Almost every year I attempt (with varying degrees of success) to watch as many Oscar nominees as possible before the ceremony. I’ve been posting half-assed reviews here on this blog, then I wrote up a pre-ceremony analysis post. Then I watched the ceremony and reacted to ceremony in real time. Now, 2 nights later, I’m adding this sweet Flow Oscar graphic (a Helga Without The H original!), reading through my reactions (oof, they’re rough. I’m so sorry. I was very very tired), and publishing the reaction post. This, dear readers, is that rambling post:
I really rushed this year, and my annual pre-ceremony analysis is a sloppy mess. I had so much more fun clever shit to say, alas, I ran out of time. I flew through my predictions in a blind stupor. Which means I’ll probably have a record good year in terms of accuracy. Check out my pre-ceremony analysis post here: https://helgawithouttheh.com/2025/03/03/2025-oscar-reviews-the-official-helga-without-the-h-predictions-and-analysis/
But now we turn to the actual results! It’s 7:30 ET, which means multiple awards have likely already been distributed. But my husband is recording it while he finishes his episode of Outlander, so looks like my “live” reactions are going to have a built-in delay. Once I get going, I’ll be commenting my reactions to anything going on during the show. Unless I have no energy left, which is possible, cuz I’ve been typing Oscar reviews all day and I’ve still got laundry to fold. Fun times..
We’re opening with a cheesy montage about how great Hollywood is, and I was just about to write that I hated it and it was self-indulgent, but then they popped up the I HEART LA message and I realized it was in reference to the forest fires. Well in that case that’s very nice, and I’m cool with it.
I’m wondering if we’re starting with the Wicked ladies/songs to make up for the expectation that they don’t actually win anything. I guess we’ll see. I was thinking “Oh man, they replaced the funny monologue with serious music. I wanted Conan stuff!”
And Conan is up. He only did The Substance in the video intro, but that’s ok. It was a solid bit. Very solid intro. Also I don’t know if it’s on the real broadcast or just our DVRed recording, but the footage keeps dropping and freezing. It did it right on Cynthia Orvino while she was singing her big solo, which I’m sure she’ll be mad about.
Okay, awards finally!
Best Supporting Actor
Winner: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
My Pick: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
My Prediction: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Dice Prediction: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Other nominees: Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown), Guy Pearce (The Brutalist), Some Russian Guy (Anora), Some Other Guy (The Apprentice)
Alright! We’re starting off with a WIN! Kieran had a fantastic speech! Good story about his wife not believing he could ever win an Oscar. Good stuff.
Andrew Garfield and Goldie Hawn are on the stage babbling, and I have no idea what they’re even introducing. This is bad. I feel like something’s gone wrong.
OH MY GOD WE’RE STARTING WITH ANIMATED FEATURE! This is Flow’s time to shine… Oh please oh please oh please…
Best Animated Feature
Winner: Flow
My Pick: Flow
My Prediction: The Wild Robot
Dice Prediction: n/a
Other nominees: Wallace and Gromit, Inside Out 2, Memoirs of a Snail
In my rush I forgot to do the predictions for this one, but I recreated it here. More importantly… OH MY GOD LATVIA WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I literally SCREAMED with joy. This is the best news ever. Latvia declared a national holiday when our hockey team got 3rd place in something. Don’t be surprised if they do it again tomorrow.
Right now it’s 8:46pm and I’m like a whopping hour+ behind in my recording because I squeezed in a grocery run. I’m glad I haven’t glanced at Facebook because this one would have been spoilered for me. But now I have a conodrum… I see notifications on my phone. Is someone texting me about Flow? Will it win International Feature, too? I doubt it, but if it does, I don’t want to find out about it yet. Hmm… But maybe someone’s having an emergency… I guess I’ll look. Ok, it’s my family reacting to the Flow animation win. Whew!
