Academy Awards (Oscars)

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      The Oscars TV Broadcast Is Becoming Increasingly Ordinary

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      A show that’s become a shrink-wrapped, anodyne exercise stuck safely to the script.To paraphrase Greta Garbo, give me back my slap.No, of course onstage assaults are unacceptable. But the 95th Academy Awards could have used a jolt of some kind as they wound their way through three and a half hours on Sunday night. There was a crisis team in place to handle the fallout from any unexpected catastrophes like Will Smith’s attack on Chris Rock at last year’s show, but there was nothing it could do about the ordinariness and sameness of the ABC broadcast.The audience in the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles roared for the early victories of sentimental favorites like Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (for best supporting actor and actress) and the late — very late — victories of the film’s writers and directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, and star, Michelle Yeoh. And their speeches were stirring. But at the end of the now endless awards season, we knew that they would be, and we had a pretty good idea what they would say.There is now, through no one’s individual fault, a consistently promotional, exhortatory, shrink-wrapped feeling to the Oscars. After the depredations of streaming video and Covid-19, no chances are being taken. Jimmy Kimmel, reviving the role of the solo Oscar host, got off some good lines in his monologue — the movies are still distinct from television because “a TV show can’t lose $100 million.” (Though in the age of Netflix and Amazon, is that true?) But on balance it was safe, with the sharp jibes reserved for easy targets who weren’t there, like James Cameron and Tom Cruise. (“L. Ron Hubba Hubba,” maybe the best line of the night.)Kimmel addressed Smith’s slap at length without really talking about it. He focused on what would happen in the extremely unlikely event anyone went rogue this year, pointing out performers in the audience whose screen characters were brutal enforcers — Pedro Pascal of “The Mandalorian,” Michael B. Jordan of “Creed III” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” It was an odd way to signal that violence was unwelcome.(Smith, last year’s best-actor winner, was replaced as a presenter for the lead acting awards by Halle Berry.)More on the 95th Academy AwardsA24’s Triumphant Night: The art-house studio behind “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Whale” became the first studio in the history of the Oscars to capture the top six awards in the same year.Normalcy Reigns: After breathing a sigh of relief that the night went smoothly, our co-chief film critics discussed the academy’s carefully staged return to (fingers crossed?) a new normal.Oscar Fashion: Rihanna’s belly, Florence Pugh’s shorts and Cate Blanchett’s archival velvet brought new relevance to awards show dressing, our fashion critic says.After-Parties: Take a look inside the Governor’s Ball and Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, where the stars and filmmakers celebrated with moguls, musicians and models.In current fashion, the show opened not with a production number but a film montage, in this case a series of behind-the-scenes clips from nominated films. The attempt to hook audiences by bringing them inside the process of filmmaking and award-giving was also reflected in the deconstructed see-through set.The win for “Navalny” for best documentary feature was an early highlight.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThis contemporary feint toward inclusiveness — if they can’t nominate more female directors, at least they can make viewers feel as if they’re getting an inside look — contrasts, for better and worse, with the glossy insiders’ party that the Oscars used to be.The surely unintentional effect, in a broadcast that sang the praises of the theater experience, is to make the movies feel smaller — more suited for the laptop screen and the Netflix interface. Winners don’t stick in the mind they way they used to. Did you remember that “Dune” took home six awards last year, twice as many as any other film? Or that “CODA” won best picture? (You’re welcome.)In this context, the purely promotional segments on Sunday — a long plug for the Academy museum, a creaky salute to Warner Bros.’ 100th anniversary — felt right at home but also, in their reinforcement of the show’s lumpen unremarkableness, more irritating than ever.And seemingly harmless attempts to signal virtue can backfire, as in Kimmel’s awkward and eventually condescending exchange with Malala Yousafzai.As always, there were moments that pierced the veil. The victory of “Navalny” in the documentary feature category, while its subject, the dissident Alexei Navalny, languishes in a Russian prison, was indelible. Julia-Louis Dreyfus and Paul Dano were polished and funny in their presentation of costume design; the award’s winner, Ruth Carter of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” movingly invoked her mother, who had just died at the age of 101, asking the actor Chadwick Boseman to look for her in the afterlife. Yeoh, given carte blanche to emote, showed that feeling could be conveyed in an acceptance speech that was largely polished and non-self-aggrandizing.David Byrne injected a welcome note of weirdness, if not musicality, in the performance of the best-song nominee “This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The production number “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR,” Lady Gaga’s unplugged performance of “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick” and Rihanna’s rendition of “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” were unimpeachably professional. But the musical highlight of the night was undoubtedly the snatch of the Carpenters’ “Top of the World” sung by the composer M.M. Keeravani when “Naatu Naatu” won best song.When Kimmel wasn’t forced to ad-lib, he and his writers were generally on point. A call for audience votes on whether Robert Blake should be included in the In Memoriam segment was slyly handled. (He wasn’t.) A joke about the editing of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol didn’t mention Tucker Carlson or Fox News but made its point.The good moments, however, couldn’t change my sense that the modern Oscars have become something more to be endured than enjoyed. If you wanted a glimpse of the zeitgeist on Sunday night, HBO (“The Last of Us”) and TLC (“MILF Manor”) were the places to look. More

