La 95e cérémonie annuelle des Oscars

Eight years after #OscarsSoWhite movement the Academy took steps toward racial and cultural diversity in its structure. Today however we continue to debate on exclusion, which I think stems from selected overrate and selected overlook.

Award winners Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh are undeniably good actors but what about Cate Blanchett or Austin Butler and the movies like Tar and Elvis? The little multiverse mudder Everything Everywhere All At Once is a mediocre film lacking a heart to relate. Academy maybe demonstrated its stance for diversity but also overlooked the artistic merits as sole benchmark for awards.

My personal awards this year go to Tar, Elvis and Belgium film Close.

. . . is only a presenter, and NOT a nominee, after his star turn as "Keith Gill" in DUMB MONEY. I think this awards "snub" can be attributed to P. D.'s lack of conditioning, and by inference, lukewarm commitment to this role. In Real Life, Keith ran a 4:03 mile. Having personally witnessed workouts by a 3:57 four-lap dude, as well as another racer who clocked a 1:50 half in high school, I was NOT impressed or convinced by DUMB MONEY's frequent--failed--attempts to portray Keith doing interval training on his local track. My 3:57 one-time teammate would push himself through three laps under three minutes during workouts. Then, after a 60-second break, he would see how much faster than one minute he could run a fourth lap. Mr. 1:50 would run sets of a dozen training quarters, during which a younger teammate would race him all-out the final 220. None of this comes through during DUMB MONEY's scenes at the track. This is where Paul falls far short of RAGING BULL.

Sticking to the tradition of watching the oscars the day after it airs, this installment was actually quite good. Most (if not, all) of these films that either got nominated or won were most deserving, as the films I did see out of the bunch were exceptional films. Most of the speeches were great (most notably everyone that won for best picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once) and I found the musical performances more entertaining than past Oscar ceremonies. My only gripe is that when the winners would be on their way upstage, the announcer who's giving information about the said winners was just way too quiet, and was barraged with background music, so I wasn't ever able to hear what she was saying. Jimmy Kimmel nailed it as the presenter though, making a few Will Smith jokes that seriously made me laugh out loud, and we got an appearance from cocaine bear, so honestly, win. This oscars was a win IMO, and am excited to watch these movies that were either nominated or won.

The producers were hoping The Oscars 2023 would prove to be knockout for the viewers instead of the presenters like last year.

Presenter Jimmy Kimmel took his cue from Billy Crystal, inserting himself into footage of the Best Picture nominees.

Unfortunately his jokes lacked Crystal's sure touch. I thought maybe Steven Spielberg was going to slap him for poking fun of his parent's marriage.

It took a while for the ceremony to get going. Only one award was handed in the first half hour.

The two best supporting acting awards indicated that this would be the night for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Ke Huy Quan no longer a Trivial Pursuit question. Whatever happened to the kid from Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom?

Jamie Lee Curtis showing she was always an acting talent to reckon with. Charismatic but the Hollywood bigwigs took a while to notice her outside of genre movies.

Brendan Fraser who seemed to have disappeared for a few years and them emerged on television got the Best Actor award. He was championed by Ian McKellen 25 years ago. He said once Brendan gets older, the looks go, the Hollywood executives will notice just what a good actor he is. The Mummy films might have been silly but Fraser always had the effortless star quality.

Michelle Yeoh took a leap from the martial arts genre. The first Star Trek captain to be an Oscar winner.

The songs were boring It was a good job Naatu Naatu had the infectious dance moves.

Overall rather safe and predictable. Apart from an impromptu Happy Birthday sang out at the auditorium.

You wasted so much time on Jimmy Kimmel being painfully unfunny. He has the LEAST amount of charisma as any Oscar host ever. His jokes are nothing but references to Oscar movies with no substance or comedic timing. Why the hell has he been invited back so many times. The show worked SO well without a host at all. Every time Jimmy Kimmel goes on stage, the pacing of the show grinds to a screeching halt.

You wasted so much time with a bunch of stupid skits that nobody wanted. "Wow look it's Jimmy Kimmel in a popular movie. How original. It's not like I've seen that exact same joke in every mediocre Oscar year".

You wasted SO MUCH TIME on random montages. This one is really bizarre. Because the films included in the montages are from completely different years, completely different genres, and most of them are Disney owned properties. This adds nothing to the Oscars, it's clearly just completely unnecessary padding.

You wasted all of this time, and you STILL cut off half of the acceptance speeches.

And on top of all that, you made a joke about cutting off the visual effects artists. Even though they fix Hollywood's broken movies, get paid pennies, and often go out of business for doing so.

The Oscars is a joke and nobody cares. Just shorten the damn thing. Give out every award. Cut out the hosts. Make the Oscars a celebration of art, rather than a 3 hour long Hollywood circle jerk.