I’m fast-forwarding commercials, but thankfully I was fast-forwarding slowly enough to notice a quick show of Conan showing Dancing Deadpool how to find Latvia on a map:
“This is the first time Latvia’s won an Oscar… ball’s in your court, Estonia!” – Conan O’Brian
Best Costumes
Winner: Wicked
My Pick: Wicked
My Prediction: Wicked
Dice Prediction: Nosferatu
Other nominees: Conclave, A Complete Unknown, Gladiator 2
The intro bit for this one is very funny. An actor from each nominated film is on stage, but only Bowen Yang from Wicked is wearing his costume from the movie (which is, of course, very silly.) And now they’re doing the announcement, and huzzah, I’m batting 3 for 3 so far! (I didn’t have a prediction for… whatever the cateogry was after Flow… missed what it was cuz I was too distracted by excitement over Flow) That being said… haven’t I been here before? I think there was another year where I called the 1st 3, and then missed everything else after that. We’ll see…
“He’s the first black man to win best costume design. And you know what that means- ball’s in your court, Estonia.” – Conan O’Brian
“This is Conan O’Brian’s first time hosting the Oscars.” – voiceover. I thought this was going to be followed by “Ball’s in your court, Estonia,” but instead it’s Nick Offerman (who is, I guess, the real Oscar announcer?) doing a different bit. Oh well.
Best Original Screenplay
Winner: Anora
My Pick: A Real Pain
My Prediction: September 5
Dice Prediction: The Substance
Other nominees: Anora, The Brutalist
Our recording keeps blitzing out. Such a bummer cuz we missed the entire clip of A Real Pain. Oh, and looks like Anora won. I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all. What the hell is happening? I clearly was missing something in this movie.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Winner: Conclave
My Pick: Conclave
My Prediction: Emilia Perez
Dice Prediction: Sing Sing
Other nominees: A Complete Unknown, Nickel Boys
Amy Poehler’s joke “we all know how hard it is to find the right adapter” was a big winner with the audience. And oh hey, look, I got another “my pick” right! I’m frankly surprised, but I’ll take it. I had zero strong feeling in this category (really anyone but Emilia Perez, which was trash.)
Best Makeup and Hair
Winner: The Substance
My Pick: A Different Man
My Prediction: The Substance
Dice Prediction: Nosferatu
Other nominees: Emilia Perez, Conclave
Another funny intro. I watched The Substance and A Different Man back to back, which made me appreciate the makeup in A Different Man. Yes, The Substance had to do way more over-the-top crazy stuff, but A Different Man was more realistic. But maybe that’s the fault of other filmmakers moreso than the makeup artists themselves? Either way, I got the prediction right, and I still think it was a deserving film (I just thought another nominee was marginally more deserving.) Kudos. Also, here’s one more opportunity for me to point that that a boob falls off of someone in this movie. Ridiculous(ly awesome.)
For some reason we’re doing a James Bond montage/ dance number right now. I have no idea why. Is this how/when they’ll finally announce who the next Bond will be? Fingers crossed for Aaron Taylor Johnson. Wait, now someone is singing. Lisa someone according to the captions. I’ve got no idea why this is happening. This is what the industry deems “filler.” Sigh. At least it’s giving me time to find subs for my vball game tomorrow night (anyone reading this want to play vball tomorrow night at 8pm? Er, it’ll be “tonight” by the time you read this.) Now Doja Cat is singing. I guess it’s a medley. Time to get my laundry.
Okay, now we have awesome filler. Conan’s selling a building that streams movies for you so you don’t have to hold it in your hand. AKA a movie theatre. Very funny stuff that I approve.
Darryl Hannan just said “Slava Ukraine!” (close enough, and hell’s yeah.)
