Hollywood’s biggest night, The 2024 Oscars, has recently awarded applaudable stars.
Award Season ends with the Oscars presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. The 2024 Oscars is an award show in recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy’s voting membership.
Ninety-six times the nominations are announced. ninety-five times the ceremony was held. Here’s a Recap of the 96th Annual ceremony.
Music so nice, they won Oscars twice
Black Panther won three Oscars in 2019, and No Time to Die won an Oscar in 2022. One of the Oscars Black Panther won was from Ludwig Göransson for Best Original Score. And the only Oscar No Time to Die won was from Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for Best Original Song.
2024 is where the musical geniuses returned for repeat wins in the same category. Ludwig is going two for two with his win, while both Billie and Finneas are the youngest and second youngest double Oscar winners on record, respectively.
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The King of the Monsters finally conquered the Oscars
Godzilla Minus One is probably the fictional version of the bomb Oppenheimer made. It was surprising that it was made on a budget of less than 15 million USD. The film won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, with film director, writer, and visual effects maker Takashi Yamazaki taking the stage alongside Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi, and Tatsuji Nojima.
While the director made the effort to speak English in front of his voting peers, the producers of the Oscars seem to be cringing at the effort they are making. They immediately played the music while they were talking. Also, their speech was edited out of the Disney+ upload. An unprofessional and unkind response to an effort of linguistic empathy.
Oscars Queen of the Night, Bella Baxter
Poor Things is about an adult woman with the mind of a child, developing into adulthood in all the wrong ways. Bella Baxter is becoming a feminist icon, and Emma Stone’s performance of her is once in a blue moon. The film itself has so much visual absurdity that each scene looks different. It is no surprise that the motion picture won the following Oscars:
- Best Actress in a Leading Role: Emma Stone as Bella Baxter
- Best Production Design: Production Design: James Price and Shona Heath; Set Decoration: Zsuzsa Mihalek
- Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier, and Josh Weston
- Best Costume Design: Holly Waddington
Well-deserved wins for her and the team behind the visuals.
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The sounds of brutality beyond the zone of interest
Speaking of unsettling, the sounds of the United Kingdom and Poland’s collaborative film “The Zone of Interest” is unnerving. The film is a 2023 historical drama film written and directed by Jonathan Glazer. The story is loosely based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis.
Based partially on the lives of Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig. They live with their family in a home in the “Zone of Interest” next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Never show this film to a Holocaust survivor, for it is a masterful depiction of a horrible time in history.
The film won two Oscars, deservingly for Best Sound and Best International Feature Film. Jonathan Glazer accepted his award and said the following:
All our choices are made to reflect and confront us in the present. Not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather ‘Look what we do now.’ Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization—how do we resist?
While neutral in his stance, it is a disturbing reminder of present times. His mission was to transport us back in time to see the family’s house with ours. Food for thought, as complacency is possibly the biggest sin that could lead humanity to extinction.
The Big Bomb beats the Oscars
Speaking of extinction, the maker of the most powerful weapon of mass destruction in human history is the biggest winner of the night. The Academy members are very nihilistic this year, as they saw a Shakespearean film where the ending is all around us.
The film won the following awards:
- Best Picture: Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, and Christopher Nolan
- Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
- Best Actor in a Leading Role: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer as J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer as Lewis Strauss
- Best Original Score: Ludwig Göransson
- Best Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema
- Best Film Editing: Jennifer Lame
The Award Season darling and a film that gave Christopher Nolan a payout of almost 100 million USD. This was a huge gamble for Universal and was blocked by Barbie from taking the top spot in the box office, despite Warner Bros. Ultimately, it grossed 961 million USD worldwide and won hundreds of awards, including the seven Oscars mentioned.
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The Boy, The Randolph, and the Fiction
Hayao Miyazaki won his second Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category that the writers of the Oscars ceremony keep on dismissing as “for kids.”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph joins a long line of iconic black actresses that won Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She joins a long line of iconic black actresses that won the Oscars.
Cord Jefferson won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for American Fiction. He said what everybody outside of Hollywood has been saying. He said, “I understand that this is a risk-averse industry, but $200 million in movies is also a risk.
But you take the risk anyway,” he added. “Instead of making one $200 million movie, make twenty $10 million movies or fifty $4 million movies.”
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2024 Oscars Conclusion
It is said that the current minds of the masses will depend on the votes they cast. If that is true, then the Academy voting body is voting for Doom and Gloom.
While citation is needed for that conclusion, one thing is true about the Oscars. It is the highest honor you can get as a filmmaker, and many dreams are made because of it.
Whoever gets to go home with the gold is a subjective choice, and everyone will continue to argue whether they deserve it or not.
Source: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 2024 Oscars
