97th Academy Awards Ceremony (2025 Oscars)

Sounds like an international cat fight!

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I plan to see this soon.

All ready for the big night

I pretty intrigued this year...the other award shows have been all over the place on stuff like Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Picture, though the Best Supporting roles seem locked up. Pretty rare it feels up in the air like this.

Also heard news that they're bringing back clips of the movies and performances. No idea why they got rid of these. Give us a taste!

Conan has personally tested the red carpets to make sure everything will go smoothly tonight

Watched about 30 minutes and had technical difficulties with the website I was watching it on. It was starting to get really good

I've seen all 50 nominated films. A few of them I have seen twice.

Same!

What categories this year do you think are the easiest to predict and which are the hardest to predict?

I'm not much for predictions... I prefer to be surprised!

Was pleased Anora cleaned up and Mikey got her Oscar. I love the story of Demi Moore getting accolades but Mikey definitely deserved it.

I believe Sean Baker set a record with four trophies in one night as well.

I don't know who I think is the more amazing woman.
Halle Berry for taking revenge on Adrien Brody for his earlier arguable sexual assault, by snogging his face off.
Or Adrien Brody's girlfriend for standing watching and giving Halle a massive smile and laugh.

I dunno...Brody took complete command in that speech, including successfully shushing the orchestra. "I have just one more thing"...(goes on for two more minutes).

The "I've done this before" thing was great, but unfortunately it was flanked by him rambling and not really saying anything.

I always enjoy people saying "nah uh" to the music playing them off, especially if it's one of the "big" awards where there's kind of an understanding they're gonna go on for a bit, but it works a lot better when they're saying something meaningful as it happens rather than meandering, as he was for about half the time he was up there.

But we all know the things that get remembered are moments more than speeches in their totality.

>but unfortunately it was flanked by him rambling and not really saying anything.

True. He looked pretty emotional so I think he was losing his thought a lot. I still got the point he was making. That said, all the speeches were pretty pedestrian so his still stood out.

I thought Conan was nervous. You can see his hands trembling during the monologue. I read he had a rough last few months on a personal front with the demise of his parents & the fires consuming his house.
I thought he did okay.

Didn't really understand the point of opening the show with Ariana Grande singing "Over the Ranbow". Why not have her sing something from Wicked? She looked incredible though. Loved Erivo's white gown but a little overboard with the earrings and accessories. hey should have just opened with "Defying Gravity". Conan's opening spoof of The Substance was very funny. LOVED his introduction as four time Oscar-viewer. Liked Conan's joke about Ralph Feinners. Karla totally didn't get Conan's Jimmy Kimmel joke. The Jeff Bezos thing was not funny at all. The John Lithgow bit was funny. The headshot thing was funny. I love him, but the Adam Sandler thing was a waste of time. Opening went WAY too long. Conan should have been told he's not Billy Crystal.

BEST ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES: Paul Tazwell, Sean Baker, Zoe Sladana

WORST PRESENTER BANTER: Andrew Garfield kissing Goldie Hawn's ass was a total bore.

WORST ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES: Keiran Culkin, for an award that was a deadlock, his speech should have been a little more prepared. The winners of the animated short film award were completely annoying, trying to read a speech from a phone. The winners for Best Song for Emilia Perez, I didn't think they were ever going to get off the stage. But his speech was a masterpiece compared to Adrien Brody.

WORST COMIC BITS" The five presenters for Best Costumes? Was that really necessary? The Presentation of this award was not only unfunny but took on WAY too long.

BEST COMIC BITS: Nick Offerman making fun of Conan; Ben Stiller trying to get onstage to present the production design award

BIGGEST AND BEST SURPRISE OF THE NIGHT: Mick Jagger presenting the Best Song Oscar. How awesome was that?

BOIGGEST WATES OF SCREENTIME: Conan's musical number, the introduction of LA police and first responders, The sandworm playing the harp, Queen Latifah singing "Ease on Down the Road", the tribute to James Bond, nice idea but it went on way too long.

BEST PRESENTATION OF NOMINEES: The screenplay awards with the dialogue being typed on the screen.

THE IN MEMORIUM SEGMENT: Of course, there were omissions, but what they did do in terms of presentation...perfection. Especially Morgan Freeman's loving words about Gene Hackman.

BEST DRESSED: Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Strong, Andrew Garfield, Paul Tazwell, Amy Poehler (the first time she's made this list), Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Timothee Chalamet, Sterling K Brown, Greg Bautista, Penelope Cruz, Adrien Brody, Emma Stone

WORST DRESSED: Zoe Saldana (pretty sure that dress was hiding a pregnancy), Whoopi Goldberg, Queen Latifah, Colman Domingo (he looked like a lawn jockey)

The opening musical number was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz, "Ease on Down the Road" from The Wiz, and "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.

I wish it was clear why those three songs were grouped together. Like you, I am just plain stumped. Oh, well. I guess we'll never know?