{"id":6063,"date":"2026-03-16T23:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6063\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T23:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:48:14","slug":"conan-barbra-sinners-and-one-awesomely-messy-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6063\/","title":{"rendered":"Conan, Barbra, \u2018Sinners,\u2019 and One Awesomely Messy Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhat was that secret revolutionary password from One Battle After Another? Oh, yeah: \u201cTime doesn\u2019t exist, but it controls us anyway.\u201d Fitting words for this year\u2019s Oscars<\/a>, especially when Adrien Brody was talking.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 98th Academy Awards<\/a> was the first ceremony in years where the races had actual stakes<\/a> in a showdown between Sinners<\/a> and One Battle After Another, two ambitious trips through American history. Both movies came away big winners, which made it a real celebration of movie culture \u2014 an Oscar night full of highs.<\/p>\n

And lows. Lots of those.<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst things first: Who the hell decided to crank the music while Barbra Streisand<\/a> was talking? That was a bad, bad decision. There\u2019s a legend trying to talk here, sharing her misty watercolor memories<\/a> of Robert Redford, and you drown her out? Then cut her off mid-sentence? For shame. It\u2019s the shabbiest treatment Barbra\u2019s gotten from the Oscars since they stiffed her on the Prince of Tides nomination in 1992.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tConan O\u2019Brien hosted for the second straight year, with the right amount of bratty irreverence. As he said, \u201cI\u2019m honored to be the last human host of the Academy Awards!\u201d (The telecast is moving to YouTube in 2029.) He took shots at Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet: \u201cSecurity is tight tonight,\u201d he warned. \u201cI\u2019m told there\u2019s concern about attacks from both the opera and ballet community.\u201d But his funniest moment was also his bitchiest. Near the end, he announced, \u201cOur next presenter heroically saved last year\u2019s Oscars from running short. Please welcome Oscar winner Adrien Brody!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show kicked off in style with a Sinners blues jam starring a host of music legends, including Buddy Guy, who\u2019s nearly as old as the Oscars. (He was born in 1936, the first year they were actually called \u201cOscars.\u201d) The all-star cast also had Christone \u201cKingfish\u201d Ingram, Brittany Howard, and ballerina Misty Copeland \u2014 which means ballet got more stage time at the Oscars than Timoth\u00e9e did. It was a perfect way to celebrate the musical achievement of Sinners \u2014 Ryan Coogler<\/a> even had a guitar braided into his hair.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Best Supporting Actress award went to the sentimental favorite Amy Madigan, 40 years after she got nominated for Twice in a Lifetime, a movie where she plays Gene Hackman\u2019s daughter and Ally Sheedy\u2019s mom. She won for her terrifying turn as Aunt Gladys in Weapons. It was so sweet to see her husband, Ed Harris, give her a flirty glance when her name got called \u2014 they\u2019re now a couple with matching Oscars, in the tradition of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh or Javier Bardem and Pen\u00e9lope Cruz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tSean Penn was a no-show, a shame since he\u2019s so reliably entertaining at the Academy Awards. (Remember the year he got pissed at Chris Rock for making fun of Jude Law? Comedy gold.) Yet there was something awesomely Spicoli-esque about not showing up for his win. Kieran Culkin, who brought down the house last year with his hilarious speech, announced, \u201cSean Penn couldn\u2019t be here this evening \u2014 or didn\u2019t want to \u2014 so I\u2019ll be accepting the award on his behalf.\u201d He also showed the envelope with Penn\u2019s name to the camera, just for transparency.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Best Actor race was a nail-biter right down to the final seconds. But Michael B. Jordan<\/a>\u2019s win was an emotional highlight<\/a> of the night, crowning the Sinners triumph. His speech made connections between history and the present, with his mother beaming proudly in the audience. Fortunately, Brody didn\u2019t try to kiss him \u2014 the camera wisely cut away when MBJ gave a shout-out to Halle Berry. Jessie Buckley<\/a> won Best Actress for Hamnet<\/a>, making a heavily emotional speech in her County Kerry brogue, telling her husband, \u201cI want to have 20,000 more babies with you!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother highlight came when Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman<\/a> ever to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, as well as the first Black winner in the category.