The 96th Annual Academy Awards caused a bit of a stir before the ceremony even started because of WHEN they started: six minutes past the scheduled 6 p.m. Central Time kickoff, with a comfortable and confident Jimmy Kimmel handling host duties for the fourth time. Some in the audience stood to greet Kimmel, who ad-libbed, “Thank you for that partial standing ovation” and noted, “We’re already five minutes over and I am not joking.”
It was a tad ironic that Kimmel joked about the long running time for so many movies during a solid, if hit-and-miss, monologue that stretched past 15 minutes. Heavy on inside-baseball references, it ended on a strong note, with Kimmel bringing out dozens of behind-the-scenes crew members to thank them for refusing to cross picket lines during last year’s strikes. Nice to see the stars rising as one to thank all the union craftspeople whose names you see rolling on the screen after the movie is over!
The opening montage featured a gag reminiscent of Billy Crystal’s stints as host, with Kimmel edited into the park bench scene in “Barbie.” When the living doll says, “You’re so beautiful,” Kimmel replies, “I know, I was just thinking that. I haven’t eaten in three weeks. I’m so hungry. I have to go host the Oscars.”
A dig at “Madame Web” met with a tepid response. A visual gag involving Messi the dog from “Anatomy of a Fall” worked. Some wisecracks about Robert Downey Jr.’s past problems were helped because Downey played along from the audience. One of the best jokes to land: “Emma [Stone] played an adult woman with the brain of a child, like the lady who gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union on Thursday.” Zing!
Kimmel also noted that “48 years ago, Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster were nominated for ‘Taxi Driver,’ and they are both nominated again tonight. 1976 was the year. In 1975, Jodie Foster was young enough to be Robert De Niro’s daughter. Now, she’s 20 years too old to be his girlfriend.” Cut to shots of De Niro gamely laughing, and Foster wearing an expression that said, “He’s not wrong.”
In another nod to Academy history — this one more notorious than iconic — Kimmel told us it was the 50th anniversary of a streaker dashing across the stage at the Oscars, which led to a goofy but hilarious bit in which a “naked” John Cena expressed misgivings about re-creating the moment. With the envelope for best costume placed strategically in front of him, a very exposed Cena shuffled across the stage, drawing big laughs from the audience. It’s no small feat to pull off a stunt like that in front of a crowd filled with nominees, some of whom have already lost, but it worked. (Margot Robbie was DYING.)
Kudos as well to Colman Domingo for playing along with Kimmel’s lovable sidekick Guillermo, who handed out tequilas and toasted “my wife” Charlize Theron, who is most certainly and definitely not his wife. Three cheers as well to presenter John Mulaney, whose breakdown of the quite crazy plot of “Field of Dreams” was so hilarious and fantastic that I would like to see a Netflix special in which Mulaney explains 100 movies in 100 minutes.
On the downside, Emma Stone’s sour-faced reaction to a Kimmel joke about the amount of sexual content in “Poor Things” led to instant social media interpretations of what she said or didn’t say; whatever it was, Stone seemed displeased. An edgy joke aimed in Sandra Hüller’s direction kind of fluttered and fell to the ground awkwardly.
On balance, though, Kimmel proved to be a reliable veteran hand in his fourth go-round, and he scored a late knockout punch when he read a Truth Social post from Donald Trump, who ripped Kimmel’s performance, leading Kimmel to quip, “Isn’t it past your jail time?”
As for the music: The performances of “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” “What Was I Made For?,” “The Fire Inside” and “It Never Went Away” were as great as you’d expect — but it was Ryan Gosling’s show-stopping rendition of “I’m Just Ken” that brought down the house. Kenapalooza lives!
