The Birds’ Nest Recap the 2024 Academy Awards
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED AT THE OSCARS THIS YEAR?
If you missed the show, never fear: your favorite birds are here to catch you up.
JOHN MULANEY GAVE MADAME WEB THE SHOUTOUT IT DESERVED. Many (read: we) are saying they should have asked him to host. In his short monologue about sound design (and the wonders of Ghost Baseball), he made us laugh harder than Jimmy Kimmel did all night.
STUNT PERFORMERS WERE RECOGNIZED - BUT STILL NO AWARD. One segment of the award’s show included a compilation video of stunts over the history of film, with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt introducing the award — likely because their upcoming film, The Fall Guy, is based on a 1970s television program about a stuntman. They explained how many of the earliest filmmakers, such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, were stuntmen, and that the art from has been integral to filmmaking over the history of Hollywood. They showed clips from various films, then thanked the coordinators and performers who make stunts possible and the segment ended. To some, though, this recognition reads as empty: even after all of this, the Academy still hasn’t added an award for Best Stunt Coordination.
DA’VINE JOY RANDOPLH WON BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS FOR HER PERFORMANCE IN THE HOLDOVERS, SHOCKING NO ONE. The well-deserved win—and Randolph’s tearful speech—started the Oscars off with a bang. This marked her 39th award for her performance as Mary Lamb alone. In her speech, Randolph said that she “pray[s] to God [she] get[s] to do this more than once”—we think it’s clear that we haven’t remotely seen the last of her.
MESSI THE DOG WAS IN ATTENDANCE. After rumors swirled that the beloved Anatomy of a Fall star had been barred from the ceremony for being too cute and delightful, viewers were happy to see him walking the red carpet—and even clapping in the audience.
WES ANDERSON WON HIS (FIRST?!) OSCAR. After decades of snubs, Anderson’s short film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar received the Oscar for Best Live-Action Short Film. This is his first win at the Academy Awards, and his 2023 feature film Asteroid City did not receive any nominations. With this being the first time Anderson has won an Academy Award in his nearly 30 years of being active, it brings into question whether the Academy has something against the filmmaker. Regardless, Anderson was not in attendance to accept his award, as he was busy producing his upcoming feature The Phoenician Scheme.
JOHN CENA HUNG DONG. Well, almost. For the announcement for achievement in costume design, John Cena came on stage (nearly) nude. The Costume Designer’s Guild has recently launched an initiative for pay equity, including their #NakedWithoutUs campaign that emphasizes the important role that costume designers play in making a production come to life, and for keeping productions clothed. In taking this campaign literally, Cena and Kimmel showed that without a costume, actors would be literally naked. This, along with Kimmel’s other comments in favor of other film industry unions, reads as support for the Costume Designer’s Guild and their work to close the pay gap between costume designers and production designers.
JIMMY KIMMEL WAS FUNNY SOMETIMES, AND REALLY NOT FUNNY OTHER TIMES. Jimmy Kimmel had a some moments of being funny, namely the aforementioned nude John Cena, but not all of his jokes hit. What the hell was that dig at Robert Downey Jr.’s past struggles with addiction? Why did he make a joke about Killers of the Flower Moon being too long? Viewers have speculated, in a cut away to Emma Stone whispering to her husband, that she was bad-mouthing Kimmel after an unfunny joke he made about the intimate scenes in Poor Things. This is Kimmel’s fourth time hosting the Academy Awards, and please, let it be his last.
THE ACADEMY TOOK BRADLEY COOPER OUT BACK AND SHOT HIM LIKE A DOG. What else do you call choosing that Maestro clip for Best Original Screenplay? (Not that there was much to choose from, anyway).
GODZILLA MINUS ONE SET A RECORD FOR LOWEST-BUDGET FILM TO WIN BEST VISUAL EFFECTS. With a budget of roughly $15 million and a team of under 40 people, Godzilla Minus One took home the award for Best Visual Effects. This makes it the film with the lowest budget of the nominees (by a margin of at least $60 million), but also one of the lowest budgets for any large action films that have come out in recent years. Their win proves that incredible work can be done on small budgets, and that a big budget does not necessarily mean that something will look good.
SWANN ARLAUD CAPTURED AMERICA’S HEART WITH HIS CATBOY JE NE SAIS QUOI. Miaou!
ANATOMY OF A FALL MADE IT TO THE OSCARS (DESPITE FRANCE’S WISHES). When it came time to submit films for the Best International Feature Film category for the awards this year, France did not submit Anatomy of a Fall, despite it already receiving accolades at Cannes, two Golden Globes, and several European film awards amongst other recognitions. France didn’t submit this film (possibly due to a political vendetta), but Triet’s film made it to the Oscars regardless, receiving 5 nominations and taking home the award for Best Original Screenplay. LETS GOOOOOO!