\u00a0\u201cAll the women in the room stand up,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause I feel like I don\u2019t get here without you guys. I really, fully, truly mean that.\u201d Ludwig G\u00f6ransson was another Sinners winner for Best Score, with a touching speech about his dad buying a John Lee Hooker album in Sweden in 1964. And after so many tributes to Coogler, it was great to see the man himself win for Best Original Screenplay.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tAnne Hathaway did a brilliant Devil Wears Prada bit with Anna Wintour. Hathaway: \u201cAnna, just curious, what do you think of my dress tonight?\u201d Wintour: \u201cAnd the nominees are \u2026\u201d Poor Anne hasn\u2019t looked so forlorn and abandoned on the Oscar stage since the night they made her co-host with James Franco.<\/p>\n

\n\tJimmy Kimmel made a welcome return to present the documentary awards. \u201cAs you know, there are some countries whose leaders do not support free speech,\u201d he said, then quipping, \u201cI\u2019m not at liberty to say which. Let\u2019s just leave it at North Korea and CBS.\u201d Kumail Nanjiani presided over a tie in the Best Live Action Short category, which raised the annual question, \u201cWhy exactly do the Oscars have a Best Live Action Short category?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor showed up to get sentimental over the 25th anniversary of Moulin Rouge, joining their voices to sing the Beatles\u2019 \u201cAll You Need Is Love.\u201d Hey, it\u2019s also the 30th anniversary of Trainspotting, so too bad Ewan didn\u2019t bust out \u201cBorn Slippy.\u201d It was a treat to see the Bridesmaids cast strut down the stage \u2014 Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Ellie Kemper. Too bad the moment got wasted with such a clunky sketch. (The \u201cMarty\u201d joke was a bizarrely obscure callback to their Scorsese drinking-game gag at the 2012 Oscars.) But Sigourney Weaver got to shine in her comedy bit, catching Kate Hudson snuggling Baby Yoda and yelling, \u201cGet away from him, you bitch!\u201d It was almost as surreal as Pedro Pascal\u2019s psychedelic shirt.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Priyanka Chopra presented at the Golden Globes a couple of months ago, with Blackpink\u2019s Lisa, her introduction went, \u201cOne was in White Lotus, and the other one wed a white Jonas!\u201d Last night, with Javier Bardem, it was: \u201cOne is married to a Jonas Brother, and the other pronounces it \u2018YO-nas!\u2019\u201d People who write Priyanka jokes for award shows: Try 20 or 30 seconds harder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAre there any six words that spark joy like \u201cPlease welcome Oscar winner Lionel Richie\u201d? Lionel was once, twice, three times happy to be there (\u201cAll right, I\u2019m back!\u201d) and remind everyone he won 40 years ago for \u201cSay You, Say Me,\u201d declaring, \u201cStories cannot be told without music.\u201d Best Song went to the KPop Demon Hunters<\/a> hit \u201cGolden,\u201d after an upbeat live performance. It was the night\u2019s least surprising win, so it\u2019s hard to explain why the songwriters were so totally unprepared to give a speech, but the orchestra cut them off, \u201cTakedown\u201d-style. Least welcome voiceover of the night: \u201cTo hear all of this year\u2019s original song nominees, scan the QR code on your screen now!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTruth be told, Chalamet really should have won his long-a-thirsted Oscar last year for his Bob Dylan movie \u2014 he played a similar brat in Marty Supreme, just not a very fascinating one. Ironically, he showed up in a white suit and a pencil-thin mustache, just like Dylan when he won his Oscar 25 years ago. But the film got shut out, so either there was a late-breaking backlash from opera and ballet fans, or the voters spent the second half of Marty Supreme asking, \u201cWait, isn\u2019t this the funny ping-pong movie? Why the hell are we looking for a lost dog?\u201d Better luck next year, Tim. Maybe a Dylan sequel?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne Battle After Another took Best Picture<\/a>, with Paul Thomas Anderson<\/a> finally winning after 14 nominations. He gave a shout-out to his inspiration, Thomas Pynchon, probably an Oscars first. (Pynchon didn\u2019t show up, unless he was disguised as Chalamet.) \u201cI wrote this movie for my kids,\u201d he said, \u201cto say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we\u2019re handing off to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it was funny to see PTA flip the switch into OCD film-geek mode at the end of the night. \u201cIn 1975,\u201d he reminded us, \u201cthe Oscar nominees for Best Picture were Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest, Jaws, Nashville, and Barry Lyndon. There is no \u2018Best\u2019 among them.\u201d He clearly meant to segue into a tribute to his fellow nominees \u2014 but he got so distracted by those famous film titles, he simply forgot. It was an endearing moment. (Also, sorry, but Dog Day Afternoon got robbed. Atticaaaa!)