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      Why Oscar Attendees Were Wearing Blue Ribbons

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      The Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro and the nominated actress Cate Blanchett were among several participants at the Academy Awards on Sunday who donned blue ribbons in support of refugees who fled their homes to escape war, conflict and persecution.As part of the #WithRefugees initiative, the United Nations Refugee Agency invited del Toro, Blanchett, best actor nominee Bill Nighy, “All Quiet on the Western Front” director Edward Berger and “Triangle of Sadness” star Dolly de Leon to wear the ribbons.Blanchett, one of the agency’s Goodwill ambassador, said that when she met with refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Bangladesh and Britain, she was struck by the similarities she shared with them rather than their differences.“What I love about film is the way it draws us into compelling human themes to uncover the connective tissue that binds us all,” Blanchett said in a statement.The pins were also present at the BAFTAs, where Colin Farrell, Daryl McCormack and Paul Mescal, among others, sported the ribbons. More

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      ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Is Big Winner at the Oscars

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      In the late 1960s, young cineastes shook up a moribund film industry by delivering idiosyncratic, startlingly original work. The moment became known as New Hollywood.When film historians look back at the 95th Academy Awards, they may mark it as the start of a new New Hollywood. Voters honored A24’s head-twisting, sex toy-brandishing, TikTok-era “Everything Everywhere All at Once” with the Oscar for best picture — along with six other awards — while naming Netflix’s German-language war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” the winner in four categories, including best international film.The Daniels, the young filmmaking duo behind the racially diverse “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” won Oscars for their original screenplay and directing. (The Daniels is an oh-so-cool sobriquet for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. They are both 35.) The film, which received a field-leading 11 nominations, also won Oscars for film editing, best actress and best supporting actor and actress, with Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis honored for their performances.“Ladies, don’t let anybody ever tell you that you are ever past your prime,” Yeoh, 60, said when accepting the best actress Oscar. “Never give up.” She was the first Asian woman to receive the award.Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023Quan’s win provided the Academy Awards with a hall-of-fame comeback story: After early success in movies like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” his acting career grew so cold that he turned to stunt work. “Dreams are something you have to believe in,” Quan said as tears streamed down his face and A-list attendees gave him a standing ovation. “I almost gave up on mine. To everyone out there, please keep your dreams alive.”Curtis was also in tears by the time she reached the fiery conclusion of her acceptance speech. “To all of the people who have supported the genre movies that I have made for all these years,” she said, “the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, we just won an Oscar together!”Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spread nominations remarkably far and wide this year. Two blockbuster sequels, “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” made the best picture cut. So did the little-seen art films “Triangle of Sadness,” “Women Talking” and “Tár.” Voters also made room for a musical (“Elvis”) and a memory piece (“The Fabelmans”). In some ways, spreading nominations widely reflected the jumbled state of Hollywood. No one in the movie capital seems to know which end is up, with streaming services like Netflix hot then not, and studios unsure about how many films to release in theaters and whether anything but superheroes, sequels and horror stories can succeed. Over the weekend, “Scream VI” was the top movie at the North American box office, with an estimated $44.5 million in ticket sales.First-time nominees filled 16 of the 20 acting slots, with new stars like Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”), Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”) and Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) honored for breakthrough roles.But first-time acting nominations also went to Hollywood stalwarts like Curtis, Yeoh and Brendan Fraser. To some degree, the inclusion of Quan, Curtis, Fraser and Yeoh was seen as redemption for Hollywood: All had somehow been cast to the side at some point over their careers.An overcome Fraser, who won the Oscar for best actor for his performance as an obese professor in “The Whale,” thanked Darren Aronofsky, the film’s director, “for throwing me a creative lifeline.”Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023The academy was also trying to balance old and new in the Oscars ceremony itself. The academy’s chief executive had promised a return to the polished, glamorous Oscar ceremonies of the past to recover from last year’s chaotic telecast, when an angry Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Chris Rock. In a change from last year, when eight categories were scuttled to a nontelevised portion, all 23 Oscars were handed out live on air.As host, Jimmy Kimmel arrived on the Oscars stage by parachute, moments after a pair of “Top Gun”-style fighter jets flew over the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles at 345 miles per hour. He then breezed through a self-assured monologue that left the A-listers seated before him cheering in support. He teased Steven Spielberg — gently — for his lack of recreational drug use and Fraser and Quan for once appearing together in “Encino Man.” It was the kind of affable ribbing that once made Billy Crystal the king of the Oscar M.C.’s.The host Jimmy Kimmel arrived on the stage via parachute and breezed through his monologue.Todd Heisler/The New York Times“And if any of you get offended by a joke and decide you want to come up here and get jiggy with it? It’s not going to be easy,” Kimmel said, addressing last year’s slap without directly mentioning Smith. He then joked that people like Michael B. Jordan, the “Creed” star, and Pedro Pascal, who plays the title role in “The Mandalorian,” were prepared to intervene.“Seriously, the academy has a crisis team in place,” Kimmel said. “If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year — nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug.”As expected, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” received the Oscar for best animated feature, and “Navalny” was honored as best documentary. Less anticipated was Ruth Carter’s win for her “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” costume design. (Most awards handicappers had predicted victory for the “Elvis” costume designer Catherine Martin. Carter also won for “Black Panther” in 2019.)The #OscarsSoWhite outcries from 2015 and 2016, prompted by all-white slates of acting nominees, continue to reverberate at the academy, which has been trying to diversify its membership by race, gender and nationality. Nearly 50 percent of the academy’s most recent class of new members came from overseas. About 25 percent of the academy’s total membership of 10,000 now comes from outside the United States.But the academy was criticized this year for not nominating any women in the best director category. For decades, women and people of color were almost entirely excluded from the directing race. In 2021, for the first time, two women were nominated: Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), with Zhao winning. Last year, Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) won the Oscar for directing.This year, Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”) was left out even though her film was nominated for best picture. (Polley won for her adapted screenplay.) “I give up,” Patty Jenkins, whose directing credits include “Wonder Woman” and “Monster,” told Variety on Saturday about women being shut out of the category. “It’s still going to take a long ways to go. It’s going to take a lot more to really see truly more diverse awards.”The internationalization of the academy was on display among this year’s directing nominees. The Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) and the British-born Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) were honored. Joining them were Todd Field (Tár) and the Daniels. Filling out the best director category was Spielberg — a director who was once part of that New Hollywood crew and is now a Hollywood elder statesman with nine total nominations for directing, this one for “The Fabelmans.”The academy emphasized that the ceremony would feel modern — part of an urgent effort to make the telecast more relevant to young people. The 2022 show drew 16.6 million viewers, the second-worst turnout on record after the pandemic-affected 2021 telecast. If the Nielsen ratings do not improve, the academy faces a financial precipice: Most of its revenue comes from the sale of broadcasting rights to the show. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. (The most-viewed Oscars telecast was in 1998, when 57.2 million people watched “Titanic” win the trophy for best picture.)Rihanna performed her nominated song from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”Todd Heisler/The New York TimesBig musical stars, including Rihanna and Lady Gaga, sang their nominated songs; Lenny Kravitz performed during the “In Memoriam” segment. The best song Oscar went to “Naatu Naatu” from the Indian film “RRR.” The nominee pool for best picture had never before included more than one billion-dollar ticket seller, according to box office databases, and this year there were two. “Top Gun: Maverick” collected $1.5 billion, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” took in $2.3 billion. (Viewership tends to increase when popular films are nominated.)In another change, the red carpet was not red: Stars walked a champagne-colored rug, breaking with a 62-year tradition. The choice was made as part of an overhaul of the preshow spectacle, which, for the first time, was managed by members of the Met Gala’s creative team. In the days leading up to the Oscars, another in a series of rainstorms soaked Los Angeles, so much so that the academy sent an alert to the news media on Wednesday warning that it may “need to clear the carpet at a moment’s notice.” In the end, the weather cooperated, and it was a sunny 63 degrees. More

