2025 Oscars Winners and Losers
Also, the return of What We Watchin Wednesday's on an actual Wednesday. What a concept.
Winners and Losers of the 2025 Academy Awards
I watched the Oscars on Sunday night, well, most of it. The Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns game started at 9:30—and by that point, I noticed I hadn’t actually seen any of the nominated movies, so it felt right to move on.
HOWEVER, I watched enough. I got the gist.
Let’s quickly do some winners and losers so we can get to What We Watchin Wednesday.
Winner: Conan O’Brien
Conan’s superpower is his ability to turn into Bugs Bunny, tricking Elmer Fudd into shooting himself in the face or openly mocking Karla Sofía Gascón’s toxic digital footprint.
He’s always felt as if he’d rather make fun of himself than others. Working for Conan must be the dream job. You get paid to roast your boss all day, although, I reckon I’ve done that at every job I’ve ever had anyway.
In past years, the host went up there insulting actors, shifting the vibe in the room from celebratory to cautious—forcing everyone to walk on eggshells to avoid stepping on a rake of pretentiousness the host began the program making the audience hyper-aware of.
Sometimes, the host would be so antagonistic, Will Smith would smack them into concussion protocol.
In a world where most of the comedians we grew up idolizing have become uptight, standoffish, reactionary weirdos, desperate to fight an imaginary war against censorship or whatever—Conan O’Brien demonstrated the secret of great comedy: be funny.
Losers: Whoever goes against Jeremy Strong next year
The Best Supporting Actor Award was given to Kieran Culkin—who went on stage and praised his Succession co-star, and fellow nominee, Jeremy Strong.
But from the moment his name wasn’t called, Jeremy appeared to turn into the Joker. I could see his brain formulating plans to poison Gotham’s water supply.
Jeremy Strong is the type of actor—who if cast in the role of Ronald McDonald—would spend 6 months living in a McDonald’s ball pit.
If art is suffering, Jeremy Strong is more prolific than Picasso.
This loss is about to send Jeremy Strong into the best acting performance we’ve ever witnessed. The world is about to change.
Winner Kylie Jenner
Kylie Jenner’s had a weird life.
As a young girl, fame was thrust upon her by a family of carnies—including her Olympian father who is now her bigoted mother, rushing to Fox News to make sure life is harder for people like her.
Tyga was basically waiting outside of her crib like a dingo, slow-cooking her like a pot roast for 18 years so he could legally date her.
Then she had a child with Travis Scott named Stormi, while porn star Stormy Daniels was in the news for her relationship with Donald Trump. She named her child after a 90s VHS porn star. And I don’t even think it was a conscious decision. It’s like when I suddenly want Dominos because I’ve inadvertently internalized the 7 Dominos commercials I watched throughout the day.
And now she’s a billionaire, plus-one-ing the Oscars with Timothee Chalamet—one of the most respected actors in a room full of respected actors—all while the father of her child spent the weekend with The Rock and John Cena.
Good for Kylie.
Winner: Zoe Saldana
Around the holidays, I saw Zoe Saldana in a T-Mobile iPhone commercial and thought to myself “This woman is gorgeous, I wish she starred in better movies”.
Then I watched Emilia Perez and thought to myself “This woman is gorgeous, I wish she starred in better movies”.
I have no doubts Zoe put her all into this role like Leonardi DiCaprio dragging his body through snow in The Revenant for his Oscar. Effort should be rewarded. Good for her winning an Academy Award and immediately bursting into tears.
Zoe Saldana *needed* this. After a career of painting her skin every color, she finally got her Sally Field “You like me” moment for a movie most people don’t like.
Loser: Israel
For years, it seemed as though any criticisms of Israel could end your career but recently, the discourse has shifted so much that we’ve gone from celebrities doing the bare minimum with their little “Ceasefire” pins—implying the hellscape in Gaza would be remedied by a friendly handshake between neighbors—to now documentaries like No Other Land wining Oscars as more and more people recognize the asymmetrical power imbalance between the wealthy nation fueled by American dollars in perpituaty and the nation under their thumb that is, like, a month away from being removed from the map and turned into a Vegas strip, flooded with Trump Towers and casinos.
Winner: Demi Moore
I haven’t seen Anora yet but I trust the good things I’ve heard. Congrats to Mikey Madison for winning Best Actress.
