Lifestyle
Oscars 2024: A night of 'Oppenheimer,' quiet protest, and Ryan Gosling just being Ken
Christopher Nolan, winner of the best directing award and the best picture award for Oppenheimer poses in the press room during the 96th Annual Academy Awards.
Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
The 2024 Oscars weren’t long on surprises. Oppenheimer won best picture, a tight race between Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone for best actress went to Stone in the end, and the Billie Eilish Barbie song beat out the Ryan Gosling Barbie song.
Most of the takeaways from the evening are modest rather than revolutionary, suitably reassuring for a year when Hollywood saw some high-earning movies that were reviewed well, too.
Oppenheimer rolled, but not quite as much as it might have.
It’s hard to look at a night when Oppenheimer won a bunch of major awards, including best picture, and realize how much room was left for other films. But before it won its first Oscar, Poor Things beat it in three straight categories: production design, costumes and makeup/hairstyling. It also lost the award for best adapted screenplay to Cord Jefferson’s script for American Fiction. So while it certainly had a huge night, there was room to share the wealth.
The economics of the industry are inescapable.
In the monologue, which was otherwise pretty unremarkable, Jimmy Kimmel offered support and solidarity to the members of IATSE, the union representing many crew members, which is currently in contract negotiations that are expected to be difficult. IATSE was a key ally to the writers and actors during their 2023 strikes, and observers are watching closely to see whether those two unions return that support when the time comes. Kimmel’s gesture was at least some indication that they will.
But perhaps more specifically provocative was Cord Jefferson’s speech. Accepting his adapted screenplay award for American Fiction, Jefferson said that although he knew Hollywood to be risk-averse, there might be a different way forward. Instead of making a $200 million movie, he suggested, how about ten $20 million movies? Or even 50 $4 million movies? For a writer to be this assertive about industry issues in a speech is certainly not unprecedented, but between this and the mentions of the strikes that have passed and the one that could still be coming, it’s clear that while everyone is relieved to be back at work, profound concerns about the state of play in Hollywood continue.
YouTube
It was a good-spirited good show.
With the exception of the In Memoriam segment, there wasn’t a lot to grouse about in terms of production. There weren’t as many awkward bits built around Jimmy Kimmel as there sometimes are. There weren’t a lot of boring montages. And when there was shtick, it wasn’t nearly as bad or as long as it sometimes is. John Cena’s masterful and brief (har har) appearance to present the award for costumes, in which he was skillfully set up to look quite convincingly naked, was a bit that only he could pull off with such flair.
YouTube
The pacing was good, too. Lots and lots of glamorous famouses were on screen. The musical performances soared, from the drumming of “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” to the breathy “What Was I Made For?”, peaking with the over-the-top Ryan Gosling take on “I’m Just Ken.”
YouTube
As for that In Memoriam segment, well … they always seem to have a hard time not focusing on the staging in the theater, which in this case included dancers, when all people want to be looking at is the faces and names of the people being remembered. It’s vexing how often the Academy gets this part wrong, but I suppose it means there’s always something to aspire to.
An earlier start meant more room to breathe.
The ceremony was moved back from an 8:00 p.m. start to a 7:00 p.m. start (Eastern time, that is), and it ended at 10:30, making the officially planned broadcast three-and-a-half hours. In the past, it’s often been scheduled for three hours, and it will dribble over that limit by whatever amount, but this time, it made its deadline comfortably. Some combination of ending a little earlier and making sure there was enough time made the whole thing breathe a little easier.
Some of the extra time, it seemed, was devoted to the introductions of nominated actors by peers who have been nominated in the same category. That made for long segments, for sure. But it added substantially to the number of stars who spoke on stage, which is fun (Rita Moreno! Charlize Theron! Matthew McConaughey! Regina King!), and it meant that nobody went unremarked upon. This is a structure this ceremony has used before, and it can get uncomfortable when it just feels like someone is delivering a bland hagiography. But it can also infuse the night with feeling, as when people with an established tie to each other share a moment that is, for at least one of them, enormously important. Or even, as when Rita Moreno spoke the name “America” while introducing America Ferrera, in cases where the connection seems to arise serendipitously.
Protest was sporadic, but it was there.
There were a lot of questions before the ceremony about whether political protest, especially about the violence in Gaza, would make an appearance at the Oscars. For the most part, the ceremony didn’t convey much about what’s in the news in Gaza or elsewhere, but there were exceptions. Jonathan Glazer’s speech for his win for The Zone of Interest as best international feature explicitly tied the violence in Israel and Gaza to the events of his film, which is set just outside the walls of Auschwitz. And the lapel pins that got the most attention over the course of the evening were red ones, handed out and worn in support of a cease-fire. They were worn by celebrities including Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish and Ramy Youssef.
