The 97th annual Academy Awards hit the stage on Sunday, and as a yearly tradition, I tracked how the award show holds itself up. 

With recent award shows like the Grammys, the acts that show up to perform are often not enough to keep me engaged with the product. If an award ceremony has a prime-time show associated with it, then it should truly be a show with fun extras for those watching to get to experience.  

This year’s Oscars were hosted by Conan O’Brien. Going into the show, I was excited to see what comedic styling he would bring to his starting monologue and of course throughout the whole night.  

O’Brien’s bit on how award ceremonies dragging their run times was an interesting wake up call to how the mix of wanting to give people time to talk and the network trying to fit in advertisers has really worn on the industry. With a little song and dance, O’Brien opened the show up well.

Prior to the show, I really liked what they did advertising wise by poking fun at O’Brien’s big head of red hair, replacing it with the standard Oscars gold.

To my surprise during the opening dance number with O’Brien, viewers got to see dancers show up wearing gold helmets shaped as O’Brien’s hair. The reveal was quite amusing. 

The awards ceremony started off strong with the first awards for best supporting actor– that being awarded to Kieran Culkin for his role as Benji Kaplan in “A Real Pain.”

He gave a fun speech about his wife saying that if he won the Oscar, they would have more kids together to celebrate. It was super funny to see start the show.  

After this, the ceremony died down a lot. Pretty tame as five awards came and went, leading to O’Brien changing into a blue suit. Fun costume switch two awards after best costumes, but it’s whatever. 

The show then moved into a tribute for the “James Bond” film franchise. I found the “James Bond” tribute to be fine overall. I thought that it was kind of out of the blue. But with many performers like Doja Cat being a part of the performance, it made the whole thing decent enough to watch through. I did enjoy the background effects with the sphere that was behind the singers.  

A big part of the quote-unquote show on an award show is the speeches that people give. I think a speech that was great and really brought the night back up was when Zoe Saldaña won best supporting actress. With tears during her speech, it was more of an addition to showing the power of winning and how it can affect a performer. Finally getting recognition for your work looks to be a real emotional blast.  

Although we are deep in the show at this point, the passing is always uneven and choppy with commercials and additional tributes. When watching, it felt  like we were never going to make it to the main event of the night, being best picture.  

But we do get to see the more unique side of cinema as documentary film and short film awards are given out. Even the Los Angeles Firefighters got a thank you for their job in controlling the Los Angeles wildfires. Similar thanks were given back during the Grammy’s too.  

More awards came and went as we moved to the sadder side of the night in memoriam. I was reminded of all the members of the Academy that died in the past year.

Now I know everyone has their favorites and it is sad to see them go, but I would like to say one of my all-time favorite actors died this year. I still can’t believe that Bob Newhart died. Gone but never forgotten, his and many others lives and works will continue to be treasured by many. 

Returning to the show, we had some heavy hitters like “The Brutalist” and “I’m Still Here” picking up some wins, which led into the last song and dance of the night.  

Queen Latifah gave a tribute to record producer Quincy Jones. Jones passed away this past year. He was known for musical scores for films like “The Color Purple” and “The Wiz.”

Latifah gave her own rendition of the song “Ease On Down The Road” from “The Wiz.” I thought this was a way better musical performance than the one for the James bond tribute at the beginning of the night. With better passes choreography to start, it looked better on the eyes.  

The night eventually drew to an end with the big four of best director, actor, actress and picture being crowned. The film “Anora” grabbed three of these awards, adding to the two awards that it had already won prior in the evening.  

I thought that seeing “Anora” win showed how open the academy was this year to a newer age story about young people. It made me happy to see it.  

The show as a whole fell short of my hopes for what I thought might be one of the better awards ceremonies of the season. The theatrics aren’t there all the time, and I guess if you want to see them, watch the movies they are showing. 

Shows like this get slow, and its hosts seem to just fade as the show keeps going. Like, it is nice that these programs exist once a year, but unless you have been keeping up to date with movies like I have, I can really see this show as a snoozer on your Sunday night.  

Lastly, shoutout to the winners; good job. Shoutout to the losers; you’ll get them next time.

Shoutout to “Flow” for being the first Latvian film to win an Oscar. Shoutout to “Anora” for the most wins this year with five.

Now to close, one more shoutout to my man Kieran Culkin; in and out got his victory. I’m sure had a good rest of his night. 

Gunnar Olson can be reached at 581-2812 or at deneic@gmail.com.