“Anora” Sweeps the Oscars

Julia Forest

Copy Editor

Hooray for Hollywood! The 97th annual Academy Awards, or also known as the Oscars, took place on March 2nd in the Dolby Theatre.

The ceremony opened with paying homage to Los Angeles with the award show presenting a compilation of clips of LA that can be seen in many different films. Following this, Ariana Grande, who played Glinda in Wicked, performed “Over the Rainbow,” the classic song from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Cynthia Erivo, who played Elphaba in Wicked, sang “Home,” which is from the musical, The Wiz. Then, Grande and Erivo came together to sing “Defying Gravity,” one of Wicked’s most famous songs. The host, Conan O’Brien, began the show by cracking jokes at each of this season’s movies and its nominees. He also brought attention to the fact that film brings people together and that the Oscars celebrate everyone who works on a film, from the actors, to all of the people who are behind the scenes. He closed the opening by singing an ironic and comedic musical number about not wasting the audience’s time.

Robert Downey Jr. presented the award for Best Supporting Actor, which went to Kieran Culkin for his performance in A Real Pain.

For animated films, Flow won Best Animated Feature Film, earning Latvia its first Oscar. In the Shadow of the Cypress took home the Oscar for Animated Short Film. Both awards were presented by Andrew Garfield and Goldie Hawn.

Wicked won two awards. Paul Tazewell won the Oscar for Costume Design, making him the first black man to ever win that award. Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales won for Production Design.

Peter Straughan accepted the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, which was the only award Conclave won out of its eight nominations.

The Substance also only took home one award, which was for makeup and hairstyling.

The night was filled with tributes. LISA, Doja Cat, and RAYE performed songs that paid homage to James Bond films. Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey presented a tribute to Quincy Jones, who passed away last November, and Queen Latifah also paid tribute to him by singing “Ease on Down the Road,” from The Wiz. As many people noted, the In Memoriam left out a few big names, such as Olivia Hussey, Jim Abrahams, Martin Mull, Mitzi Gaynor, and more. O’Brien also thanked the LA first responders.