BAD BUNNY TURNED 30 AND ANNOUNCED BEST INTERNATIONAL PICTURE. Musician Bad Bunny joined Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson onstage at the Oscars to announce the winner for Best International Feature Film. And Morgan was happy to see him.
THE LAST REPAIR SHOP WON BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT, REMINDING US THAT MUSIC EDUCATION CHANGES LIVES. The short tells the story of an instrument repair shop in the United States—one of the last of its kind—that provides free instrument rentals and repairs to schoolchildren. One of the documentary subjects, a young musician named Porché Brinker, was there with directors Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers to accept the award in her beautiful poofy dress.
AL PACINO’S EYES SAW OPPENHEIMER. Pacino later released a statement clarifying that it was a “choice by the producers” to not read the nominees before announcing the Best Picture winner, but it’s not clear if his bizarre delivery – without any dramatic awareness or even “the Oscar goes to…” – was an intentional joke or a moment of senility. (Sienna thinks it was just Al being Al).
THE HOLDOVERS’ BEST “ORIGINAL” SCREENPLAY NOMINATION WAS CALLED INTO QUESTION. The day before the awards, Variety published an article detailing accusations that Alexander Payne and David Hemingson may have plagiarized a screenplay entitled Frisco by Simon Stephenson to write The Holdovers. Stephenson reached out to WGA in early January to bring up his concerns, and Variety published (on March 9th) their article including an document detailing all allegations of plagiarism.
CORD JEFFERSON HIGHLIGHTED HOLLYWOOD’S BIASES. Jefferson received the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for American Fiction! In his speech, he called out Hollywood’s inclination to be risk-averse, and how most movies being funded are large budget films that are guaranteed to make their money back. In his speech, he called for Hollywood to take chances by producing more lower budget films to provide more opportunities for different stories to be told.
20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL’S WIN WAS CUT FROM INTERNATIONAL BROADCAST. The documentary by Mstyslav Chernov about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine won the award for Best Documentary. In the acceptance speech, Chernov expressed how he wished the documentary didn’t have to be made. The international broadcast of the award show, several categories were cut down for time, including that for Best Documentary.
CEASEFIRE PROTESTORS SUCCESSFULLY DELAYED THE SHOW BY FIVE MINUTES. Out of all the awards’ attendees, Mark Ruffalo was the only one to acknowledge them in a positive light. We also saw several Artists4Ceasefire pins, as we have throughout award season, on nominees such as Ramy Youssef and Mahershala Ali; nominated musicians Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell wore theirs on the red carpet, but removed them during their performance. Anatomy of a Fall stars Swann Leaud and Milo Machado-Graner had on Palestinian flag pins—potentially the first ones of the season.
EMMA STONE WON BEST ACTRESS OVER BREAKOUT STAR (AND MOUNTLAKE TERRACE HOMETOWN HERO) LILY GLADSTONE. Even Stone, a close friend of Gladstone’s, was shocked; one reporter who saw her backstage before the show said that when asked if she had a speech prepared, she responded, “oh, I’m not winning.” Despite this, the race was hotly contested all season—but many saw Gladstone’s loss as a misstep by voters. If Gladstone had won, it would have made her the first Native American to win Best Actress (and only the third person of color, after Halle Berry and Michelle Yeoh). Of course, this was far from the only point in Gladstone’s favor—their performance in Killers of the Flower Moon has been praised all season for its depth and nuance, and in our opinion would have earned them a more-than-deserved win. But the shock of her loss has sparked a broader debate:
It’s widely believed that the Oscars are affected by politics: Scorsese winning Best Director for The Departed as a consolation prize for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, for instance, or Al Pacino winning Best Actor for Scent of a Woman as a consolation prize for the Godfather films. Hell, even more recently, we saw Jamie Lee Curtis win Best Supporting Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once—something many see as a pseudo-Lifetime Achievement Award, given that she frankly wasn’t even the best supporting actress in her own film. If situations like these are seen as worth voting politically, why wasn’t the possibility of making history enough?
THREE (FOUR?) STUDIO COMEDIES WERE NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE. After a lengthy string of Best Picture categories populated by gloomy historical dramas and sprawling emotional epics, the studio comedy – long thought dead by virtually everybody – made its triumphant return to the big leagues this year with Barbie, American Fiction, and The Holdovers (plus arguably Poor Things – the sort of question-mark comedy that serves as the closest most other years have come to giving the genre its due consideration) all clinching Best Picture nominations.
STILL NO LUCK FOR MARTY. After an only moderately successful award season, honorary Birdbath editor Martin Scorsese’s masterful Killers of the Flower Moon walked away without winning a single one of its 10 nominations. This marks Scorsese’s fourth consecutive film to leave the Oscars empty-handed.