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      Michelle Yeoh Makes Oscar History as First Asian to Win Best Actress

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      Michelle Yeoh won the best actress Oscar at Sunday night’s ceremony for her role as a beleaguered wife, mother and laundromat owner whose life is turned upside down when she is thrown into multiple parallel universes in A24’s genre-bending hit “Everything, Everywhere All at Once.” The victory makes her the first Asian star to win best actress in the 95-year history of the Academy Awards.“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” she said in accepting her award. “This is proof that dreams — dream big, and dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.”This was her first Oscar nomination and win after a venerated career that toggled between action-heavy roles (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and performances of regal self-containment (“Crazy Rich Asians”). Tonight, she beat out Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”), Cate Blanchett (“Tar”), Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”) and Ana de Armas (“Blonde”).Yeoh’s biggest competition came from Blanchett, who won the best actress trophy at the BAFTAs but saw her path to the winner’s circle narrow after Yeoh’s historic win at the SAG Awards, where she became the first Asian star to win the guild’s best actress prize for a film.All season long, Yeoh has spoken of the obstacles she and other Asian performers have faced in Hollywood. After the Oscar nominations were unveiled in January, she told The Times, “Of course, I’m over the moon, but I feel a little sad because I know we know there have been amazing actresses from Asia that come before me, and I stand on their shoulders.” She added, “I hope this will shatter that frigging glass ceiling to no end, that this will continue, and we will see more of our faces up there.”Here’s the full text of her acceptance speech on Sunday:Thank you. Thank you. For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof that dreams — dream big, and dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.I wouldn’t be standing here tonight without the Daniels [directors of “Everything Everywhere”], without A24, without my amazing cast and crew, without everyone who was involved with “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” I have to dedicate this to my mom, all the moms in the world. Because they are really the superheroes. And without them, none of us will be here tonight. She’s 84. And I’m taking this home to her. She’s watching right now in Malaysia, K.L., with family and friends. I love you guys. I’m bringing this home to you. And also my extended family in Hong Kong, where I started my career. Thank you for letting me stand on your shoulders, giving me a leg up so that I can be here today. And to my godchildren, to my sisters, all of them, to my brothers. Oh God. To my family, thank you. Thank you.Thank you to the Academy. This is history in the making. Thank you. More

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      Lady Gaga Wipes Off Makeup for Oscars Performance of ‘Hold My Hand’

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      After originally not even being set to perform, Lady Gaga made a big impression on Sunday night when she took the stage to sing the Oscar-nominated “Hold My Hand,” which she wrote with BloodPop for “Top Gun: Maverick.”Her red carpet look? Heavy black makeup, bold red lipstick and a see-through black corset gown fresh from the runway.Lady Gaga dressed to the nines before the show.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesBut on the Dolby Theater stage? The bright red lipstick and heavy eye makeup had been wiped off, the gown exchanged for a black T-shirt and ripped jeans. All in all, it was a decidedly more natural look. She might have been unrecognizable if not for her hair, which was still in a French braid.“It’s deeply personal for me,” she said before performing her song. “We need a lot of love to walk through this life, and we all need a hero sometimes. There’s heroes all around us in unassuming places, but you might find that you can be your own hero, even if you feel broken inside.”This isn’t the first time Gaga has opted for a minimal makeup look. She took a stripped-down approach for a shoot for T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2016, around the time she was recording her fifth studio album, “Joanne.” More

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      Jamie Lee Curtis Wins First Oscar for Best Supporting Actress