Best Film Editing
Winner: Anora
My Pick: The Brutalist
My Prediction: Emilia Perez
Dice Prediction: Conclave
Other nominees: Anora, Wicked
I regret my pick. I made it at the last minute in a rush, put zero thought into it. That being said, I never would have picked Anora. I tried really hard to not pay attention to oscar prediction buzz, but every now and then I saw headlines like “Why is Anora taking the lead as an Oscar contender?” I never read any of those, but now I’m thinking I should read them, because I just don’t get it. I was clearly missing something with this movie. I’m surprised this guy is both director and editor (is that common?) I’m also disturbed that this guy is so obsessed with sex workers. Whatever.
Best Supporting Actress
Winner: Zoe Saldana
My Pick: Felicity Jones (The Brutalist)
My Prediction: Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez)
Dice Prediction: Isabella Rossellini (Conclave)
Other nominees: Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), Ariana Grande (Wicked)
My husband just pointed out to me that Monica Barbaro is from the show UnReal, which is pretty great, cuz we loved that show. I’m unsurprised that Zoe won here, as she was the only good thing about Emilia Perez. Also Zoe was in Pirates of the Caribbean, one of my favorite movies, so I’m happy for her. She just announced that she’s the first American of Dominican origin to win an Oscar, and said it’s an honor to get an award for singing and speaking in Spanish, which would make her grandmother proud. Awww!
Best Production Design
Winner: Wicked?
My Pick: Wicked
My Prediction: Dune 2
Dice Prediction: The Brutalist
Other nominees: Conclave, Nosferatu
Our recording glitched out again at the exact moment they announced the winner, but based on who is cheering, which walk-up music they’re playing, and the fact that the guy just said “You took us over the rainbow” I’m assuming its Wicked. That is the correct choice, and I honestly have no idea why I put Dune 2 as my prediction. I was probably thinking “There’s got to be SOME reason this garbage was nominated for best picture, so maybe this is it?”
My husband just asked if we’re starting to get to big categories now. I looked at what I had left from my predictions and only saw 4 categories left, so I said “Yup! We’re reaching the end!” But oh wait, no… we still have all of the categories that are so small that I didn’t bother watching the movies or doing predictions. All the international, documentary, short, and music categories are coming up now. Which means I have a big block of time here to relax.
They’re now doing a montage of people talking about the best song nominees. They said you can watch the films online. Mick Jagger did a great intro here, but otherwise this is total bullshit. Why aren’t we watching performances of the songs during the awards show? We could have chopped all that Wicked stuff at the beginning, and all of that Bond medley bullshit. I do not understand this decision, and I do not like it. And to really rub salt in the wound, stupid freakin’ Emilia Perez just won. Oh God, and now the winners are singing their shitty music. Ugh, what hot garbage.
I’ve mostly zoned out as we go through categories I didn’t watch, but now there are winners on stage who did a documentary about Palestine. They’re tugging at heartstrings and going a little long, but the directors are making the right choice of NOT cutting them off. They just said that this nation’s current international policies are getting in the way of bringing peace (he was more articulate but I didn’t catch the wording in time and am not rewinding because it’s bedtime.) That’s powerful stuff.
Also now we have a bunch of firefighters on stage. Big applause. But its only like 12 people. Ah, we’re setting up a bit where the heroes read out jokes that even Conan can’t make, cuz you’re not allowed to be mad at heroes. Good idea for a bit. Could have been funnier, but solid bit nonetheless.
The married couple who made best live-action short “I Am Not A Robot” just went up, and turns out they’re a Dutch couple. In true no-nonsense Dutch fashion, they looked at the screen, said “Okay, we get 45 seconds,” then delivered a simple, solid 44 second speech. The lady said to her partner “We level-headed Dutch people, we don’t say this often, but I love you.” This little moment reminded me that one of my 2 readers is Dutch, and that yeah, you guys really are super level-headed. And as someone who lost a good friend recently, I’m reminded of how important it is to tell our friends we love them. Even the level-headed Dutch ones. So hi, Dutch reader! I love and appreciate you! (Please pass that message along to your level-headed spouse as well.)
