Award season is officially over. That means no more viewing parties for another year, a sad prospect for those of us who look forward to the guilty pleasure that is award shows. The 89th Academy Awards were the perfect way to finish out the season, however. For anyone who missed the show or simply didn't have the energy to stay up until midnight, it did not disappoint. The best moments of the night can be found below.
1. Justin Timberlake's amazing performance
He killed it as always. There’s no better way to have started the Oscar’s than having someone like Justin who has yet to give a bad live performance. He was as charming as ever, even stopping to plant a kiss on his wife Jessica Biel, and did not disappoint with his amazing voice and dance skills.
2. Viola Davis's acceptance speech
Based on the fairly depressing topics of so many of this year’s nominated films, from Moonlight to Manchester by the Sea, tears were pretty much expected tonight. Viola Davis looked beautiful as always and once again gave a heartfelt acceptance speech about how the film she was nominated for, Fences, is one of many that recognizes the trials and triumphs of ordinary people. Even Jimmy Kimmel pointed out how moving it was.
While presenting the award for Best Animated Feature film Bernal referenced Trump's wall saying, "As a human being I'm against any form of wall that wants to separate us." This is a topic many expected would come up at least once at this year's Oscars and was, of course, greeted with a round of applause by the audience.
3. The adorable Sunny Pawar
Though it only lasted a few short moments, Jimmy Kimmel and Sunny Pawar's reenactment of the famous scene from "The Lion King" presenting Simba was too cute to put into words. The 8-year-old "Lion" star allowed the host to lift him high for the crowd to see and smiled through the entire stunt clearly enjoying his first Oscar night.
4. Jimmy Kimmel tweets Donald Trump
The show surprisingly managed to be nearly half way over with little mention of Trump directly but Jimmy made sure to fix that. He tweeted "Meryl says hi" at Donald Trump because as we all know Meryl Streep is so overrated.
5. John Legend's Performance
The music of "La La Land" has been talked about for months leading up to the many award shows in which it was nominated and John Legend's rendition of the 2 songs nominated from the movie definitely did them justice. Though there was never any question that he would.
6. Sara Bareilles' tribute & Jennifer Aniston's introductory speech
Not only did Sara Bareille's perform a beautiful song as we remembered the many lives lost this past year, Jennifer Aniston, who came on to stage the in memorial segment, could scarcely get her words out as she spoke of Bill Paxton's passing not 48 hours ago. It was one of the more serious and touching moments of the night especially with the unusually large amount of film icons that passed away in recent months.
7. The ongoing dispute between Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon
The drawn out battle between these two was not put on the pause for even a night as Jimmy repeatedly jabbed Matt Damon, even playing him off the stage during his presentation, alongside Ben Affleck, for Best Original Screenplay, the award the two won in 1998 for Good Will Hunting. Kimmel and Damon went back and forth for the duration of the show and Matt couldn't have been a better sport.
8. The Best Picture fiasco
The most memorable moment of all happened in the last few minutes during the presentation of the last and most coveted award of the night, Best Picture. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway mistakenly announced the winner as La La Land and the real winner "Moonlight" was only revealed when "La La Land" producer Jordan Horowitz announced the mix up. Easily the most awkward portion to watch, and most memorable too.
Though admittedly this show might be best watched on your DVR without the annoyance of commercials and a more than 3-hour running time, it is undoubtedly an event worth watching.
