Welcome to <\/span>The Content Report<\/strong>, a newsletter by Vince Mancini. I\u2019ve been writing about movies, culture, and food since the late aughts. Now I\u2019m delivering it straight to you, with none of the autoplay videos, takeover ads, or chumboxes of the ad-ruined internet. Support my work and help me bring back the cool internet by subscribing, sharing, commenting, and keeping it real.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n <\/a>ABC<\/div>\n The 98th Academy Awards took place last night, and so far most of the reactions I\u2019ve read have focused only on the most evergreen of Oscars telecast gripes. It was too long, it was boring, the speeches were too preachy, they raved about movies I haven\u2019t seen, and blah blah blah. They could\u2019ve all been pre-written. <\/span>It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the celebs are at it again<\/a>, and so forth. <\/span><\/p>\n As some <\/span>dweeb in the celebrity.land wrote<\/a>, \u201cEntertainment for the viewers at home often got the brush in favor of repetitious politics. A lot of the speeches were finger-waggy without any emotional oomph beneath them. Call me old fashioned, but I\u2019m a big fan of: Let your work speak for itself and don\u2019t go over your allotted time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I am not familiar with \u201cgot the brush\u201d as an idiom, but \u201cfinger waggy?\u201d I can remember exactly one person saying something explicitly political the entire evening: Javier Bardem, who led his presenter bit with \u201cNo to war and free Palestine.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Deadline<\/span>@DEADLINE<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Javier Bardem at the #Oscars<\/span>: \u201cNo to war and Free Palestine!\u201d <\/p>\n 2:05 AM \u00b7 Mar 16, 2026<\/span> \u00b7 <\/span>619K Views<\/span><\/p>\n 255 Replies<\/span> \u00b7 <\/span>1.77K Reposts<\/span> \u00b7 <\/span>7.86K Likes<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 12 seconds! Does that seem finger waggy to you? It was tasteful, succinct, and correct, if you ask me.<\/p>\n Overall it was a shockingly apolitical ceremony (minus some oblique references to fascism and a few Jimmy Kimmel jokes about <\/span>Melania) given that it took place just weeks after the outbreak of a new illegal war in the Middle East. You might say it was even a little disappointing in that regard. Certainly this year\u2019s ceremony lacked anything like Michael Moore getting booed for opposing the Iraq War in 2003. As a <\/span>commenter wrote here<\/a> a few days ago, \u201cI don\u2019t think this war has penetrated the collective consciousness a tenth as much as Iraq did in \u201803, so I won\u2019t be surprised if Hollywood has no problem ignoring it altogether.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That certainly seems to have been proven broadly correct. Though I have to think there was also an element of calling this war out as a folly seeming redundant, and being outspoken about it seeming a little pointless. If Trump and his buddies didn\u2019t care about public opinion enough to even make a case for this war before they started it, why would they care what the public thinks <\/span>now? Broadly it was a little disappointing, but I can also understand just wanting to enjoy your one shining moment of professional recognition at the pinnacle of your career.<\/span><\/p>\n As far as surprises go, they were few and far between. The live-action short Oscar ended in a tie, Michael B. Jordan took a surprise(ish) victory over Chalamet in the best actor category (the opera singer\/ballet dancers\u2019 revenge!), and Sean Penn <\/span>did end up winning supporting actor (his third Oscar), though he didn\u2019t bother showing up to accept it. <\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!ymS0!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbd0b9b89-77cb-44c0-9c17-300e46456386_1200x680.jpeg\")
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