Host Conan O’Brien missed his cue to take the Oscars stage to perform his opening monologue. He needed a few seconds, it seems, to climb out of Demi Moore’s back à la The Substance. When he eventually did hit the stage, though, he jumped straight into a series of jokes about the year in film in classic awards-show host fashion. Broadly, the jokes were solid. Of The Brutalist, he joked “I didn’t want it to end, and luckily, it didn’t.”; of Anora, he joked that the movie “uses the f-word 479 times” which is “three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist.” Still, this being Conan O’Brien, these jokes — well-crafted thought they were — all felt like an appetizer for a much weirder and more irreverent main course.
An, on that note, the host very much served up the entree his fans expected. The turn started with a bit about Amazon purchasing the 007 franchise: “They just announced the next James Bond. Did you know that? It’s Amazon Senior Vice President of Global Affairs, Steve Belsky!” Cut to: a graphic of a nondescript business executive accompanied by the James Bond theme music. Then, it continued with a bit about Jeff Bezos arriving to the Oscars in an Amazon package, and getting lost because he was stolen by a package thief caught on a doorbell camera. From there, O’Brien cautioned the audience that any and all acceptance speeches that went long would be interrupted by cuts to John Lithgow in the audience looking “not angry, but slightly disappointed.” Cut to: Lithgow wearing a perfectly crestfallen expression. Later, Adam Sandler appeared in the audience in a bit about Sandler’s famously casual fashion-sense, which culminated in Sandler approaching Timothée Chalamet in the audience and saying “Chalamet” in his signature silly voice – a callback to a bit from Nikki Glaser’s Golden Globes monologue earlier this year.
After an extended tangent about the wildfires and the need for award shows that pay tribute to all the people below the line who bring movies to life, O’Brien finally seemed like he was going to get the show on the road. “I am not going to waste your time tonight,” he said, piano keys clinking softly beneath him. Suddenly, he launched into a full-blown musical number, the lyrics of which were all about how he would not waste any more time. “Now, for no good reason, sand worm from Dune 2 playing ‘Chopsticks’ on the piano!”
The whole thing was indeed a gigantic waste of time, but no one was impatiently checking their watch.