The Academy Awards, more commonly known as the Oscars, took place on February 24 this year.
With 29.6 million viewers tuning in to Sunday night’s ceremony, the three or more hour long show did not get the ratings that it used to. The past four years have included record low ratings and viewer counts.
This year’s show also lacked a host; this has only happened five other times in the show’s history.
Even though most people find sitting through the lengthy ceremony extremely boring, this year’s show was certainly one for the books.
I personally love watching the Oscars, and this year was no exception.
From the montage of films from the past year at the beginning to powerhouse performances and jaw-dropping results in who would receive a golden statue, the 91st annual Academy Awards brought a little bit of everything to the table.
Actresses and comedians Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph kicked off the show by poking fun at the host situation and making jokes they most likely would have made if they had been hosting.
They brought much needed humor to the program, and the emptiness they left when they were gone was quite tangible.
The show then proceeded to give out awards for Best Supporting Actress, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score, and so on.
Quite frankly, my favorite parts of the show were whenever Chris Evans was shown on camera, whenever a Marvel actor presented or accepted an award, and Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s performance of “Shallow.”
As many people know by now, I am a huge Marvel fan. So the fact that “Black Panther” was nominated for eight awards was a dream come true – and the fact that it actually won three awards was just icing on top of the cake.
It was the perfect way to honor the passing of Stan Lee, who was also included in the Academy’s montage of people in the industry who had passed away since the previous ceremony. I shed more than one tear during this montage.
Other Marvel actors were also featured in the ceremony as presenters. Some of these actors included Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Chadwick Boseman, and Tessa Thompson.
This isn’t necessarily a reason as to why the 2019 Oscars were entertaining for other people, but I certainly enjoyed it.
Another of my favorite parts of the show was the performance of “Shallow” by the stars of “A Star Is Born”: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. The performance was attention grabbing and hard to look away from as the chemistry between Gaga and Cooper was palpable. I felt bad for Cooper’s girlfriend watching these sparks fly while sitting in the front row.
“Shallow” has been added to the list of my favorite songs of all time, so I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and was extremely joyous when it won for Best Original Song.
“A Star Is Born” also happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time, so I was quite upset when it didn’t win as many awards as I thought it should have.
Gaga and Cooper were both nominated for Best Actor and Actress, but neither won, much to my disapproval.
The award for Best Actor went to Rami Malek for his portrayal of the late Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” and his journey with Queen and finding himself as a person and as an artist.
I personally didn’t think the movie was as good as critics made it out to be, and Malek’s iffy portrayal of Mercury definitely wasn’t chalked up to the reviews it received. He certainly didn’t deserve to win the award for Best Actor either. No disrespect to Malek – he’s an amazing actor – but there were just more deserving actors for the award. Including Bradley Cooper.
Gaga was also snubbed for the Best Actress award by Olivia Colman for her performance in “The Favourite.” My heart wanted Gaga to receive this award because I thought her performance in “A Star Is Born” was simply astonishing, but I also wanted Glenn Close to win the award.
Close has now been nominated for seven Academy Awards without a single win, the highest of any actor or actress in history. It’s been a long time coming for Close and her night should have been that night.
The biggest upset of the night, in not only my opinion, but many many critics as well, was the winner for Best Picture. The nominees were “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Favourite,” “Black Panther,” BlacKkKlansman,” “Green Book,” “Vice,” “Roma,” and “A Star Is Born.”
The winner ended up being “Green Book,” which took many people, including myself, by surprise. I thought for sure that the award would have gone to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Roma,” or even “A Star Is Born.”
I certainly didn’t expect “Green Book” to take home the gold statue for Best Picture.
All in all, the 2019 Academy Awards was certainly not the best to have ever happened, but it also wasn’t the worst.
Hopefully, sometime in the future the show will return to what it once was – completely engaging and entertaining – and maybe even have a host. A good host.
