They threatened the homeless people living at the station to leave before the oscars or they would have their belongings thrown away. Then they virtue signal about oppressed minorities and the disenfranchised? Lol. Hypocrisy at its finest... that should be enough reason to tune out, but there's so much more... and I don't have time to write it all out. This oscars had the lowest viewership in history, and I think the people have decided to boycott.

The Covid pandemic has created a challenge for awards shows. It has also led to low ratings.

The Oscars decided to ban Zoom but this was an underwhelming reworking.

The show badly needs a main presenter, one who is a comedian. This one needed laughs. There was just a lack of fun with the reworking.

Some of the speeches from the presenters were overlong and dull. The In Memoriam segment rushed through the people who died in the previous 12 months but the introduction to it needed it to be shorter.

Also when you celebrate the work of the artists and the production crew. I would like to see an example of their work. I was not enthused with a factoid that a best supporting actor nominee once worked in a fast food outlet or such like.

Then there was the change of order. There was no need for the Best Picture to be given out so early.

The emotional moment of the evening was a damp squib. The Best Actor Oscar was held last in the expectation that the late Chadwick Boseman would be the winner. He did not win. Anthony Hopkins pipped him to the post and he was in bed in his homeland of Wales by that time.

Okay, here we have the Oscars 2021 version, of course hugely impacted by the virus still, but not that much because in contrast to other awards shows, this was not that much of a virtual event and they basically did not allow people to accept their awards via video, except those outside America. I thought it was a good solution. It's really not impossible or irrational to travel to the location for the biggest awards show of the year. As you can see from my rating, I quite enjoyed the outcome here. I was honestly surprised how much I did because almost all other 2021 awards show were pretty much unwatchable. The music ones have sucked for years admittedly, but the film shows have been better in other years, but this year they were also lost in pretty much praising the pandemic, making political statements (which I always hate) and the winners were also pretty bad many times. It was tolerable here. We heard on one occasion (I think it was Tyler Perry) something not too pleasant and guess what it's exactly those who keep sexism, ageism and racism alive that constantly talk about it. And if you want it to be normal that females are nominated as directors, if you want it to be something ordinary, then stop talking about it. We're totally on the right track, if we're not there already yet. Speaking of female directors, Regina King did not get in and some have an irrational hate for that decision. I don't. There was no host for this awards show (which was okay, even if Gervais hosting would have been better),but King was one of those presenters with more screen time and her talking about her Black son it was I think very early on meh.. Her words on Fennell linked to being a promising young woman were also on the cringeworthy.

I'll just do some brainstorming mostly for the entire review, so forgive if it is not too nicely structured. One thing I pretty much liked was the location. The presenters were struggling a bit here and there, especially when you could see that they take themselves way too seriously all the time. Angela Bassett was the best example. Another "great" example would be Viola Davis, she is almost always unbearable and her opening with a certain quote was especially embarrassingt his time again. Then again, of they give somebody like Tyler Perry a honorary award, at least they made a good choice with whom to pick for the introduction. Unreal stuff there. As for Davis, I am glad she did not win Best Actress. Honestly, it could have happened with her recent SAG win and also with people liking her film enough to give it two Oscars earlier, but Best Actress was so wide open with probably four people an option for the win. I think I would have preferred Carey Mulligan taking it, but McDormand was okay too. Hollywood seems to like her a lot. The BAFTA win brought her back in the right place, but it surely was a surprise, especially with how the show was going. Nomadland would win Best Picture, which was almost safe, but losses in editing where it was 50-50 probably and especially in cinematography, where the film was a massive frontrunner, made me think that McDormand would probably not win the category. The BAFTAS proved crucial indeed this time as Anthony Hopkins managed the upset over the late Chadwick Boseman (and posted a cute and classy little video the following day) and Hopkins also won the BAFTA a little earlier. I think it reminded me a bit of Cotillard's Oscar win whose BAFTA win also propelled her a bit over Julie Christie back then or, much more recently, Hopkins' movie daughter from The Father, Olivia Colman, and her Oscar triumph over Glenn Close surely had a resemblance too. But these were of course on the woman's side.