GLAZER SPOKE ON ISRAEL-PALESTINE. Jonathan Glazer, director of The Zone of Interest, the Holocaust film that took home the Best International Feature Film award, took his opportunity on stage to address the ongoing assault on Gaza: “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?” [sic] Glazer has seen criticism from all angles; some calling him antisemitic (as well as misquoting him by leaving out what follows “refute their Jewishness”), and others accusing him of not going far enough to criticize Israel. But his words hung on the stage for the rest of the night, disallowing both attendees and those watching at home from forgetting the horrors that a ceasefire could prevent.
THE ACADEMY ANNOUNCED THE FIRST NEW AWARD CATEGORY SINCE 2001. The award for Achievement in Casting will go into effect starting with the 98th Oscars in 2026. Individuals have been advocating for this category since the 90s, and this marks the first new Academy Award category since the addition of Best Animated Feature Film.
AND LOOKING AHEAD TO 2025…
WE’LL SEE NEW DIVERSITY STANDARDS. Going forward, films considered for ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars must meet new standards for diversity. The standards involve that individuals who are a part of an underrepresented group must be involved in 2/4 of the following roles: Lead or Significant Actors, Audience Development, Creative Leadership, or Paid Training. This standard will only apply to the ‘Best Picture’ category.
DUNE: PART 2 COULD WIN BIG. Its predecessor won six Academy Awards in 2022, and with even more heavy hitters added to its cast, the sequel has a strong chance of doing the same or better. Plus, streets are saying Austin Butler deserves an apology Oscar for his Elvis loss, and this seems like a good place to start looking. It’s not often that a film has this much word-of-mouth buzz on top of a great critical reception, and rightly so — it’s one of the most colossal, engulfing blockbusters the world has seen in some time, even accounting for the 2021 film. When films like these come along, they usually at least see nominations in most Oscar categories.
YORGOS LANTHIMOS HAS A CHANCE TO CLINCH A THIRD BEST PICTURE NOMINATION. Lanthimos’ new film, Kinds of Kindness, is set to come out this summer. The cast includes some familiar faces from his filmography—like Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Joe Alwyn, and Margaret Qualley—as well as fresh (but still famous) faces like Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer.
THE BATTLE OF THE BIOPICS. If there’s one thing the Oscars love, it’s a mid biopic—so lucky for them, both Bob Marley: One Love and Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black will both be eligible for next year’s awards. May the most uncanny impression win!
A POTENTIAL LADY GAGA PERFORMANCE FOR JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX? While it’s not confirmed the film will contain an original song by Gaga, it is confirmed that she’ll be singing—and, frankly, if they don’t bring in something new, it’ll be a waste of what would’ve been a shoo-in Best Original Song nomination.
LILY GLADSTONE COULD GET ANOTHER SHOT AT BEST ACTRESS—IF APPLE DECIDES TO PUSH FANCY DANCE. Of course, this all depends on the rest of Apple’s release schedule—but hey, never say never.
WE’LL SEE IF THE OSCARS ARE TOO PUSSY TO NOMINATE I SAW THE TV GLOW. In a true and just world, Jane Schoenbrun’s arrival to the Oscar scene would be an inevitability—but given that the world isn’t always fair, it’s something we’ll just have to pray for. We think the writer-director’s best odds next year lie with Best Original Screenplay, often prime real estate for films that are too Weird or Cool or Actually Good for the Academy’s blood. On the film’s side is Academy darling Emma Stone, whose company helped produce the film—as well as potentially A24, if they don’t send it the way of The Iron Claw. Here’s hoping!
EXPECT THE BIKERIDERS TO MAKE ITS PRESENCE KNOWN. Director Jeff Nichols has his next feature set for release in June, and it’s lined up to be both a financial success and an awards darling. Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, and rising hotshot Austin Butler are set to star, and critics who have seen the film at festivals have widely lauded it. The only thing, seemingly, that may hold it back is its relatively early release for an Oscar movie.
DOCUMENTARIES ABOUND!?!? After Birdbath’s time at Sundance 2024, we’re sure that at least one of the great documentaries that was screened there will snag a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at next year’s award ceremony. Daughters, Black Box Diaries, Gaucho Gaucho, Ibelin, and Girls State among others could make it onto the ballot in 2025. Looking beyond Sundance, we’re keeping tabs on Bring Them Home, a Lily Gladstone-narrated documentary about conserving America’s buffalo population, as well as Occupied City by director Steve McQueen. We’re excited to see!
ANIMATED SEQUELS OVERTAKING 2024. With the third installment of the Spider-Verse series being pushed back after the impacts of strikes in Hollywood, there is no longer a prime candidate for Best Animated Feature in 2025. With sequels to Inside Out, Moana, Kung-Fu Panda, Despicable Me, and Megamind (among others) on the docket for release this year, truly anything could happen! We’ll wait to see if other animated prospectives such as The Wild Robot, The Garfield Movie, or a different surprise candidate becomes a strong contender.
MADAME WEB WILL NOT BE NOMINATED FOR A SINGLE OSCAR. Good for her!