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      After a tight three-way race, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won the supporting actress Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday night, pulling ahead of Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”).The three women have traded wins all season. Bassett initially seemed to be the favored pick after victories at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, but Condon then picked up a win from the British voting body BAFTA, while Curtis triumphed at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.In her acceptance speech on Sunday, she noted all the many people who helped in her career, and shouted, “We. Just. Won. An. Oscar. Together!”Curtis got her start in Hollywood as a scream queen in the “Halloween” franchise before segueing to bombshell roles in “Trading Places” and “True Lies.” But she played well against type in “Everything Everywhere” as a grumpy, frumpy tax auditor.The 64-year-old is the daughter of the actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, who were both nominated for Oscars but never won. “To be connected through this legacy of their work and my work,” she told The Times last month, “it’s very powerful.”On Sunday, she asked the very enthusiastic audience to settle down, so she could deliver her speech without being played off. “Stop!” she told the crowd, and added, referring to the academy president: “I have 45 seconds, and I promised Janet Yang I wouldn’t do it well, because I’m a good girl.”Here’s the full text of her acceptance speech:I know it looks like I’m standing up here by myself, but I am not. I am hundreds of people. I’m hundreds of people. I am the — where are the Daniels? — Daniels [the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert], Jonathan [Wang], Ley Line Entertainment, the entire crew, my bae Michelle [Yeoh], Ke [Huy Quan], Steph [Hsu], the entire group of artists who made this movie. We just won an Oscar!To my dream team: my agent Rick Kurtzman, Alan Wertheimer, Heidi Schaeffer, Sean James, Grace Ahn, Jane Ross. We just won an Oscar!To my family, my beautiful husband, Christopher Guest; our daughters, Annie and Ruby; my sister Kelly. We just won an Oscar! To all of the people who have supported the genre movies that I have made for all these years, the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, we just won an Oscar together.And my mother and my father were both nominated for Oscars in different categories. I just won an Oscar. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Addressed ‘the Slap’ in His Opening Monologue

