Oscars 2018: The Snubs, Surprises, and Jet-Skis of Hollywood’s Biggest Night

The 90th Academy Awards are in the books, with one of the strongest Best Picture fields in years ultimately producing the winner we perhaps should have expected all along: The Shape of Water, the dreamy atomic-age fairy tale of a mute woman and a fish monster who traverse communication barriers and the dubious nature of what an all-egg (and one cat) diet would do to one’s system, all to find love. Guillermo Del Toro’s film was the nomination leader with 13 nods across all categories, but given how recent years have seen nominations leaders fall to much smaller upstarts like Spotlight and Moonlight, it was far from a done deal. In this case, all those nominations turned out to be a decent indicator that Oscar voters enjoyed swimming in Del Toro’s fish tank.

And on a night when all four acting winners finished an unprecedented run of lock-step dominance that saw Frances McDormand, Gary Oldman, Sam Rockwell, and Allison Janney win the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, BAFTAs, and (save Oldman) Independent Spirit Awards, culminating in Oscars all around, surprises (and thus the so-called “snubs” that accompany them) were hard to come by. But we managed to scrounge up a handful of the night’s most notable, unexpected, and, yes, harsh moments.

SURPRISE: Best Picture/Best Director Matched. This used to happen all the time, but in the era of the preferential ballot, Best Director has been trending towards sweeping technical achievements, while Best Picture has opted for smaller, more meaningful choices. Throughout the night, the volatile Best Picture race seemed to be swaying from film to film. When Dunkirk won a few early awards in the craft categories over Shape of Water, odds were leaning in that direction. When Get Out took Original Screenplay for Jordan Peele, the possibility of an upset seemed ripe. But The Shape of Water prevailed in the night’s two top categories. Ultimately, the most surprising outcome was the least surprising outcome: the movie that voters liked best, was liked best by voters.

SNUB: Lady Bird Gets Shut Out. It was actually a rather egalitarian Oscars, with most of the night’s top contenders going home with something. Seven of the nine Best Picture nominees won at least one award. And then there was Lady Bird, which going into the night was still maintaining some kind of dark-horse status in all four of the categories in which it was nominated. But by the time Greta Gerwig’s Best Original Screenplay bid came up empty, the writing was on the wall. Of course, the real reward for Lady Bird will be its enduring rewatchability, so Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, and Laurie Metcalf can comfort themselves with that.

SNUB: Ryan Seacrest on the Red Carpet.  The E! red-carpet host and TV’s jack of all trades has been under fire all week due to sexual harassment allegations made by stylist Suzy Hardy, and while E! made the firm decision to stand by heir star, most of the biggest names at the Oscars opted to bypass E!’s red carpet station entirely. Seacrest talked to Allison Janney, Mary J. Blige, Richard Jenkins, and Christopher Plummer, but the Streeps and Robbies and Chalamets and Bullocks of the world paid him no mind. Perhaps having Giuliana Rancic as an alternative might have worked, but poor Giuliana was stuck on a roof deck across the street doing supplemental material.

SNUB: Jimmy Kimmel’s Jet-Ski Offer. For whatever reason, host Jimmy Kimmel decided this was the year he would take a stand against overlong acceptance speeches. While constantly noting that the Oscars go on forever (despite later wasting at least 10 minutes dragging a group of A-listers to the movie theater across the street to encounter some normies), Kimmel made an offer that the night’s shortest speech-giver would be gifted with a free jet ski. So, like, sorry, parents of Oscar-winners; your kid didn’t have time to thank you, but he’s enjoying his new jet ski. Unfortunately (for Kimmel, at least) none of the winners really cared to take Kimmel up on his offer, and the bit went bust as the evening wore on. It’s almost as if winning an Oscar is a once-in-a-lifetime moment that is worth much more than aquatic recreational equipment?

SURPRISE: At Least It’s a Well-Made Super-Long Award Show. This might not get much notice amid the bigger-picture goings-on, but this was a very well-produced Oscars, mostly because of the little things. Presenter pairings were smart and exciting, and their banter, during the best moments, felt loose and fun. Kumail Nanjiani and Lupita Nyong’o, Gina Rodriguez and Tom Holland, Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence, and especially the fall-down fantastic duo of Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph were all sparklingly vibrant, with Haddish, Rudolph, and Nanjiani in particular making their best case for hosting one of these things soon. Meanwhile, the clip montages (especially the ones preceding the acting categories) were surprisingly great, and the clips for the nominated actors were well-chosen, and largely not just the same clips we’ve seen all awards season.

SURPRISE: Octogenarians Are Doing It For Themselves. God bless the Oscars for not just chasing youth for youth’s sake. They’ll also honor their own history. This year, that meant that former Supporting Actress winners Eva Marie Saint and Rita Moreno were on hand to present Best Costume Design and Best Foreign Language Film, respectively. And while Saint cheerfully regaled the audience with a few anecdotes and Moreno danced her way to the mic at the front of the stage, it was easy to forget that Saint is 93 and Moreno is 86. Add to them 89-year-old James Ivory winning Best Adapted Screenplay and delivering a moving tribute to his late professional and life partners and you’ve really gotta respect your elders.

SNUBBED: Other Octogenarians. Neither Patrick Stewart, who presented the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards, nor any of the four winners of the honorary Oscars presented at the Governors Awards were brought on stage to present or be otherwise recognized, as has often been the custom. Which is too bad, because Donald Sutherland and Agnes Varda pairing up to present Best Animated Short would’ve been a hoot. So that whole “respect for your elders” thing only went so far, it seems.

SURPRISE: Saving the Best for Last. As mentioned, the four acting categories have been in lock-step all season, which means we’ve heard a lot from Frances and Gary and Sam, and Allison. And while often, by the time these awards sweepers get to the Oscars, they’ve run out of gas, quite a few saved their best speeches for last. Certainly McDormand, who called for all female nominees to stand and then called for those with deal-making power to hire these women. She also got us to look up what a “inclusion rider” is. Meanwhile, Allison Janney’s perfectly-placed “I did it all by myself” was the line of the night by any winner.

SURPRISE: The Group Hug That Saved the World. Okay, maybe not quite to that extent, but after McDormand’s win, the other four Best Actress nominees — Meryl Streep, Sally Hawkins, Margot Robbie, and Saoirse Ronan — took a moment to huddle together, in a moment that summed up the sorority-of-nominees idea that any Oscar class strives for. This year’s nominees were of uncommonly high quality, so all we can hope is that Frances McDormand ends up making that movie with Chloe Zhao and Meryl Streep does indeed agree to play Tiffany Haddish’s mom.