Oscars brought laughs, warmth and Gaga

Okay, this was what we were hoping for from an Academy Award telecast – a hearty blend of humor, warmth and potent music.
And one thing more: A clever guy (Jimmy Kimmel) was at the core, making sure it was fun.
There were a few flaws along the way. The long plug for “Little Mermaid” was annoying … the acceptance speeches were mostly bland … I kept waiting for David Byrne’s song to discover a melody … and it’s never fun to see the same show keep winning.
In this case, it was “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” hauling in seven awards, including best picture, best director and three of the four acting prizes. It’s always good to see Ke Huy Quan being the happiest guy in award-show history, but things get repetitious when the film’s two writer-director-producers make three trips to the podium.
But those were minor gripes. With Kimmel as the first solo host in five years, the Oscars were fun.
Kimmel’s opening monolog was slick and sharp. He ranged from last year’s Will Smith slap to the wretched decision to bury “Batgirl” in order to get a tax write-off, thus creating “the first superhero defeated by an accountant.”
But his real skill was in keeping the show’s momentum. Past the halfway mark, when things usually slow down, Kimmel said it “kind of makes you miss the slap, doesn’t it?” But in truth, the show had kept up its fun; in fact, most of his one-liners were scattered in the second half.
He claimed that there would be an interactive vote, to see if the late Robert Blake (the unpopular actor who survived a murder trial) should be added to the “in memoriam” section. He introduced what he said was the “Banshees of Inisherin” donkey, claiming he’d flown it from Ireland as “an emotional support donkey.” And in a Tucker Carlson reference, he emphasized the value of film editors: A good one can make a brutal insurrection look like “a respectable sightseeing afternoon at the Capitol.”
A few presenters also added to the humor, especially Elizabeth Banks (with a perverse version of the title character in her “Cocaine Bear” movie), Hugh Grant and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
The night also had a mostly strong set of songs – including one surprise.
A few days before the telecast, a producer had said Lady Gaga wouldn’t perform, because she didn’t have time to perform a big-deal production number. But there she was, showing that less is more – sitting there in T-shirt and ripped jeans, with a stripped-down ballad.
I thought that was the best moment of the night. And later, we got an exact-opposite production: The song from “RRR” – done onstage with colorful costumes and vibrant dancers – worked beautifully.
The Oscars also had lots of warmth, including some nods to age. We saw two nominees – Judd Hirsch, 88, and John Williams, 91. We saw “Everything” co-star James Hong, 94. And a winner from the “Black Panther” sequel made reference to her mother, who had died this past week at 101. “Chadwick, please take care of Mom,” she said, a reference to the late “Black Panther” star, Chadwick Boseman.
There were other strong moments. When “Navalny” won for best documentary feature, the wife of jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was onstage; so was their daughter, who’s been in the U.S. to study at Stanford.
And some of the strongest emotions came from career comebacks. There was Brendan Fraser, whose career faded for 15 years, before winning the Oscar for “The Whale.” He’d had some early success, he granted, and “didn’t appreciate it until it stopped.”
And there was Quan, who had co-starred in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dune” at 12, then soon found his acting career in a 30-year funk. Quan was joyous, as usual, when he won the supporting-actor Oscar. “This is the American dream,” he said.
Then his movie, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won for best-picture … with the award presented by Harrison Ford. Quan beamed, leaped and hugged Ford – a sort of 40th-anniversary “Indiana Jones” reunion, to wrap up a fine night.