CNN
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Five CNN Opinion culture critics share their takeaways from the 95th Academy Awards. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.
I’m writing this having just left an Oscars watch party in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles thrown by the cast and crew of “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
There, the film’s crucial supporting players – the behind-the-scenes teams and extended cinematic family – gathered to see something none of them could possibly have expected: The film’s sweep of the major Academy Awards.
Along with Best Picture, it won Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for “the Daniels” (Scheinert and Kwan), Best Supporting Actor for eternally humble and happy-just-to-be-here Ke Huy Quan and Best Supporting Actress for ever-authentic-and-original Jamie Lee Curtis. And of course, the long-awaited and much-deserved Best Actress award presented to queen Michelle Yeoh.
It was an evening I’ll remember for a lifetime, surrounded by a crowd ecstatically celebrating as history was repeatedly made, not just with the very deserved wins for this very special film, but by others as well. Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga for their documentary short “The Elephant Whisperers,” Judy Chin as part of the Oscar-winning makeup and hair team for “The Whale,” and M.M. Keeravaani and Chandrabose for their “RRR” dance-off earworm “Naatu Naatu.” It didn’t matter to anyone there that the latter two beat out “EEAAO” in their categories. There was celebration all the same, because we were, for the first time, truly reflected and truly represented, in all of our wild and sometimes weird diversity.
For the first time, I found myself posting a twist on April Reign’s famous hashtag and feeling it in my bones:…
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