Typically, the Academy is preferential to older talent, under the belief younger actors will have more future opportunities to return so it’s dope they didn’t get cute this year and just gave it to the woman they deemed most deserving.
But I want to say congrats to Demi Moore—who for the first time in her career, had a performance that made fans genuinely believe she deserves an Oscar. She may have lost to Mikey Madison—thus living the plot of The Substance in real life—but like Zoe Saldana, Demi gained the respect of her peers and can now put her full focus on her true love: collecting dolls.
Loser: Me, caring about The Wild Robot
11pm, me weeping while watching The Wild Robot—a movie about a service robot accidentally landing in the wilderness and raising a baby bird to adulthood. Only for The Wild Robot to lose Best Animated Film. All those tears for nothing.
#Justice4TheWildRobot
What We Watchin Wednesday
Welcome to What We Watchin Wednesday where maybe I help you guys decide what nonsense you should stream next.
Kitchen Nightmares (Fox)
Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares is the best cooking, remodeling, Bar Rescue-rip off ever made. Chef Gordon Ramsey travels across the country to help struggling restaurants, oftentimes over $500,000 in debt, and every episode is exactly the same.
Gordon Ramsey shows up, orders everything off the menu, spits it up in a napkin. Repeat.
No better TV out there.
He quickly identifies the problem, and it’s the same for literally all of these restaurants—their food isn’t freshly prepared and their walk-in cooler is full of moldy, used-to-be food.
Gordon tells these genius restaurant owners to cook fresh food on the day instead of thawing out and microwaving meals from earlier in the week and uh, clean up.
They do.
Then Gordon leaves.
He doesn’t appear to teach them anything in regards to marketing their business, or balancing the books or where to even order fresh daily supplies so they can implement the new menu Gordon provided them.
Gordon appears. Calls them dirty. Leaves.
Yes, chef. 5 stars.
Severance Season 2 (Apple TV)
Severance is one of those mystery box shows where every episode provides more questions than answers so I don’t have much to say about the season until it’s over but I will say, Severance is the most visually engaging show I’ve ever seen, mindful of every color in the room, every outfit choice, the placement of every object—Severance is a show for us real TV sickos who pay attention to details that don’t really matter. This show is for the sickos.
White Lotus Season 3 (HBO)
I love White Lotus—a show where, every season, a new group of wealthy maniacs travel to an exotic resort to experience life-altering trauma at the hands of their own gluttony, greed and hubris.
This season has my favorite actress in the world, Carrie Coon, playing a recent divorcee reconnecting with her two besties—who all gossip behind each other’s backs and don’t seem to actually like one another at all.
But this dramatic, drunk weep stole me. Put Carrie Coon in every TV show.
Postcards From The Edge (1990)
Postcards From The Edge is a comedy starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Carrie Fisher—sort of, kinda, about her life in the entertainment industry growing up with a famous mother.
Meryl Streep is incredible. Duh. But Shirley MacLaine takes this story—about an older actress scratching and clawing to maintain her waning star status, refusing to fully pass the baton and allow her daughter to shine with her full support—into reality, as she makes Meryl earn every scene with her.
It twirled up.
Nominated for 6 Acadamey Awards in her career, to me, Postcards From The Edge is Shirley MacLaine’s best work, as she kindaaaa just plays herself—a remnant from the golden age of Hollywood coming face-to-face with her replacement.
RIP Gene Hackman
Upon hearing of the passing of acting legend Gene Hackman, I did the only thing one can do in this scenario: I put on a Meryl Streep movie having no idea Hackman was even in it.
Gene Hackman appears in only 2 scenes but grounds the movie in reality—outside of Meryl’s addiction and mommy issues—snapping Meryl Streep’s character out of her own nonsense and back into the larger world around her.
In the beginning of the film, you are led to believe Meryl Streep is a care-free, charming, out-going, successful actress, having the time of her life on a movie set before director, Gene Hackman, calls cut, shouting at Meryl when he recognizes she’s coked up—dismissing her for the day, leading to Meryl overdosing later that night with Dennis Quaid. I imagine Dennis Quaid didn’t research too long for this role either.
Gene Hackman isn’t seen again until the end of the movie for one of the best scenes in his career.
Rip.
Thanks for reading. All typos are twirl ups.