First of all, the only nominated movies that I'd seen from all categories were "The After", "American Symphony", "Barbie", "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny", "Killers of the Flower Moon", "Maestro", "Nai Nai & Wai Po", "Napoleon", "Oppenheimer", "Rustin" and "The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar".
Jimmy Kimmel referenced Katie Britt's cringey response to Biden's State of the Union address, and later made fun of a negative comment from Donald Trump.
There had been the question of whether or not it was acceptable to hold the ceremony with terrible things going on in Ukraine and Gaza, but I guess that they felt like they had to anyway. I understand that protesters outside had caused the ceremony to delay a few minutes. However, when Jonathan Glazer won for "The Zone of Interest", he denounced the hijacking of the Holocaust as an excuse for a war against Gaza. Inevitably, some people tried to claim that he refuted his Jewishness, conveniently ignoring what he said.
Also important was when Cillian Murphy noted that, for better or worse, we live in Robert Oppenheimer's world, and he dedicated his win to the peacemakers.
As for the rest of the show, I liked it when Sean Lennon came up to the stage when a short based on a song by his parents won. John Cena's gag was a surprise, but he pulled it off. I hope that there's eventually an award for stunts.
The obviously cringey part was the In Memoriam segment; I could barely see the tributes to the deceased people over the dancers. I hope that they get that right next year.
Overall, I liked it. And remember, watch "Oppenheimer" before "Barbie"; after all, the physicist brought about the modern world, and the doll lives in it.
