2021-22

Post-Oscars Analysis

Final score: A new personal best! 22/23 correct, missing only Best Animated Short winner The Windshield Wiper (which I'll confess wasn't even on my radar as a potential spoiler, given its fractured, abstract structure).

But stat-padding only ever so slightly takes the sting out of a CODA Best Picture. I didn't hate the movie, but Best Picture material it is not, especially when held next to something like The Power of the Dog.

History will not look kindly on that win, but it will look far more harshly on the broadcast itself...

I wanted to root for Will Packer & company, but every creative decision by him and his team was outright awful. Hard to believe that even Will Smith's "slap heard around the world" was not the cringe-iest aspect of the show.

I could have told them (as did all of Film Twitter) that announcing nearly a third of the categories during the red carpet hoopla and shoehorning soundbites of the winners' speeches into the broadcast was A) disrespectful, and B) wouldn't shorten the length of the program. Lo and behold, both were true.

The material written for hosts Amy Schumer, Regina Hall & Wanda Sykes also reeked of anti-cinema sentiment, often going out of its way to shame movies for being more artful than profitable. The only bits that actually had me laughing were the unintentionally funny Fan Favourite tributes, which -- in a hilarious anti-climax -- went to a pair of Zack Snyder clunkers that nobody in the Dolby had heard of. Oh to be a fly on the wall when that Dave Bautista Army of the Dead clip started playing!