Review and Analysis of the 94th Academy Awards
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Review and Analysis of the 94th Academy Awards
The 94rd Academy Awards were problematic in some areas. The one controversy that happened soured the whole ceremony. As for the winners, they were way too predictable, leading to a rather boring night. Still, pretty good movies and actors ended up winning, so I am mostly fine with this outcome.
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THE CEREMONY
This ceremony will forever be famous for the moment when Will Smith punched Chris Rock in the face. I am entirely on Chris’ side and I find Smith to be insufferable. He is basically a wife-obsessed cuck and this action will negatively impact his career as it should. That entire speech that he gave was overlong, overly pathetic in his emotional outbursts and just plain annoying. He is both sad and unlikable.
As for the other speeches, they were mostly forgettable with the exception of the one made by Troy Kotsur. That entire moment when he won was wonderful and by far the best part of this ceremony. The fact that they actually put some movie clips in was a breath of fresh air. I have been asking for a movie celebration award show for quite some time and here the movie anniversaries were very well handled. The In Memoriam section was also moving. The songs were mostly weakly performed with the exception of the beautiful Dos Oruguitas that sadly lost an Oscar.
As for the hosts, I feel really bad for all three of these women. They were all actually very good. Wanda Sykes was particularly funny in that museum segment, but both Regina Hall and Amy Schumer got some solid zingers as well. However, the choice to have all three of them on one show backfired, especially because they gave them all very little screen time. They should have been treated much better. But we need to praise them for not being too political for once and how they handled the current war was actually done very subtly, which I really appreciated.
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BEST PICTURE
I did not care all that much for this year’s Best Picture slate. There is only one great movie here and that is Dune. I am glad that it won all of those technical awards, but it should have been more of a competitor in these major categories too. I would have also been fine with Nightmare Alley winning, but that one had no chance to win at all. The Power of the Dog has been the biggest frontrunner for months, but it losing eventually cements that the Netflix curse is very much real. I am glad that it lost as I found that movie boring and lifeless. CODA isn’t great by any means, but it is a perfectly good, lighthearted crowd-pleaser that really fits in the canon of BP winners. You can read my full ranking of the nominees here.
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BEST DIRECTOR
This award was unfortunately the most predictable one and Jane Campion became the third woman to win an Oscar for directing. Even though I dislike her movie, I am not mad at this choice as she is clearly respected by Hollywood as is her work on this film. However, I find the fact that The Power of the Dog won for directing, but not in any other category baffling and I am sure that turn of events rarely happened before in Oscar history. My pick for best director Dennis Villeneuve wasn’t even nominated in the biggest snub of the year.
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BEST ACTOR
This was another lock in an unfortunate year when most categories were too damn predictable. I found King Richard a very frustrating Oscar-bait movie and the same goes for its main performer. He did not deserve to win, but oh well. I couldn’t care more anyway because 2021 was not a great year for male actors. Of the nominees, Andrew Garfield was easily the best one.
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BEST ACTRESS
Wow, was this category wild or what? This was by far the only race this year that was unpredictable and very exciting. It stands to reason that it would be this interesting because the female actors had a tremendous year in 2021. This incredible, historic slate of nominees reflects that as almost each one of these ladies would have been deserving of a win. Kristen Stewart was at first the frontrunner for Spencer and she would have been my personal pick here along with Cruz. Penelope garnered some momentum later down the late, but it came a bit too late unfortunately. There was talk of both Colman and Kidman winning their second Oscar, but eventually it ended up being Jessica Chastain for her excellent performance in a very mediocre movie. She was better before of course, but she was nominated twice already and it was her time, so I was so glad that she won.
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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
This was also a very weak slate and the previous frontrunner Kodi Smith-McPhee did not impress me at all. So, I am more than happy that it went to Troy Kotsur as he was by far the best of the nominees and his performance was the most memorable one. This was one of the three wins that CODA secured for itself and it was also the best moment of the night.
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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
I was thinking that this would be an upset, but eventually the acting awards turned out too predictable. Ariana DeBose won for the best role in West Side Story and she was probably the best one among these nominees. But I still firmly believe that Ruth Negga was terribly snubbed and she was my pick for this year.
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BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
I did not like Belfast’s screenplay at all, but I am glad that Kenneth Branagh walked away with something as he deserved to win an Oscar by now. My pick in this category of the nominees would easily have to be the phenomenally written Worst Person in the World. The fact that that film did not get any wins was frustrating to me.
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BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Dune had the best screenplay by far in this category, but of course the biased Academy would never reward a SF movie a major award. They eventually decided to give it to CODA, which signaled CODA’s sweep in all three categories that it was nominated. I found the movie too populist, but overall better written than The Power of the Dog that was only thematically rich, but poorly executed.
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BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
This was unfortunate. The Animated Feature award needs to be fixed immediately. Flee was by far the best film of the five nominees and it was also nominated in two other categories. The fact that it lost all three of its potential Oscars was very sad to me. I would have preferred at least Pixar’s Luca winning, but Disney winning for the far from great Encanto only goes to show that the Academy members here vote based on what their children like and/or are talking about.
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BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
The Worst Person in the World or Flee should have won here and it’s a travesty that these great movies lost to a mediocrity that is Drive My Car. It was obvious that this would happen given that they also nominated the movie’s director and screenplay and it even received the rare BP nomination for a foreign movie, but still I found it boring and pretentious, so I was not happy at all with this turn of events.
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BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
Summer of Soul has been winning in most major awards, so it was expected that it would win an Academy Award too, but it’s such a shame that Flee lost this one. It would have been the first animated winner in the documentary category and it would have been very deserving of that historic prize. I was heartbroken by this choice the most.
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BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Of the nominees that I’ve seen in the animated short category, The Windshield Wiper was by far the worst one. It is messy and pretentious. Robin Robin was robbed of this award as that movie is so lovely and beautifully animated.
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BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Dune absolutely dominated this awards show. It ended up winning six awards out of the ten nominations and I couldn’t be happier for it. It was one of the best movies of the year and a great technical achievement. It just goes to show that Dennis was shamelessly snubbed for that director spot. Dune’s score was obviously the best one from 2021, so the win is so deserved.
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BEST ORIGINAL SONG
I just adore Dos Oruguitas. This Spanish number is both moving in lyrics and so powerfully sung. It’s the best song in an otherwise overrated Encanto soundtrack. But it lost to the very mediocre, forgettable Bond song sung by Billie Eilish in an annoying turn of events.
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BEST SOUND
Dune is a SF spectacle that looks and sounds incredible throughout its runtime. Just those spaceships taking off the ground made this choice the only legitimate one.
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BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
I would have actually given this one to Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. That movie had amazing circus sets and incredible architecture, so Dune did not deserve to win for this one at least.
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BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Dune looked great, so I am not too mad about this choice, though I do contend that The Tragedy of Macbeth was the best-looking film of the year as its black-and-white cinematography was just gorgeous.
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BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
This was a toss-up for me between Tammy Faye and House of Gucci. The prosthetics work done on both Chastain and Leto looked insanely believable. It eventually went to Faye, which was a good choice.
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BEST COSTUME DESIGN
I am so happy that Cruella won this one. Cruella is basically a movie that is all about the costumes, so any other choice here would have been very wrong.
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BEST FILM EDITING
Dune is a very long movie, so it’s questionable whether it should have won for editing, but they obviously highly admired the movie’s craftsmanship overall, so it ended up winning here too.
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BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Clearly the year’s best effects belonged to Dune. Nothing even came close to the spectacle of this movie. The ships, the whole planet and the weapons all looked astonishing and so believable.