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHappy Gilmore 2 didn\u2019t get nominated for anything, but when you think about it, it\u2019s basically the same movie as One Battle After Another. A beloved Nineties icon of perpetual boyishness makes a serious comedy about growing old and feeling washed-up, but returning to a passionate cause they gave up years ago (golf for Sandler, the revolution for Leo) while being comically rumpled and out of date and embarrassing to their teenage daughters? But it all works out, because Dad means well and it\u2019s a movie? (I love both films, in very different ways, so it\u2019s a compliment to both of them. RIP Bob Barker.)<\/p>\n

\n\tUntil last night, Paul Sorvino was probably the most legendary movie star (as opposed to TV star) ever to get left out of the \u201cIn Memoriam\u201d loop, though you could make a case for Alain Delon. But Brigitte Bardot stole the crown last night \u2014 just an astounding omission. (They also skipped director Henry Jaglom, but Bardot, wow.) There\u2019s no precedent for skipping a movie star anywhere near as famous as Bardot. It\u2019s just never happened. Maybe they censored her for not being a good role model, before or after her retirement, but she\u2019s a mighty strange place for the Oscars to begin drawing that line. (It can\u2019t be her right-wing politics, since they honored Robert Duvall.) When you\u2019re in a Godard movie, an Olivia Rodrigo song, and \u201cWe Didn\u2019t Start the Fire,\u201d you\u2019re overqualified. What happened?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLike the Grammys last month, the Oscars stretched out the \u201cIn Memoriam\u201d segment to a sizable chunk of the show. Billy Crystal, the nine-time host who can claim credit for making Oscar night the ritual it is today, began with a heartfelt tribute to his close friend and frequent colleague Rob Reiner. Actors from Reiner\u2019s movies gathered onstage \u2014 although the camera didn\u2019t catch their faces, a sadly clumsy gaffe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRachel McAdams paid tribute to her onscreen mom Diane Keaton, saying, \u201cShe wore so many hats \u2014 literally and figuratively.\u201d She also quoted Keaton singing the Girl Scouts\u2019 \u201cMake New Friends\u201d song \u2014 if you remember your trashy award-show lore, you probably recall Keaton singing that one the night the Golden Globes gave a massively awkward lifetime-achievement tribute to Woody Allen. (The \u201cIn Memoriam\u201d montage also had Marcel Ophuls, who directed The Sorrow and the Pity, then later in the show Sigourney Weaver \u2014 so Annie Hall had a big night. La-di-da, la-di-da.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tBut what could compare to Streisand\u2019s heart-twisting tribute to her muse Robert Redford? She spoke about their bond, evoking the way he used to call her \u201cBabs.\u201d (\u201cBob, do I look like a Babs?\u201d) She called him \u201can intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail.\u201d But when she started to sing \u201cThe Way We Were,\u201d it was an all-out attack on the tear ducts. She even had her own conductor in the aisle, because she rightly didn\u2019t trust the house orchestra to get this moment right \u2014 a very Streisand touch, and one that Redford would have relished. StreisFord were one of the most iconic 20th-century screen couples, in The Way We Were, the Brooklyn noodge versus the Santa Monica tennis jock. (As Pauline Kael wrote, \u201cIt\u2019s good to see Redford with a woman again after all that flirting with Paul Newman.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Babs sang her farewell to her Bob, it was the kind of Oscar magic that could only happen on this award show. You couldn\u2019t miss the way they botched this moment, almost drowning her out with the soundtrack \u2014 yet you also couldn\u2019t miss the fact that Streisand was determined to fight through it and make history anyway. It was the best and worst of the Oscars, in one moment. Sing on forever, Barbra.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What was that secret revolutionary password from One Battle After Another? Oh, yeah: \u201cTime doesn\u2019t exist, but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4991,4231,4992,8,4243,3964,4228,9,3296,3297,4233,4229,3480,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-6063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-barbra-streisand","9":"tag-conan-obrien","10":"tag-hamnet","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-jessie-buckley","13":"tag-kpop-demon-hunters","14":"tag-michael-b-jordan","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-oscars","17":"tag-oscars-2026","18":"tag-paul-thomas-anderson","19":"tag-ryan-coogler","20":"tag-sinners","21":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116241531069644617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}