These two lead acting categories strangely enough took place after the Best Picture announcement. Did not expect that and even thought they messed something up again, but no it was probably because Best Picture seemed very decided and Best Actress was not decided at all and Best Actor they planned to close the show with the ultimate honor to Boseman and his widow on stage I guess. Was not meant to be. It's okay. I would have been fine with Boseman winning too. Like him way more than Davis and he has given some pretty good performances in his life that got ignored mostly. The one thing I am still not too happy about is that he was the one whose photo we saw last during the in memoriam segment. Certainly the politically correct decision there, but there is no denying that there were probably at least ten (maybe twenty people) featured in there whose careers have been much more significant than Boseman's. One would be Connery and I would have liked him last, but even I cannot deny that he was by far not the biggest achiever from the bunch of recently fallen. May they all rest in piece. By the way, Stevie Wonder's As was a song as good as (no pun intended) it gets for the occasion. Also really like the cover by George Michael & Mary J. Blige.

Okay, what else can I say here? Brilliant night for France obviously. Not just with the writer from The Father, but also documentary short and the sound category winners from "Sound of Metal". Speaking of this movie, the one who won for Best Editing is from Denmark and this country also had a great night this way with Vinterberg's triumph. I'm happy for him, even if I did not get too emotional as I would have liked to be when he talked about his tragic loss. But I will always be happy when something associated with Mads Mikkelsen wins big and even better to hear this special applause just for him. By the way, Hopkins is now the oldest acting winner I think, but if you think that is old, take a look at the Best Costume winner and her experience. This was probably a close category too, but this time the girl from "The Queen's Gambit" did not succeed with her project. She'll be fine nonetheless with all the honors she received.

Tenet winning Visual Effects well, I saw the film (one of not too many I saw) and it was kinda meh, but yeah the effects were good. I hope Nolan finally returns to class at some point. The Nine Inch Nails guys also succeeded as expected and impressively they were nominated twice and the big win came (as expected) for Soul. Not exactly the kind of movie you would expect rock musicians to be a part of. Will be interesting to see if they keep working with Fincher. David Fincher, that is. Maybe we can also mention his dad now with the really out-of-the-ordinary screenplay nomination. Supporting actress went to the Asian lady and I am fine with that. Looking forward to Minari for sure. And she was a lot of fun during her speech, maybe the most from the entire night. Also nice to see Brad Pitt again. Bakalova could have scored an underdog win, but it wasn't meant to be really, so no upset there. I am still curious about the new Borat movie. Best documentary feature I am also curious about this octopus movie, but there are other decent nominated ones. The winner for Best Animated Short I actually saw and well, it was the expected winner. I don't think it's bad, but it is also way more about the political (anti-gun) message than about truly mesmerizing animation and that I cannot really support as a reason for giving this one the win. Story-wise or animation-wise, it is not inspired to the level where it would have deserved this crucial win.

Chloé Zhao seems pretty likable and I am glad she took home the win here, already liked her previous work that I saw. McDormand I already mentioned and who would have guessed five years ago that by now she would have as many Oscars as Meryl Streep. Actually more if we count the producing win. This is something that deserves to be mentioned too because unlike with directing, we don't see it too often that actresses produce their own movies. Well done! Her howling moment well it was a bit awkward during the show, but reading the motivation behind it, I don't think it was this bad and I'm okay with her doing it. Okay, that is pretty much it. I think you should definitely watch this show and there is not a lot I would criticize. Maybe it would have been nice to see all the nominated songs performed there. They can do that in 2022 again. This category was also among the biggest upsets of the night. H. E. R. Was a huge underdog there. Once more Diane Warren goes home empty-handed, but maybe her Golden Globe is a little bit of solace. Overall, probably the best awards show of 2021, even if the Cranston segment was a bit weird. Definitely at this point. Highly recommended.