Every best picture nominee won at least one Oscar at last night’s award show. With eight films nominated, that’s a lot of love to spread around. Were this year’s Oscars the little-league version of an award show, where everyone gets a prize just for showing up?
There are usually patterns in play for Oscar wins: the film to nab the Golden Globe sprints ahead as the best chance for the Oscar; the best picture winner should also be in the running for best editing; and at least one film goes home empty handed – though this year, at least there were Lego-Oscars to fill the statue-shaped hole in their hearts.
But that didn’t happen. Every picture got an award in some category, and though some didn’t think certain wins were fair, this is the first year that’s happened since 2008, when only five films were up for best picture, Vanity Fair reports. The Golden Globes gave Richard Linklater best director and his film Boyhood best drama, as well as How To Train Your Dragon 2 best animated feature, sentiments that were not echoed by the academy.
Vanity Fair’s Katy Rich wrote that, though “the Oscars are rarely completely right or even fair to all the films it selects…this year, more than most others, a lot of people got to go home with prizes – truer to the spirit of celebrating movies, and more fun to watch, to boot.”
It may seem that there’s a bit of please-everyone/participation-awards mentality happening, but this year did give us a lot of great movies. All the mom-and-pop-love may have been more than you would see at a little league game, though, where the high-stakes to win can actually encourage bad parenting (as well as intense shame when your dad starts a fight in the bleachers). But there were a lot of proud parents at the Oscars, and on a night when jokes fell flat, it’s nice to have that heart-warming camaraderie.
Now, go call your mom.
