Oscar Thoughts 2020

Ok, so the Oscars were last night. For those of you that know me, I usually do a blog about my predictions. But I didn't this year, I completely forgot that the Oscars were happening this weekend. Probably because the past couple of years the Oscars have been at the end of February or the beginning of March. Anyway, I made my predictions while watching and I got 17/24 right, not my best, but not my worst.

Here are my quick thoughts on the winners from last night. I wish How to Train Your Dragon had won Best Animated Film instead of Toy Story 4. I really liked Toy Story 4, but come on the franchise has enough Oscars, so why not throw How to Train Your Dragon a bone? Also, Frozen 2 was completely snubbed in this category (not even nominated!) and that should have won, but whatever.

I should have known that the documentary American Factory would win, but I thought since Honeyland was also nominated in another category (best international feature, formerly known as best foreign language film) a thing that NEVER happens, that it was a shoe in. But you always have to factor in marketing and this film had a big push by big names, so that makes sense.

It's always weird when Sound Mixing and Sound Editing go to different movies, why does that happen? You'd think one movie would win in both categories, but no.

Ok, I'm happy another woman won for Best Score (Hildur Guðnadóttir won for the Joker). Only 4 women have ever won in this category so that's cool (only 7 women have ever even been nominated). But I LOVED 1917's score and the composer, Thomas Newman, has never won (even though he has been nominated 15 times, come on!).

I knew that the song from Rocketman would win Best Song (Elton John song, performed by him, about his life, come on). But Into the Unknown from Frozen 2 should have won. The fact that only 1 song was nominated from that movie was ridiculous. Into the Unknown isn't even the best song from that movie, that would be the song Show Yourself, but whatever.

I can't believe Lion King didn't win for best Visual Effects. I mean I didn't care for the movie, but those visuals were AMAZING! Groundbreaking visuals, and that should qualify you to win the Oscar, but the Oscars are stupid sometimes.

I knew Joaquin Phoenix would win Best Actor for the Joker. I kind of wish it had gone to Antonio Banderas but that's just me. Also, Phoenix's speech was just weird and went on too long. I also knew Renee Zellweger would win Best Actress for Judy (playing a real life person, and an icon, come on). Especially since Jennifer Lopez was snubbed in this category.

I knew Brad Pitt would win Best Supporting Actor for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I wouldn't have minded if it went to Tom Hanks, but Brad's a good actor so I'm not mad about it. Also not surprised or upset that Laura Dern won Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story.

I was a little surprised that Parasite won for Best Director. I kind of thought 1917 would win here, but then I thought that last year was being repeated. Last year Roma won for Director but didn't win Best Picture. So, I figured Parasite would win for Director and 1917 would win for Best Picture.

But the biggest surprise of the night was the fact that Parasite (a foreign language film) won Best Picture. I NEVER thought that would happen (especially after last year, when Roma won pretty much everything else, but not Best Picture because it was also a foreign language film). The Oscars has a separate category for foreign language films (it's now called Best International Feature). But because of this, I didn't think one would ever win Best Picture. The same way I don't think an animated film will ever win Best Picture, because there is a separate category for Best Animated Feature. But who knows? Maybe things are changing. Probably not, the Academy might think a foreign language film is good enough, but I doubt they'll ever feel that way about an animated film.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on the 92nd Academy Awards. Did anyone else watch? Was anyone else surprised?