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Oscars 2025 Review: ‘Anora’ One Bites the Dust

Rob Sheffield reviews the 2025 Oscars, which were long, drama-free, and featured a solid performance by host Conan O'Brien.

Coco set out to mock and humiliate the ceremony, which gave him a devious way of looking sharper than his material, starting when he was introduced as “four-time Oscar viewer Conan O’Brien.” As he said, “ A Complete Unknown, A Real Pain, Nosferatu —these are just some of the names I was called on the red carpet.” As a star who owes Hollywood nada, he breezed from killer lines to duds without seeming to care or even notice the difference, so it kept everyone on their toes. She called herself “a proud child of immigrant parents,” as the first winner of Dominican heritage, and dedicated the award to her grandmother, adding a shout out to “my husband, with that beautiful hair.” It brings a merciful end to the long, bizarre, and exhausting saga of Emilia Pérez ’ award-season campaign, which might someday inspire a better film. This is a welcome Oscar trend—let’s face it, we’re all still traumatized from the In Memoriam debacle three years ago with a stage full of cheerleaders doing jazz hands to “Spirit in the Sky.” The montage moved a little fast, maybe, with mini-clips for actors but not writers or directors; perhaps Robert Towne deserved a few lines of dialogue.

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