THE 94TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS

I could begin with discussing how much the 94th annual Academy Awards was a vast improvement over last year's restrained, dreary affair. But let's keep it real; much like the envelope snafu of 2016, the only thing that the 2022 Oscars will be remembered for is that smack heard across the globe. To briefly recap, Chris Rock came out to present Best Documentary Feature and since he's a comedian, he told some jokes. One was aimed at Jada Pinkett Smith. And while everyone laughed including her husband, Will Smith, she did not. This lead to Smith marching on stage towards Rock. At first, I thought the two men were playing (and I think Rock did too initially since he was smiling when Smith approached him) but suddenly the visual feed was cut off and when we came back on air, Smith was back in his seat cursing out the comedian. We did not have a clear idea of what really happened until later when it was revealed that Smith had actually slapped Rock across the face. Yet a clearly shaken Rock remained professional and continued with presenting the award.

There have been various heated voices heard since with some outraged that Smith would behave this way during the show while others have praised the actor for defending his wife who had revealed she suffers from alopecia. I do not believe the reaction to this bad, tasteless joke deserved physical assault, particularly in the middle of a live televised program and could have been handled privately at a later time. It really was an unfortunate and disappointing situation from both men, wrongly taking focus away from musician-turned-filmmaker, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson winning the award for "Summer of Soul", his outstanding directorial debut about African-Americans lifting each other up during dark times through a musical concert.

The theme for this year's Oscars was "movie lovers unite" which was supposed to inspire the idea of fans coming back together as a community in theaters to watch films. This is a wonderful sentiment but there wasn't much unity behind the scenes when the Oscar telecast producers, Will Packer and Shayla Cowan made the announcement that they would cut eight categories live from the show, later announcing the winners via taped speeches throughout the evening. This plan was met by a chrous of angry Academy members who demanded that all categories be presented during the show as tradition. But it was later revealed that ABC (which is owned by Disney) forced their hand under threat of cancelling the Oscars altogether. Now I don't believe for one minute they would have seriously done this but nobody wanted to call their bluff so the producers ultimately agreed to their demands.

There was finally the return of hosts with Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall filling in that role, working well together yet only having a few actual funny moments that actually landed. Most of the jokes were awkward and we could have done without Hall's rambling, predictable skit involving COVID tests for only certain handsome men in the audience and Schumer's uncomfortable bit with nominated couple, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons about seat fillers.

The show began promising with Beyoncé performing her nominated song, "Be Alive" from "King Richard" at the Compton tennis courts where the Williams sisters began their journey. It was a captivating spectacle with the singer and her army of backing performers all dressed in the color of a tennis ball yet it felt disconnected from the proceedings, coming across more like a music video (most likely pre-recorded) than live entertainment on the Oscars. The three other nominations for Best Song (with well-known, anti-vaxxer, Van Morrison declining to participate) were performed live in the Dolby Theater with far less major production but it was great that this was all an active part of the show again.

There were tributes to sixty years of James Bond, the fiftieth anniversary of "The Godfather" and "Cabaret" with a frail Liza Minnelli presenting Best Picture with Lady Gaga. We also had cast reunions on stage from "White Men Can't Jump", "Juno" and "Pulp Fiction". All of this was thrilling in concept but lacking in execution with the moments feeling rushed and missing a true sense of celebration. But at least we did have the common sense return of actually seeing clips from the nominated films in each category.

"CODA" became the first streaming movie to win Best Picture with Apple+ surprisingly beating Netflix for this honor after years of trying and coming close. An English-language remake of the 2014 French coming-of-age drama, "La Famille Bélier", "CODA" (which stands for Child Of Deaf Adults) tells the story of Ruby (played by Emilia Jones), the only hearing member of a deaf family and her desire to go off to college to become a singer. But as her family's main connection to the hearing world, Ruby feels she would be abandoning them as they struggle with their fishing business. Troy Kotsur, who plays Ruby's father, won Best Supporting Actor, becoming the second deaf actor to win following his co-star, Marlee Matlin in 1986 and the film's director, Siân Heder received the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. While "CODA" is certainly entertaining and moving, I found the film to be the weakest selection out of the ten Best Picture nominees, failing to fully demonstrate excellence in cinematic achievement in my humble opinion.

"The Power of the Dog" entered the night with the most nominations but only walked away with Best Director for Jane Campion, becoming only the third female filmmaker to receive this award. Jessica Chastain won her first Oscar as Best Actress for her transformative performance in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye". Ariana DeBose received Best Supporting Actress for playing Anita in the new version of the musical, "West Side Story with Rita Moreno, who won the same award for the same role sixty years ago, watching and cheering her on. But "Dune" was actually the big winner of the night, with the sci-fi adventure taking six awards including Best Editing, Cinematography, Sound and Visual Effects. Not long after the incident, Smith was announced the winner for Best Actor in "King Richard". During his lengthy speech, Smith delivered another performance, with tears streaming down his face, where he managed to apologize to the entire audience for his atrocious behavior yet noticeably neglecting one person in particular.

While the violent outburst involving Smith may have been the most obvious distraction, this year's Oscars suffered from other glaring issues: the Academy teaming up with Twitter to have users vote for their favorite film and favorite film moment with the outcome (Zack Snyder's "Army of the Dead" and "Justice League") being completely meaningless. Disney using the show as free promotion by having the actresses of their live-action adaptations of their animated classics (which included singer, Halle Bailey who will headline their upcoming "The Little Mermaid") to present an award and having the stars of "Encanto" perform a special number of "We Don't Talk About Bruno". The show seems to be drifting further away from awarding and putting a spotlight on the best in cinema, with the only focus being desperately trying to boost the ratings. All award show ratings have declined over the last few years, a reality that will need to accepted. The idea of cutting categories and eliminating the presentation of the Honorary Oscars from the telecast is going to get more people to tune-in is misguided and delusional. There are many fans of the Oscars who watch religiously every year (hello) that are still out there.

Dear Academy; please stop trying to alienate the true movie lovers in an ill-advised attempt to lure people who are never going to watch no matter what you do.

Here is the complete list of winners from the the 94th annual Academy Awards:

Best Picture: "CODA"
Best Director: Jane Campion, "The Power of the Dog"
Best Original Screenplay: Kenneth Branagh, "Belfast"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Siân Heder, "CODA"
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Jessica Chastain, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Will Smith, "King Richard"
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Ariana DeBose, "West Side Story"
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Troy Kotsur, "CODA"
Best Cinematography: Greig Fraser, "Dune"
Best Film Editing: Joe Walker, "Dune"
Best Production Design: Patrice Vermette and Zsuzsanna Sipos, "Dune"
Best International Feature: "Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー)" (Japan)
Best Documentary Feature: "Summer of Soul (Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)"
Best Documentary Short: "The Queen of Basketball"
Best Animated Feature: "Encanto"
Best Animated Short: "The Windshield Wiper"
Best Live Action Short Film: "The Long Goodbye"
Best Original Score: Hans Zimmer, "Dune"
Best Original Song: "No Time to Die" from "No Time to Die", written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell
Best Sound: Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett, "Dune"
Best Costume Design: Jenny Beavan, "Cruella"
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"
Best Visual Effects: Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer, "Dune"
Honorary Academy Awards: Samuel L. Jackson; Elaine May; Liv Ullmann
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Danny Glover