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      In naming Jimmy Kimmel the host for a third Oscars, this year’s producers, Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner, cited the veteran’s readiness to handle anything that live television might throw at him.On Sunday, the late-night TV host wasted little time acknowledging recent snafus at the Oscars in an opening monologue that hyped the return of moviegoing and also included joking jabs at some of Hollywood’s most famous figures.“All the top 10 highest grossing films this year were sequels or franchises. They say Hollywood is running out of new ideas,” Kimmel said. “I mean, poor Steven Spielberg had to make a movie about Steven Spielberg.”Kimmel’s opening remarks, which lasted roughly 15 minutes, also alluded to Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at last year’s ceremony.“We know this is a special night for you. We want you to have fun; we want you to feel safe. And most importantly, we want me to feel safe,” he said. “So we have strict policies in place. If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute long speech.”“If anything unpredictable or violent happens during this ceremony, just do what you did last year,” he added. “Nothing. Sit there and do absolutely nothing.”Here is a transcript of the full monologue:Give me a second to adjust my danger zone here. My banshees are caught in my Inisherin right now.Welcome, and congratulations. Welcome to the 95th Oscars. You made it. Congratulations. I know that being here tonight is a dream come true for most of the people in this room. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of it, especially this year, when the world finally got out of the house to see the films you worked so hard to make, the way you intended them to be seen: in a theater. I also want to say that I am happy to see that Nicole Kidman has finally been released from that abandoned AMC, where she has been held captive for almost two full years now. It’s good to have you back, Nicole. And thank you for encouraging people who were already at the movie theater to go to the movie theater. You look great. Everybody looks so great. When I look around this room, I can’t help but wonder: Is Ozempic right for me?We have so many first-time nominees here. In the acting categories alone, there are 16 first-time nominees, including Jamie Lee Curtis, including Ana de Armas, Colin Farrell, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Fraser, Ke Huy Quan. This is, I think, a great piece of Oscars trivia. Thirty-one years ago, in 1992, Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan were in a movie together. Do you remember which movie it was? “Encino Man.” Two actors from “Encino Man” are nominated for Oscars. What an incredible night this must be for the two of you, and what a very difficult night for Pauly Shore. Maybe it’s time to reboot “Bio-Dome.” Why not? All the top 10 highest grossing films this year were sequels or franchises. They say Hollywood is running out of new ideas. I mean, poor Steven Spielberg had to make a movie about Steven Spielberg. Congratulations, Steven.Look at this, by the way. I want to say, right here, this is my favorite duo of the year. Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen. What a pair. The Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood. Seth, what are you on right now? Be honest. Nothing? Mushrooms, right? Did you give one to Steven? Give him one. Let’s see what happens. Maybe he’ll make something crazy. Steven claims he’s never even smoked weed, which I find hard to believe. You mean to tell me you were sober when you made a movie about an alien who eats Reese’s Pieces all day and can’t remember how to phone home? You were high as a bike when you made that movie.Steven is the first director to be nominated in six different decades for an Oscar. Remarkable. This time, as you know, he is nominated for “The Fabelmans,” which is by far his most personal film. They say, “Write what you know.” And they say, also, “Write what you know your mom did with your dad’s best friend.” And Steven did that, and the result was yet another Oscar nomination for the great Michelle Williams, who is right there. And “The Fabelmans” wasn’t an easy shoot for Michelle. After almost every take, Spielberg would rush up to her with tears in his eyes, and he’d scream, “That’s not how Mommy said it!”I also want to extend congratulations to Steven’s longtime collaborator, the maestro John Williams, who is now the oldest nominee in Oscar history. And he looks great. John turned 91 years old last month and he’s still scoring, if you know what I mean. And by the way, if you’ve never made love to the score from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” do yourself a favor. Only Walt Disney — this is great — only Walt Disney has been nominated for more Oscars than John Williams. He’s been nominated 53 times; he’s won five. Which, honestly, is not that great. But good luck tonight.It was a very good year for movies. Business is booming. I know people like to debate now which is better, movies or TV, but here’s the thing. No matter how good a show is, there are some things movies can do that TV just can’t. For example, a TV show can’t lose $100 million. Is the gang from “Babylon” here? They know. I was just asking if they were here. I was welcoming them. At least “Babylon” got released. In August, Batgirl became the first superhero to be defeated by an accounting department. And then we have the big one: the long, long, long awaited “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which gave the director and producer Jim Cameron another opportunity to do what he loves to do more than anything