Oscars 2023: Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis wins offer some feel-good moments

”My journey started on a boat. I ended up in a refugee camp. And somehow, I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage. ... They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe this is happening to me. This is the American dream!” – Best supporting actor winner Ke Huy Quan at the 95th Academy Awards.

Even though it was a foregone conclusion Ke Huy Quan was going to take home the Academy Award for his brilliant work in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” this was still one of those Golden Oscar Moments had everyone in the Dolby Theatre on their feet and cheering, and no doubt more than a few viewers at home tearing up. How can you not root for someone who has been through so much and was filled with so much joy for this most deserved win?

The win for Ke Huy Quan was one of the early highlights of the 95th Academy Awards — and it was quickly followed by another triumphant, feel-good moment, when Jamie Lee Curtis won best supporting actress for “Everything…” Referencing her father, Tony Curtis, who was nominated for best actor for “The Defiant Ones,” and her mother, who was nominated for best supporting actress for “Psycho,” the much admired and greatly beloved Curtis looked to the sky as she exalted in her shining moment. Good on you, Laurie Strode!

Sidebar: There was a lot of social media buzz about the look of disappointment on Angela Bassett’s face when her name wasn’t called in the supporting actress category. Hey, WHY NOT. Bassett delivered an Oscar-worthy performance (not the first time, and it won’t be the last), and she seemed to be the frontrunner until the rising tide of support for “Everything …” in recent weeks. It was a very human and very real moment, and a refreshing change of pace from usual practice in which most nominees smile and cheer when someone else’s name is called, when you know they’re dying just a little bit inside.

As for the Oscars as a TV show: It’s always new, and yet it always feels a little bit like a rerun — and no one will ever use terms such as “breezy” or “briskly paced” when talking about the Academy Awards. When you’re handing out 23 trophies, and you’re featuring five musical performances, and you have built-in traditions such as the “In Memoriam” segment, commercial breaks, etc., etc., you’re always looking at a running time to rival that of “Avatar: The Way of Water.”

So it went with this year’s show, which moved along at its own damn pace (about halfway through, Kimmel joked that the hour lost to Daylight Saving Time had been added to the telecast, hahaha), but we did have a few electric moments, e.g., the “Naatu Naatu” performance, which brought down the house, and Lady Gaga’s stripped-down, klller performance of “Hold My Hand.” Fantastic stuff!

The awards kicked off with Brad Pitt in “Babylon” saying, “Time to go make a movie!”, which was followed by a montage of behind-the-scenes footage and brief clips from dozens of 2023 releases reminding us of the magic of movies.

Then it was time for third-time host Jimmy Kimmel to make his entrance — first via special effects trickery that put him in Tom Cruise’s jet fighter plane in “Top Gun: Maverick” and then “parachuting” from the rafters. Kimmel did a solid job — he’s as comfortable as one can be in this relatively thankless role — but there wasn’t a whole lot of edginess beyond some jabs at the self-involved grandiosity of this business of show, e.g., when Kimmel noted, “I also want to say that I’m happy to see that Nicole Kidman has finally been released from that abandoned AMC where she has been held captive for almost two full years now. … And thank you for encouraging people who were already at the movie theater to go to the movie theater.”

Kimmel scored some laughs and few groans when he talked about the difference between television and movies: “There are some things that movies can do that TV just can’t. For example, a TV show can’t lose $100 million. Is the gang from ‘Babylon’ here? They know.”

There was a Pauly Shore joke, a line about Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen being “the Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood,” a corny one-liner about composer John Williams being 91 and “still scoring,” and the inevitable reference to last year’s slapping incident, as when Kimmel noted, “Five Irish actors are nominated tonight. Which means the odds of another fight onstage just went way up.”

And, in a bit that wasn’t far off from my prediction that Kimmel would reference some of the attendees and say they’d intervene if there was any trouble, he name-checked Michael B. Jordan, Pedro Pascal, Michelle Yeoh, among others, and said they were ready to pounce if necessary.

Some two hours later, Hugh Grant was referring to his own face as a particular part of the male anatomy, Elizabeth Banks was sharing the stage with the Cocaine Bear, and “All Quiet on the Western Front” was having a great night, with (deserved) wins for cinematography, international feature, production design and original score.

And we still had more than a half-dozen categories to go. The more the Oscars change, the more certain elements never change.