When the great Harrison Ford stepped to the microphone to present the last and most important Oscar of the evening – just before 6 a.m. Greek time – no one questioned the contents of the envelope. The two “Daniels” (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert), creators of the triumphant “Everything, Everything”, were already half awake, eager to return to the stage to end the dominance that had begun almost four hours earlier. Their film won a total of seven gold awards, all in key categories, in one of the most boring and predictable award ceremonies in a decade.

The signs were there right from the start: the rather cautious Jimmy Kimmel made sure to get through the fences safely in his opening remarks, making a couple of light-hearted references to last year’s Will Smith slap incident and making Stephen the main target of his scathing remarks. Spielberg. It is truly remarkable that the host of the ceremony spends almost three minutes, on the one hand, describing the achievements nominated for an Oscar in six different decades, and on the other hand, insulting the memory of the mother of someone who ended up winning nothing. Fabelmans, one of the main films of the season, did leave empty-handed, but not the only one.

Completely overlooked, despite their many nominations, were both Martin McDonagh’s wonderful The Spirits of Inisherin and Todd Field’s controversial but undeniably magnificent Tar. Especially anyone who saw the last one would have thought that Cate Blanchett would never lose an Oscar for First Actress, with one of the most complete performances in years; yet Michelle Geo (“Everything, Everything”) won and became the first Asian woman to win in this category. Two of her co-stars, the overjoyed Ki Hui Kwan and haughty Jamie Lee Curtis – in her only career nominations – were also awarded Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.

As for the main character, what was in the film about the two Daniels simply did not exist, so the Oscar went to (fictitious) Brendan Fraser from The Whale, who ended up defeating Austin Butler from Elvis. However, the evening also had a second, albeit smaller, winner. Eduard Berger and Netflix’s German production of No Younger Than the Western Front received four gold statuettes, including Best International Film and Best Picture. in Ukraine, the anti-war character, of course, contributed to the nomination of the film, which nevertheless pleasantly surprised with the quality of its camera work and production.

In the rest of the ceremony and outside the awards, only a few moments stood out, mostly musical: an incendiary performance on stage of the song “Naatu Naatu” from the Indian film “PPR”, which also resulted in the corresponding Oscar. ; and even a minimal rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” (“Top Gun: Maverick”), who briefly ditched her Oscar-winning outfit and make-up to take the stage in a simple mako and jeans, rocking her performance. John Travolta also struggled to hold back tears as he previewed this year’s “commemoration” which included, among others, his girlfriend and former co-star Olivia Newton-John. An unpleasant, but necessary note: we watched all of the above only in the Greek description, since Cosmote TV did not give the opportunity to choose, as in other years, the original American broadcast.

Going back to the winners and trying to make a quick overview, we can say that this year’s Oscar proved one thing beyond measure: if you have… a story, go for it. The groundbreaking, cutting-edge meta-narrative (Everything) left cinematically superior films behind, mainly because it was aimed squarely at the pop-soft underside of (mostly) American audiences. Her script may be far from perfect, for example. Ghosts and its directing may not be at Spielberg’s level, but it has enough style and substance that it’s hard to argue that its overall dominance isn’t entirely fair.