The Oscars were Sunday, and while the ceremony was certainly not as eventful as last year’s (i.e. announcing the wrong movie as the winner of Best Picture) there were still some surprises, excitement, and history made!

The Host

The ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, his second time doing it after he hosted last year, and he did a great job. He had some hilarious jokes, including a reference to Get Out and making fun of how out of touch Hollywood really is. To try and encourage shorter acceptance speeches, he promised the person who made the shortest speech a Jet Ski, with Helen Mirren acting as the showgirl. At the end of the night, the award went to costume designer Mark Bridges, whose speech clocked in at around 30 seconds.

Upsets and Surprises

As far as awards, there were very few surprises. One was in the category of Best Documentary Feature, where Icarus pulled off the upset over the favored Faces Places. Icarus tells the story of the Russian doping scandal, which got them banned from this year’s Winter Olympics. Another slight upset happened when The Silent Child won over favorite DeKalb Elementary for Best Live Action Short. One of the creators of The Silent Child signed her entire acceptance speech, which was really cool to see.  The last minor upset was “Remember Me”, the original song from the movie Coco, winning over “This Is Me”, one of the songs featured in The Greatest Showman. This was only a surprise because “This Is Me” won at the Golden Globes over the song from Coco.

History Made

Sunday’s Oscars featured a few historic moments. Before the ceremony even began, Christopher Plummer became the oldest acting nominee in Oscars history, at age 88, nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his work in All The Money In The World. Later on, screenwriter James Ivory won his first Oscar after 4 nominations, in Best Adapted Screenplay for Call Me By Your Name. in doing so he became the oldest competitive Oscar winner in history at age 89. History was also made in the other screenplay category, Best Original Screenplay. Jordan Peele became the first ever African American writer to win an Oscar in a Screenplay category for writing Get Out. One of the best moments at the Oscars came when Roger Deakins won Best Cinematography for his work in Blade Runner 2049. What made it so important was that Deakins has been nominated 14 times before without a win, and once was even nominated twice in the same category for 2 different movies!  

Best Picture

Out of all the major categories, Best Picture was the most wide open. Depending on what you read or heard, it was a contest between The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Dunkirk and Get Out. It was unusual because usually there are 1 or 2 clear favorites in this category. In the end, The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro’s beautiful but unusual love story, took home the prize. Overall The Shape Of Water was the most awarded movie of the night, taking home 4 Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score and Best Production Design).  

Overall, this was a pretty standard, unsurprising Oscar night, and after last years mess maybe it’s what we all needed. Now we get to look ahead to next year’s ceremony, and all the nominations for Black Panther…..

For a full list of winners click here