Best Cinematography
Winner: The Brutalist
My Pick: The Brutalist
My Prediction: The Brutalist
Dice Prediction: Dune 2
Other nominees: Emilia Perez, Nosferatu, Maria
Hooray Brutalist! And we’re back to categories that I bothered to watch/rate. I got all of my laundry folded, so that’s good. This guy just walked up and pointed out that his countdown clock had already started, then asked for extra time as he pulled out his reading glasses since he’d timed his speech. Good on you, sir! Some of the other nominees who have
International Feature Film
I didn’t do picks/predictions for this ahead of time, but meant to. I want Flow. It will be Emilia Perez. If not Emilia Perez, it will be I’m Still Here.
Okay, looks like I’m Still Here won it. This is probably the movie which I most regret not being able to squeeze in before the ceremony. It looks like it was probably good. Is it even better than Flow? I dunno, maybe. But I’m glad Emilia Perez didn’t win. Flow losing to Emilia Perez would have pissed me off. This is fine.
Conan O’Brian just said Anora’s having a good night. “I guess Americans are glad to finally see someone stand up to a powerful Russian.” Fuck’s yes, Conan. That one got a big applause.
Best Actor
Winner: Adrian Brody (The Brutalist)
My Pick: Adrian Brody (The Brutalist)
My Prediction: Adrian Brody (The Brutalist)
Dice Prediction: Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice)
Other nominees: Timothy Chalemene (A Complete Unknown), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Coleman Domingo (Sing Sing)
Oh man, I was rushing so hard during my predictions that I didn’t bother to look up the spelling of Timothy Chalamene(???). Not even gonna bother fixing it- I’m too lazy. I’m cracking up that the scene they chose for Adrian Brody is the one where he’s driving the car, since I thought that was his worst scene (he didn’t watch the road!) And looks like- whew! Adrian Brody for the win! Well-deserved. As we we’ve been watching, my husband, who has seen NONE of these movies, kept saying Charlamagne (???) was definitely going to win for playing Dylan, cuz he just keeps hearing about what a good job he did. So I was getting nervous, as someone who’s tried to avoid the buzz. But nope, my intuition and evaluation was correct. Brody’s giving a kinda vague speech about appreciating that he got this role after being kinda ignored for a couple decades since his last win. That’s kinda nice I guess. Oh man… his speech is going on way too long… He’s still talking… Sigh. I’ve got to go to bed, Brody! Hurry up! [EDITOR’S NOTE: The news is reporting that he broke the record for longest speech ever at 5+ minutes. It felt too long, but somehow it didn’t feel THAT long. Geeez, Brody, what were you thinking???]
Best Director
Winner: Anora
My Pick: The Brutalist
My Prediction: The Brutalist
Dice Prediction: Emilia Perez
Other nominees: Anora, A Complete Unknown, The Substance
Again, I don’t get it with Anora. But as they were reading the nominations, my husband said “I bet Anora will get it,” and given how the night has been going, I agreed with him. Turns out he’s right. This guy is getting to give his 3rd speech of the night, which he’s using to talk about how important it is to put movies in theatres instead of streaming. I mean, yeah, sure. Guy also just waited until the END of his THIRD speech to wish his mom happy birthday, because it’s today. Yeah, I dunno, this dude rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know why. Just bad vibes. Maybe he’s perfectly lovely, I dunno.
Best Actress
Winner: Mikey Madison (Anora)
My Pick: Cynthia Ervino (Wicked)
My Prediction: Demi Moore (The Substance)
Dice Prediction: Some Chick (Anora)
Other nominees: The Lady from Emilia Perez, The Lady From I’m Still Here
I didn’t see this one coming, even after how the evening’s been going for Anora. I was just saying how I wouldn’t be surprised if the lady from I’m Still Here (whose name I don’t know) won since I didn’t see her movie and she got the Golden Globe. Madison is up there thanking the sex worker community. I’m so confused. Anyway, this is the 2nd year in a row where our best actress winner is a sex worker who we see very naked. Not sure I like that precedent. Also not sure when I started feeling like such a prude. But now I’m trying to think back to Madison’s performance, since I watched this movie before the nominations came out and didn’t really pay too much attention to her specifically. She was good. Played the part no problem. And her competitions’ roles weren’t particularly juicy. I guess maybe this is fine.
