zone…’s win was well deserved, and I actually think it should’ve won Editing as well. Cinematography should’ve gone to Killers of the Flower Moon, but alas, it was criminally underrecognized. The Zone of Interest’s editing really helped to move the story forward, and I remember a number of editing choices from it, which is surprising.
Music (Score + Song)
These two were easily predictable and well deserved. Oppenheimer won for Best Score and “What Was I Made For” from Barbie won for Best Song. Oppenheimer’s score sounded good, but I think Poor Things should have won. The score for Oppenheimer was typical Christopher Nolan music. It was big and orchestrated, but it wasn’t especially memorable. Billie Eilish’s song went super viral which ensured its win. The other songs this year were also pretty terrible so this wasn’t surprising. The performance from Jon Baptiste was kind of awful; he sounded off pitch the whole time.
Animated Feature
To be completely honest I only saw Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse this year. I want to see The Boy and the Heron, which took home the award (as I correctly guessed), but I haven’t had the chance to yet.
Best Director
Christopher Nolan won in one of the least surprising moments of the night. Oppenheimer wasn’t THAT good. I think Scorcese should’ve won for Killers or Lanthimos for Poor Things. Nolan has never won before so this also might have been a legacy award. I don’t think Oppenheimer is even close to his best movie so I’m not sure why this one is so much more acclaimed than his other works.
Best Picture
Oppenheimer was seen by Al Pacino as the Best Picture of the year. Did it deserve it? Maybe. Do I think it should’ve won? No. Did I correctly predict it? Yes! Oppenheimer wasn’t even close to the top of my list ranking Best Pictures, but I knew it would win. Oppenheimer was nowhere near the Best Picture of the year – it wasn’t the most creative, the best directed, the most well written, the most profitable, the best acted, or even the best edited. It was long and bloated and could’ve been more than an hour shorter. I would have been much happier if almost any other movie won this award (apart from Maestro…) because Oppenheimer was just such a safe Oscar-baitey kind of movie. It never went too far into anything, never took a too political stance, and got a bunch of A-list white actors to play every character. It wasn’t anything super special, unlike movies like Interstellar or Memento, which have more creative merit than this. It was very good, but it was nothing exceptional.
This year was a GREAT year for movies, and I can’t wait to see what else 2024 will bring. I can’t wait for Dune 2 to win every award next year!
Other Awards
- Documentary Feature: 20 Days in Mariupol
- International Feature: The Zone of Interest
- Documentary Short: The Last Repair Shop
- Animated Short: War is Over
- Live-Action Short: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson’s first Oscar!)
