Oscars 2024: A new innovation adds poignancy to 'Oppenheimer's' big night

Past best actor winners Nicolas Cage (from left), Matthew McConaughey, Brendan Fraser, Ben Kingsley and Forest Whitaker look on as Cillian Murphy of "Oppenheimer" accepts the award on Sunday. — Past best actor winners Nicolas Cage (from left), Matthew McConaughey, Brendan Fraser, Ben Kingsley and Forest Whitaker look on as Cillian Murphy of “Oppenheimer” accepts the award on Sunday.

Even when you’re approaching 100, it’s not too late to make a few small changes — changes for the better.

For years, each of the acting Oscar recipients from the previous year would return to announce a new winner — but that changed for the 96th annual Academy Awards, a ceremony that completed the award season’s dominance of “Oppenheimer,” which won a total of seven Oscars, including best picture.

For this year’s acting presentations, five previous winners took the stage, each delivering a message to one of the nominees.

It was a nice touch, especially seeing as how some younger or casual viewers might not have known, for example, that Mary Steenburgen won the Oscar for best supporting actress for 1980’s “Melvin and Howard,” a wonderful early film by Jonathan Demme, who of course directed the multiple Oscar-winning “The Silence of the Lambs,” which starred Jodie Foster, who won Oscar for that movie and was nominated again this year for “Nyad.”

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As expected, and as was so well-deserved, Da’Vine Joy Randolph (one of a host of first-time nominees in the acting categories) won best supporting actress for her beautiful and strong and heartfelt performance in “The Holdovers.” Randolph thanked her mother for encouraging her and added, “I thank all the people who have been there for me, ushered me and guided me. I prayed for so long. … I always wanted to be different, but now I realized that I just need to be myself. Thank you for seeing me.” It was a lovely moment. Randolph’s co-star, Paul Giamatti, was moved to tears by her speech.

Acting award winners Da'Vine Joy Randolph (left) of “The Holdovers” and Emma Stone of “Poor Things” pose backstage with their new Oscars on Sunday at Ovation Hollywood. — Acting award winners Da’Vine Joy Randolph (left) of “The Holdovers” and Emma Stone of “Poor Things” pose backstage with their new Oscars on Sunday at Ovation Hollywood.

For best supporting actor, the presenters were Sam Rockwell, Tim Robbins, Mahershala Ali, Ke Huy Quan and Christoph Waltz, who delivered a tribute to Ryan Gosling that sounded like a monologue from a Quentin Tarantino film: “It’s not really news that certain male behavior looks like the inferiority complex of a plastic doll in a cardboard box … so why, then, do we admire Ryan Gosling’s Ken so much? … It is funny, intelligent, HUGELY entertaining and ultimately poignant and deserving of empathy.” Even Gosling seemed blown away by that take.

We all knew Robert Downey Jr. was going to win for his electric work in “Oppenheimer,” and Downey said, “I’d like to thank my terrible childhood, and the Academy, in that order,” and likened himself to a snarling rescue pet who was loved back to life by his wife, the producer Susan Downey, who was the valedictorian at Schaumburg High School class of 1991, so how about that.

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Matthew McConaughey, Forest Whitaker, Nicolas Cage, Ben Kingsley and Brendan Fraser took the stage to salute the best actor nominees. Even though I had initially predicted Paul Giamatti to win for “The Holdovers,” over the last couple of weeks I’ve been saying it was pretty obvious Cillian Murphy would win for “Oppenheimer,” and it’s hardly a “snub” of Giamatti that Murphy took home Oscar gold.

“I’m a very proud Irishman standing here tonight!” said Murphy, and good on him, it was a great performance.

(Here’s a bit of a Chicago-area connection for you. The British — stay with me here — director Christopher Nolan won his first Oscar for “Oppenheimer.” As you might know, Nolan’s mother was a flight attendant and teacher from Evanston, and Nolan and his brothers spent their summers in Evanston. In fact, the young Nolan’s short film “Tarantella” aired on the WTTW-Channel 11 show “Image Union” in 1990. Partial claim!)

Completing the quartet of past winners, Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Yeoh, Charlize Theron, Sally Field and Jessica Lange saluted the best actress nominees. Emma Stone won her second Oscar and she was spectacularly good in “Poor Things,” but had I been given a thousand votes, I would have cast 999 for “Killers of the Flower Moon” nominee Lily Gladstone.

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Al Pacino didn’t waste time reading the 10 nominees and got straight to the matter and told us what we’ve known for months: “Oppenheimer” is the winner for best picture of 2023.

We also saw history made when Billie Eilish, 22, became the youngest person to have two Oscars, winning best original song for “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie” this year after taking home Oscar for “No Time To Die,” from the 2021 James Bond film of the same name. The previous record-holder was Luise Rainer, who won her second best actress Oscar at 28 in 1938. It’s believed Eilish’s brother Finneas O’Connell, 26, co-winner of both Oscars, is the second youngest dual winner.

Finneas O'Connell and sister Billie Eilish accept the best original song award for their hit "What Was I Made For?" from "Barbie." — Finneas O’Connell and sister Billie Eilish accept the best original song award for their hit “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie.”

(In another welcome break from tradition, instead of the anonymous and often overly cheery and unseen voice-over person guiding us through the evening, this year’s announcer was the fantastic David Alan Grier, who appeared backstage with presenters Catherine O’Hara and Michael Keaton just before one commercial break.)

Scriptwriting awards went to Justine Triet and Arthur Harrari for original screenplay for “Anatomy of a Fall,” and Cord Jefferson for adapted screenplay for “American Fiction.” In each case, you can feel and appreciate the richness of the writing from the opening minutes of the film. These are “smaller” films that will leave a big impact with you if you haven’t had the chance to see them yet.

In the animated feature category, another favorite was the winner: “The Boy and the Heron,” from the legendary, 83-year-old Hayao Miyazaki, who has been announcing plans to retire for most of this century and still hasn’t, and we’re all the richer for that.

It was also great to see “The Zone of Interest” (international feature) and “20 Days in Mariupol” (documentary feature) get some love. The little old gold man still has some juice, and an Oscar win should mean more folks will see these fine films.