Best Picture
Winner: Anora
My Pick: The Brutalist
My Prediction: Emilia Perez
Dice Prediction: Conclave
Other nominees: A Complete Unknown, Anora, Conclave, Dune 2, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance, Wicked
I’ve said it a million times already, but I don’t get it. Someone explain. But I also didn’t understand why most of the movies in this category were in this category, so what do I know. What would my list of nominees be, of the stuff I saw? Flow, The Wild Robot, The Brutalist, A Real Pain, Nickel Boys, Wicked, maybe Conclave. Plus probably some movies I didn’t see.
*******************
THE MORNING AFTER
Okay, I went to bed after the show. Now it’s Monday evening (which I guess makes “morning” after inaccurate, but I’m too lazy to change it.) [EDITOR’S NOTE: and now it’ s Tuesday because I didn’t finish yesterday.] I’ve got a bit of an Oscar binge hangover. I’m wandering through the wasteland of my last day’s many Oscar posts, trying to make sense of the pieces. I never even got around to writing my review for Nosferatu (I’ll do it eventually, I swear!) My pre-ceremony post that I published after the ceremony had started without even giving it a half-assed read-through was less incoherent than I’d expected, which is good. But it was still missing multiple categories (including the FLOW categories!!!), has a paragraph that suddenly stops mid-sentence, and is short on all the fun comic analysis I’ve been prepping in my mind for the past several weeks. I had a whole bit simmering about the film titles Beautiful Men, Better Man, and Another Man. Plus probably other stuff I forgot. Oh well. I’ve just read through my rambling stream-of conscience draft post from the ceremony, and it’s pretty boring. Oh well again.
But now in the cold light of day, let’s take a look at how I did with my predictions…
I did picks/predictions for 14 categories (including animated feature, which I forgot to put in my original post). Of those:
My picks: 7/14 = 50%
My predictions: 6/14 = 43%
Dice predictions: 2/14 = 24%
These are remarkably similar results to last year’s predictions, when I also predicted 14 categories (which… doesn’t seem right since I added feature animation this year. Stand by… OK! Last year I didn’t rank hair/makeup for some reason? Anyway…) Here are last year’s results:
My picks: 5/14 = 36%
My predictions: 7/14 = 50%
Dice predictions: 2/14 = 24%
Dice predictions were the worst, and remained exactly the same. My predictions were just 1 guess of. But my picks! Heck yeah, my picks! A whopping 2 pics closer! It’s pretty clear that Anora basically screwed me over this year. I totally misjudged how well-regarded that film was, and I don’t really get why. We did an inverse from last year, where the big epic serious movie about a mid-20th-century genius (Oppenheimer) beat out the hooker movie (Poor Things.) For some reason this year the hooker movie (Anora) topped the serious man-centered epic (The Brutalist). Why the inversion? I have no idea. Especially since Poor Things was a million times better than Anora. My mis-read of Anora is similar to last year’s mis-read of Anatomy Of A Fall, which I just did not get at all. But at least Anora wasn’t bad like Anatomy of a Fall.
Final thoughts: It’s been a TOUGH start to the year, y’all. And as Conan said in a rare serious moment during the ceremony, movies and awards shows can feel so frivolous and shallow given the madness happening in the world around us. But art offers an escape. And, despite being a bit too zonked to put my full creative effort into this year’s reviews, I still really appreciated the opportunity to escape into these movies, and to feel a bit of normalcy.
Helga without the H 