With awards season coming to an end with the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4th, there have been mixed feelings about the show which was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, as it takes the name of the lowest rated show with only 26.5 million viewers. But why? Most people say they didn’t watch it because it’s too long of a show, as it is three and a half hours. Others say it’s become too political, and others are mad that their favorite movies weren’t nominated, like Wonder Woman or The Florida Project. Here’s my personal review for 2018’s Academy Awards.

 Let’s start with Best Original Song. I was rooting for Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens, from the film Call Me By Your Name. Sufjan is a dedicated musician, who traveled to Italy with the cast and crew of the film to learn more about Elio Perlman, the main character, as he was writing the song from his perspective. Remember Me from the film Coco, stole the title as best original song unfortunately. I don’t think that Remember Me was a very Oscar-worthy song in my opinion, and I can even say Mighty River from the film Mudbound was worthy of the title as well.

 Every director in the Best Director category is someone I’m a big fan of, but I was really rooting for Greta Gerwig, the director of Ladybird. She was the only female nominee in the category, and I think that’s pretty cool. She’s someone I really look up to. I also really like the way she directs, she was an actor before she was a director so she knows what actors like about directors. But when they announced Guillermo Del Toro as best director I didn’t know whether to be excited or upset. I really like him, and his directing trends in his films, so I think that he also deserved the award after being nominated five times.

  I didn’t really care for any of the actors nominated in the Best Actor category, but thought the Best Actress nominees were really competitive. The two that stuck out to me most were Allison Janney from I, Tonya and and Laurie Metcalf from Ladybird. Both of their performances were insane, but I really wanted Laurie to win, just because I prefer Ladybird over I, Tonya.

  One of the awards that I thought was just completely wrong was best lead actress. Unfortunately the winner was Frances McDormand from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The other women in the category were much more deserving, like Saoirse Ronan from Ladybird, Margot Robbie from I, Tonya, or Sally Hawkins in Shape of Water. Frankly, McDormand’s performance was mediocre and bland, I didn’t walk away from the film stunned by her acting like I did Margot or Saoirse. Also, I don’t think Frances McDormand is very self-obsessed, and needs to get over herself. It’s kinda annoying. Sorry.

  I was waiting the entire three and a half hours for the Lead Actor award, only to be disappointed when they said Gary Oldman’s name instead of Timothée Chalamet. Nothing annoys me more than the fact that they preached the entire night about being against sexual abuse, yet awarded Oldman, a known domestic abuser, with the title that so many other’s deserved. I never watched The Darkest Hour because of pure disinterest, but from what I’ve heard, all he did in the movie was put on prosthetics, yell, and slam his hands on a table. If you’ve seen Call Me By Your Name you’ll know that the last five minutes of the film is one of the saddest scenes in a while, solely because of Timothée’s performances. Not only did he cry for five minutes straight without cutting as the credits rolled, he also did a subtle fourth wall break that literally left me shook for days. And how about Daniel Kaluuya’s performance in Get Out? No– I have yet to see the movie, it was the last thing on my Oscar’s watch list and I completely ran out of time before the award show to get a chance to see it (but I will).  

  The final award, and most anticipated was Best Picture. Call Me by Your Name,

Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, were the nominees. I really wanted Call Me By Your Name or Ladybird to win, but Shape of Water stole the title of Best Picture. For a second, I considered the fact that it was a repeat of last year’s Moonlight/La La Land problem, and I kept waiting for a stage manager to run out on stage and say there was a mistake– but there wasn’t. I was happy for Guillermo Del Toro, and I really liked Shape of Water, but I couldn’t keep myself from thinking that Ladybird and Call Me By Your Name were more deserving. The attention to detail that both directors of the films put into their movies was fascinating. But the winners aren’t up to me (ugh).