STORYLINE: The 98th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), hosted by Conan O’Brien. (IMDb)

    Movies are my love language, in fact as I write this entry I have a film playing. For those wondering the movie is Edgar Wright’s 2025 The Running Man.  Movies have been there for me in the good times, and have helped me through the lows in life.  They’ve even helped me get through points in life I really don’t want to admit how bad it got, and haven’t talked about. Every year, the best of the movies are celebrated at the annual Academy Awards presentation.  This yearly tradition is one I eagerly await, and this past weekend the 98th Oscars occurred. 

    Outside of the tie in the live action short film category, there were no surprises among the winners. That’s ok.  I enjoyed the majority of the winning films.  

    My one big complaint was in the animated feature film category.  The last few years, there have been some incredible winners with films like The Boy and the Herom (2023) and Flow (2024).  K-pop Demon Hunters is a popular film, but not a caliber that it’s predecessors are.  The trade off is the incredible speech from the award recipients. They spoke about how they represented Korean women in film, and how this needs to snowball forward.

     There were great speeches from other winners as well.  As the cinematographer for Sinners, became the first woman to win that award, she asked all women in the audience to stand up and be recognized.  During the acceptance speech for documentary feature the topic of the need to keep journalism integrity, and stay filled with free speech. When Michael B. Jordan won lead actor he acknowledged the previous African American performers who won the lead acting categories 

     I thought Stellan Skarsgård was more deserving would be best supporting actor category for his performance in Sentimental Value iver Sean Penn in One Battle After Another.  When in comes down to if though Sentimental Value abd Hamnet were my favorite of the nominated films this year. 

    The majority of the presentations I did not care for.  The Bridesmaids reunion did not amuse me.  The same for when Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr took the stage. I did enjoy Jimmy Kimmell’s presentation, and the in memoriam segment was very beautiful.

   Conan O’ Brian had one or two good moments. Much like last year, when he hosted, I did not enjoy him in the role of Oscar host. 

   Yes I look forward to the Annual Academy Awards, abd their celebration of all things movies. I enjoyed watching the show this year. More importantly enjoyed myself watching the show this year. 

    Until next time, I will see you at the movies!