Well, Oscar time has come and gone. There were winners. There were losers. I was the biggest loser because I got massacred as far as the bets I made with my partner. But here's the things about the Oscars I will remember the most.
3. STRIKE THREE FOR EMMA STONE (AKA, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE WAS RIGHT)
Strike 1: The Help
A few years ago, my boyfriend and I were channel surfing and I saw that The Help was just starting.
M: Let's watch The Help!
BF: I would prefer not to watch a movie about black people who need a pretty white girl to be their mouthpiece.
M: Oh yeah, this doesn't age well. Let's watch something else.
(We didn't watch something else, we just channel surfed all night)
Strike 2: Aloha
Emma Stone is the whitest white that ever whited, and she played the role of someone who is supposed to be half native Hawaiian and half Chinese.
Strike 3: Saturday Night Live predicted it. In a Weekend Update segment, Colin Jost mentioned that for the first time, a Native American was nominated for a best actor award. He then showed pictures of the other four (white) nominees, and said, "And these are the women who are terrified they will win."
Emma, of course, should have been most terrified, and when she won, it really seemed like she was. The look on her face was not happy at all. She looked horror struck as she went awkwardly onstage, rambled about how her dress was broken. Then said that she'd been panicking a lot that something like this would happen but it's ok because it's not about her, it's about the movie, then I think she started telling people not to look at her dress again (I didn't pay much attention to the acceptance speeches). I've never seen anyone so unhappy to win an award.
2. THE PRESENTERS
Some of them did bits, some of them didn't. Some of the bits landed, some of them didn't. There wasn't anything as insane as Cocaine Bear from last year, wait, there was. That John Cena thing was insane.
Kate McKinnon saying she sends nudes to Jeff Goldblum was weird, but she is our Weird Barbie and we stan her. I was maybe most ... confused by John Mulaney's spiel. He went on this rapid-paced, incoherent rant about Field of Dreams, a movie I don't think anyone in my generation has seen, that would make no sense if you had not seen the movie. I guess he was saying he didn't like it? Or maybe he did? This is how I think that happened:
John: You know, maybe I should go through all that stuff I wrote when I was high on cocaine and see if any of this stuff is usable. Oo, here's that Field of Dreams bit I don't remember writing. I can put it in my next standup show. People like that movie, right?
Devil on John's Shoulder: Do it. Also do more cocaine, and then it might make sense.
John: Hell, I'll do it at the Oscars. Everyone must hear this, not just my fans.
Devil: Yass
But the thing is, I've seen John go on a much more coherent rant about an old movie: Back to the Future. And that led to the Screen Rant pitch meeting videos being created. Maybe this will lead to greatness too.
Speaking of greatness, the best bit of the night was the Batman bit with Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwargenegger. I don't care enough to look up how to spell his name, but those two had such great comic timing.
1. I'M JUST KEN
I always knew this would be the most fun moment in a year of bleak Oscar nominees, but I knew it would not win. Barbie is a feminist movie, as America Ferrara explained in her red carpet interview that would have been her acceptance speech if she thought she had a chance of winning. If they were going to give Barbie one award, it was going to be Best Song, and it had to be one that was written and performed by a woman, especially considering the snubs of the director and lead actress.
Nothing prepared me, though, for how insane this ended up being. It turned into a combination of a mini rock concert and a bizarre performance piece. Lyrics were on the screen so people could sing along, but it seemed like everyone knew the song already. And Ryan Gosling threw himself into the performance, despite the fact that he'd lost earlier in the night and the prior winner who gave him his lil pep talk (I forget who it was) had less to say about him than any of the other nominees, he was basically told he's just Ken or something like that.
Anyway. Oppenheimer may have been the winner of the night, but Ken is the winner of our hearts.
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