else: drowning Kate Winslet. The sequel to “Avatar” is the most expensive movie ever made. Disney spent $2 billion on this movie. Just to break even, all of Nick Cannon’s kids had to see “Avatar” four times. And they did, I guess. James Cameron is not here, by the way, tonight. You know a show is too long when even James Cameron can’t sit through it. Some of the cynics are saying Jim Cameron isn’t here because he didn’t get a best director nomination. And while I find that very hard to believe about a man of such deep humility, he does have a point. I mean, how does the Academy not nominate the guy who directed “Avatar”? What do they think he is, a woman? Thank you, ladies.It was some year for diversity and inclusion. We have nominees from every corner of Dublin. Five Irish actors are nominated tonight, which means the odds of another fight onstage just went way up.And while we’re on the subject of diversity, I want to say, especially those of you watching at home, there are a number of excellent films and performances that were not nominated tonight, including “Till” and “The Woman King,” which are both based on true stories, with great performances from Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis, that are very worthy of your time if you haven’t seen them, as is a small independent film called “Top Gun: Maverick.” The movie that saved the movies. Everyone loved “Top Gun.” Everybody. I mean, Tom Cruise with his shirt off in that beach football scene? L. Ron Hubba Hubba, you know what I’m saying? You know, Tom and James Cameron didn’t show up tonight. The two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn’t come to the theater. So if you’re hoping to get a look at Tom Cruise, he is not here. Or maybe he is here. Maybe that’s Tom Cruise right there, wearing a Judd Hirsch “Mission Impossible” mask. There’s only one way to find out for sure. Judd, we’re going to need you to drive a motorcycle off the roof of the theater.You know who else is here, the right excellent Rihanna is with us tonight. Rihanna got her first Oscar nomination for the song “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Last month, she performed at the Super Bowl, and tonight, Rihanna will be performing at our halftime in just about four and a half hours from now. Rihanna has a 9-month-old backstage, and he’s very cute. He pooped during rehearsal. You know who the last person who pooped backstage at the Oscars was? That accountant who mixed up the envelopes.Rihanna is here, Lady Gaga is here, wonderful. My God, even Elvis is in the building tonight. There he is, Austin Butler. Austin, as you know, is a first-time nominee. He was so convincing as Elvis, still is. This is a good Hollywood story: Before they started shooting “Elvis,” Tom Hanks gave Austin a vintage typewriter as a gift and in it, Tom wrote, he left a note written from Col. Tom Parker to Elvis. So then Austin used the typewriter to write Tom back as Elvis Presley. And they got to know each other by sending letters back and forth as Elvis and Tom. Which just goes to show you how incredibly silly this all is. We have silly jobs. But Austin, you are so talented. I know Elvis would’ve loved your performance; in fact, according to my QAnon Reddit page, he did.We know this is a special night for you. We want you to have fun; we want you to feel safe. And most importantly, we want me to feel safe. So we have strict policies in place. If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech. No, but seriously. The Academy has a crisis team in place. If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year: nothing. Sit there and do absolutely nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug. And if any of you get mad at a joke and decide you want to come up here and get jiggy with it, it’s not going to be easy. There are a few of my friends you’re going to have to get through first. You’re going to have to get through the heavyweight champ Adonis Creed before you get to me. You’re going to have to do battle with Michelle Yeoh before you get to me. You’re going to have to beat the Mandalorian before you get to me. You’re going to have to tangle with Spider-Man. You are going to have to tangle with Fabelman. And then you’re going to have to go through my right-hand man, Guillermo, if you want to get up to this stage. Oh, wait a minute. The other Guillermo. Not del Toro. Yes, that one. OK, there you go. I know he’s cute, but make no mistake. You even so much as wave at me, that sweet little man will beat the Lydia Tár out of you.There will be no nonsense tonight. We have no time for shenanigans. This is a celebration of everyone here. You told us you wanted all the categories back in, and we listened. They’re all back in. We will be showing all 23 categories live tonight, except for one. Earlier tonight, best picture went to “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Congratulations to Germany. We put all the categories back in, because the movie community wanted it. Almost as much as the television community didn’t want it. So no complaining about how long the show is. I saw all your movies. Now it’s my turn to make you sit in a theater for three and a half hours. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear you speak; we do. We want your speeches to be moving. We also want to keep it moving. So if your speech goes on too long, this year, we’re not going to play you offstage. Instead, we have a group of performers from the movie “RRR” who are going to dance you offstage. If you go too long, we’re going to Bollywood “Gong Show” your ass. So let’s get this going. Please welcome our first presenters of the night, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. More

