Just when I was thinking, “this year’s Oscars are really lacking in meme-worthy material,” in come Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who have arrived to finally relieve John Travolta of the great “Adele Dazeem” flub of 2014.
Jimmy Kimmel wasted some time with some tourists; he handed out the two of the least appealing candies via parachute, tweeted at Donald Trump, and bullied Matt Damon.
He was dull and inoffensive- not the worst, but he set the bar low and cleared it. The saving grace was its finale. After Warren Beatty took too long to announce the Best Picture winner, Faye Dunaway incorrectly said it was La La Land. They were a good two minutes into the speech before Moonlight was announced the real winner. The best part about this was watching the cast and crew of La La Land standing on stage during the speeches, talking to each other as they slowly realized what had happened before the audience does.
It’s unclear whose fault it was exactly, and I didn’t necessarily prefer one film to the other but boy, am I glad that happened. Finally, this uneventful ceremony ended with the chaos I’d been craving, and cringe-comedy on par with an episode of The Office. And while I loved both Moonlight and La La Land, it was nice that the subtle underdog film about a queer black kid took the trophy from the predicted Oscar contender. It was a well-deserved win for Barry Jenkins. What a bizarre ending to an otherwise lackluster ceremony.