I would have thought that a week after the Oscars, there would be nothing left to remember of the ceremony. No real streaker (though we had an imitation one from John Cena), no wrong Best Picture announcement, and especially no “slap heard ‘round the world” with the MC and the guy about to win Best Actor.

All in all, it was a relatively low-key affair with only a couple of real surprises—one major and one minor. The minor one was the win for Best Sound by The Zone of Interest, which also won Best International Feature Film. That award was predicted by most to go to Oppenheimer, whose use of sound was an experience only Christopher Nolan’s team could have presented. Perhaps it would have won in the “Most Sound” category, if there were one. But sound in The Zone of Interest is a whole other chilling aspect of the film (an aspect of the film which I will leave alone to those looking to see—and experience—that film).

The big surprise of the evening was Emma Stone’s win for Best Actress for Poor Things, which nearly everyone, including obviously Stone herself—assumed was going to go to Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon (which, with 10 nominations, went home empty-handed.) Stone’s shock and joy at the announcement of her win were fun to watch, and provided a big shot of energy and authenticity to an otherwise slightly lackluster evening. In fact, the love for Poor Things was something I thought I saw coming, but only in a distance, and not enough to affect the awards. I was wrong. In addition to Stone’s win, the film won Best Make-up and Hairstyling, which was thought to go to Maestro. It also won two awards that many thought would go to Barbie: Best Costume Design and Best Production Design.

The big winner, of course, was the deserving Oppenheimer, which won Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy, the first Irish actor to win in this category), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey, Jr.), Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. I always thought that Nolan would eventually win Best Director and possibly Best Film if he upped the human aspect of his films, allowed a little emotion to creep in, and pulled back on the cerebral. He made moves in that direction with Dunkirk, but really hit his sweet spot with Oppenheimer.

Host Jimmy Kimmel is not my favorite television personality, but I was impressed by much of his opening, which was gracious and hit the proper note of celebration. Then he went for the low-lying political fruit jokes, and slightly soiled the evening. The presenters were mostly fine, if not great. But the spontaneous banter should be left to the comic greats, and while the teleprompter lines were boring and milquetoast-y, at least they had a semblance of sense and order, and should have been stuck to more often.

The lowlight of the evening were the controversial statements made by The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer bemoaning the current Israeli-Hamas in terms that have become justifiably controversial. Apparently, hundreds of folks in the film industry have formally objected to his (ultimately) Hamas-supporting statement. In a related side story, some attendees wore red pins, which were a call for a cease-fire. The most famous duo who wore the red pins were the naïve but brilliantly talented Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell, who deservedly won Barbie’s only Oscar for their song “What Was I Made For?”, which they delivered beautifully in a live performance. The other most famous red-pinner was unsurprisingly, Hollywood’s current great contrarian Mark Ruffalo. (I’m sorry—did I just inject a political opinion in an article discussing the celebration of an art form? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to make a virtue-signaling personal political statement when they are supposed to be saluting artistic cinematic achievements…I mean, who would do that?)

A consistent disappointment these days is the otherwise touching In Memoriam segment. Instead of just giving us the names in a clear close-up series of images with a musical background, we had another visually distracting musical presentation, this one aggravated by an even more distracting dance moves by a small crowd. Less is more, people.

The awarding of Best Picture was the best argument yet for letting the award be given by someone under 80. Yes, Al Pacino is a legend, but his presentation was bumbling and embarrassing. Either he was coached wrongly, wasn’t coached at all, or the coaching didn’t stick. Either way—discomfiting.

The highlight of the evening was Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken.” For someone not a professional singer or dancer, he really pulled it off in the most exhilarating moment of the evening. I have respected him as an actor since Murder by Numbers (2002), and my respect for him peaked with his performance in Barbie and on the Oscar stage. For a deeply talented (and generally serious dramatic) actor to put his ego and persona aside to give everything to a number like this makes it a number for the ages. It was as memorable as Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock, but for opposite, happy reasons.

Final thoughts:

• I’m glad Nolan has found recognition as well as success. He is one of the great ones, for several reasons.
• It was nice to see Robert Downey, Jr. praise his wife for her loyalty to him and her major role in the restoration of his life and career.