Director Ava DuVernay wears an “Artists4Ceasefire” pin, calling for de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, as she attends the 96th Annual Academy Awards.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Mstyslav Chernov, the Ukranian director of the winning documentary feature 20 Days in Mariupol, started his acceptance by saying he wished he’d never made the film. That’s because it documents the early stages of the Russian invasion that eventually devastated the city. Chernov went on to speak of the many people who have been killed as a result of the invasion. “Slava Ukraini,” he said – “Glory to Ukraine.”
YouTube
Not a flashy night, but a successful one
So for a night with relatively few surprises but some very enjoyable winners (hooray for Robert Downey, Jr. and Da’Vine Joy Randolph!), it was a solid show that honored an awful lot of good movies, and movies that drew significant audiences, too. And next year, we will all be back to do it again.
Lifestyle
Fashion’s Climate Reckoning Is Just Getting Started
Lifestyle
The 2025 Vibe Scooch
In the 1998 World War II film “Saving Private Ryan,” Tom Hanks played Captain John H. Miller, a citizen-soldier willing to die for his country. In real life, Mr. Hanks spent years championing veterans and raising money for their families. So it was no surprise when West Point announced it would honor him with the Sylvanus Thayer Award, which goes each year to someone embodying the school’s credo, “Duty, Honor, Country.”
Months after the announcement, the award ceremony was canceled. Mr. Hanks, a Democrat who had backed Kamala Harris, has remained silent on the matter. On Truth Social, President Trump did not hold back: “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American awards!!!”
Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Keiko Agena
Keiko Agena likes to create moments of coziness — not just on Sundays, but whenever she possibly can.
“Oh, there’s my rice cooker,” she says when she hears the sound in her Arts District home. “We’re making steel-cut oatmeal in the rice cooker, which by the way, is a game changer. I used to have to baby it and watch it, but now I can just put it in there and forget it.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
The 52-year-old actor, who played music-loving bestie Lane Kim in the beloved series “Gilmore Girls,” delights in specific comforts like a bowl of warm oats, talking about Enneagram numbers and watching cooking competitions with her husband, Shin Kawasaki.
“It sounds so simple, but I look forward so much to spending time on the couch,” Agena says with a laugh.
It is time that she’s intentional about protecting, especially amid her kaleidoscope of projects. Over the last couple of years, Agena starred in Lloyd Suh’s moving play “The Chinese Lady” in Atlanta, acted in Netflix’s “The Residence,” showcased her artwork in her first feature exhibit, “Hep Tones” (some of her ink and pencil drawings are still for sale), and performed regularly on the L.A. improv circuit. And her work endures with “Gilmore Girls,” which turns 25 this year. Agena narrated the audiobook for “Meet Me at Luke’s,” a guide that draws life lessons from the series, and is featured in the upcoming “Gilmore Girls” documentary “Drink Coffee, Talk Fast.”
She shares with us her perfect Sunday in L.A., which begins before sunrise.
5 a.m.: Morning solitude
I like to be up early-early, like 5 a.m. I like that feeling of everything being quiet. I’ll go into the other room and do Duolingo on my phone. I am a little addicted to social media, so the Duolingo is not just to learn Japanese, but also to keep me from scrolling. Like, if I’m going to do something on my phone, this is better for me. I think my streak is 146. Shin is Japanese, from Toyama. So I’ve been meaning to learn Japanese for a while. For him and his mom.
Then I’ll do [the writing practice] Morning Pages. I don’t know when I learned about Julia Cameron’s book [“The Artist’s Way”] — probably around 2000. I know a lot of people do it handwritten, but I’m a little paranoid about people, like, finding it after I die. So if I have it on my computer and it’s password protected, I can be really honest.
Then a lot of times, I’ll go back to bed. Shin, as a musician, works at night, and so he wakes up a lot later. So I’ll fall back asleep and wake up with him.
9 a.m.: Gimme that bread
I don’t do coffee anymore because it’s a little too tough for my system, but I’ll walk with Shin to Eightfold Coffee in the Arts District. It’s tiny but very chill. Then we’re going to Bliss Bakery inside the Little Tokyo Market Place. We get these tapioca bread balls. If you make any kind of sandwich that you would normally make, but use that bread instead, it ups the game. It’s life-changing. The Little Tokyo Market Place is not fancy or anything, but it has everything that you would want. There’s Korean food. They have a little sushi place in there. You can get premade Korean banchan and hot food in their hot food section. They also have a really good nuts section. It’s just one big table with all these nuts, just piles and piles.