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      Ke Huy Quan Wins Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Capping Remarkable Comeback

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      Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar for his supporting role in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday night, completing one of the most impressive Hollywood comebacks of all time.After experiencing fame in the 1980s as a child actor in films like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “The Goonies,” Quan eventually moved behind the camera to work in stunt choreography. “I had to step away because the phone stopped ringing,” he told The Times about his two-decade absence from the screen. “Hollywood didn’t write roles for Asian actors.” But he continued to pay his Screen Actors Guild dues every month, as if biding his time for a return to acting.In 2018, inspired by the success of “Crazy Rich Asians,” Quan called an agent friend to represent him and only two weeks later, he was sent “Everything Everywhere,” in which he plays the kindhearted husband of Michelle Yeoh’s multiverse-jumping heroine. Since the film’s release, Quan has taken trophy after trophy from the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Critics Choice Awards, and Independent Spirit Awards.Now, in a year that saw a record number of Asian performers nominated in the acting races, Quan has added an Academy Award to that shelf of statuettes. Below is his full acceptance speech.Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you. My mom is 84 years old. And she’s at home watching. Mom, I just won an Oscar. My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow, I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage. They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This, this, is the American dream. Thank you so much.Thank you so much to the Academy for this honor of a lifetime. Thank you to my mom for the sacrifices you made to get me here. To my little brother David, who calls me every day just to remind me to take good care of myself. I love you, brother.Thank you to Kendall for all your support and everything you’ve done. Thank you to A24, the Daniels, Jonathan, Jamie, Michelle and my “Goonies” brother for life, Jeff Cohen. I owe everything to the love of my life, my wife, Echo, who, month after month, year after year, for 20 years, told me that one day, one day, my time will come. Dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. To all of you out there, please keep your dreams alive. Thank you, thank you so much for welcoming me back. I love you. Thank you thank you thank you. More