10 a.m.: Nature without leaving the city
We’ll go to Los Angeles State Historic Park near Chinatown. I like that place just because it’s very accessible. Like, they have accessible bathrooms and I’m always checking out whether a place has good bathrooms. We call it Flat Park because it’s a great walk. Like, you’re not really out in nature, but there’s a lot of greenery. You can take your shoes off and at least touch grass for a second.
11:30 a.m.: Lunch and TV cooking shows
One of my favorite salad-sandwich combos is at Cafe Dulce in Little Tokyo. A Korean cheesesteak and a kale salad. That’s always like a — bang, bang — good combo. So we might go there or Aloha Cafe, though it’s not fully open on Sundays. But I love it because I grew up in Hawaii. They have this great Chinese chicken salad and spam musubi and other Hawaiian food that is so good.
We’ll bring home food and watch something. Cooking competition shows are my cream of the crop. My favorite right now is “Tournament of Champions” because it’s blind tasting. To me, that’s the best way to do it. “The Great British Bake Off” is Shin’s favorite. He loves the nature and the accents as much as the actual cooking. He just loves the vibe, the slow pace of the whole thing.
I’m such a TV girl. I love spending time on the couch and eating a meal and watching something that’s appetizing with my favorite person in the world. I’m lucky because I get to do that a lot.
2 p.m.: Browse the aisles
I’ll go to this bookstore called Hennessey + Ingalls. I love art and architecture and design, but you can’t always buy these massive books. But you can go into this bookstore and look at them and it’s always chill.
If I have time, I’ll walk around art supply stores. Artist & Craftsman Supply is a good one. I’ll look at pens, pencils, stickers, tape, washi tape, different kinds of paper, charcoals. In my art, I try to find things that aren’t meant for that particular purpose, like little things in a hardware store that I’ll use it in a different way.
5 p.m.: Downtown L.A. in its glory
We really love to walk the Sixth Street Bridge. It’s architecturally beautiful and they’re building a huge park over there, so we’ll walk around and check it out, like, ‘Which trees are they planting? Can you see?’ We sort of dream about how it’s coming together. But the other beautiful thing about that walk is that if you go at sunset and you walk back toward downtown, it’s just gorgeous. Los Angeles doesn’t have the most majestic skyline, but it’s so picturesque in that moment.
6:30 p.m.: Cornbread and Enneagrams
I’ll head to the Park’s Finest in Echo Park. It’s Filipino barbecue. It’s just so savory and rich and a special hang. Their cornbread is really good. Oh, and the coconut beef, but I’m trying to eat less beef. They have a hot link medley. Oh my gosh, just looking at this menu right now, my mouth is watering. OK, I’ll stop.
One of my favorite things to do is ask friends about their Enneagram number. So the idea of sitting with friends over a good meal and asking them a bunch of personal questions about their childhood and what motivates them and what their parents were like and what their greatest fear is and then figure out what their Enneagram number is? That is a top-tier activity for me.
9 p.m.: Rally for improv
Because I get up so early, if 9 o’clock, I’m ready to go to sleep. But I am obsessed with improv, so on my ideal day, there’d be a show to do. There’s this place called World’s Greatest Improv School in Los Feliz. It’s tiny and they just opened a few years ago, but the vibe there is spectacular.
Then there’s another place where my heart is so invested in now called Outside In Theatre in Highland Park. Tamlyn Tomita and Daniel Blinkoff created it together and not only is the space gorgeous — I mean, they built it from scratch — they have interesting programming there all the time. They’re so supportive of communities that are not seen in mainstream art spaces. It’s my favorite place. Sometimes I’ll find myself in their lobby till 12 o’clock at night. The kind of people I like to hang around are the people that hang out in that space.
11 p.m.: Turn on the ASMR and shut down
I am firmly an ASMR girl and I have been for years. I have to find something to watch that will slow my brain down. Then it’s pretty consistent. I don’t last very long once I turn something on. My eyelids get heavy and it chills me out.
-
Iowa5 days agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
-
Iowa7 days agoHow much snow did Iowa get? See Iowa’s latest snowfall totals
-
Maine4 days agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
Maryland5 days agoFrigid temperatures to start the week in Maryland
-
Technology1 week agoThe Game Awards are losing their luster
-
South Dakota6 days agoNature: Snow in South Dakota
-
New Mexico3 days agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
Nebraska1 week agoNebraska lands commitment from DL Jayden Travers adding to early Top 5 recruiting class