Conan O’Brien’s opening skit highlights best Oscars moments

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Heading into Sunday night’s Oscars, Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller Sinners led with a record-breaking 16 nods followed by Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another with 13 nominations, while Marty Supreme, Frankenstein and Sentimental Value tied with nine nominations each.

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Here’s the best and worst of the Academy Awards:

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THE BEST

— Birds of a Feather: Demi Moore (Gucci), Teyana Taylor (Chanel) and Nicole Kidman (Louis Vuitton) all wore stunning feathered gowns,

— Ladies in Red: Jessie Buckley, resplendent in a red top and pink skirt (Chanel), and Renate Reinsve in a strapless, asymmetrical red gown with a slit (Nicolas Ghesquière for Louis Vuitton).

— Silver beats gold: Emma Stone in a backless empire-waisted, liquid-looking silver gown by Louis Vuitton.

— Making an impression: Host Conan O’Brien’s opening skit was him made up in the red fright wig, white makeup, smeared red lipstick and glasses of Weapons villain Aunt Gladys (a performance for which Amy Madigan would later deservedly win best supporting actress and thanked husband Ed Harris in the crowd “who’s been with me a long-ass time”) as he’s chased by screaming children through various other movie scenes (Marty Supreme, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, Sinners) while the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage plays. “I can’t believe I learned Norwegian for this,” he says to Stellan Skarsgard at the end of their Sentimental Value scene.

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— The first of many AI digs, from O’Brien, “I’m honoured to be the last human host of the Academy Awards.”

— The Pope, Josh Groban and Cicero the Eagle: O’Brien pretending to not so humbly win an Oscar as a velvet cape and crown is placed on him, he’s blessed by the Pope on way to the stage while Groban sings and an eagle delivers the award to his outstretched arm.

— O’Brien vs Trump: “We’re coming to you live from The Small Penis Theatre. Let’s see who puts their name in front of that?’ (Trump put his name in front of the Kennedy Centre.)

— I Lied to You, the Oscar-nominated song from Sinners: Dozens of guitarists, dancers, and singers including Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard and Shaboozey took over the Oscars stage while ballerina Misty Copeland appeared at the end. (Another shading of Timothee Chalamet? See under worst.)

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— Billy Crystal honouring his best friend, the late Rob Reiner, who he met in 1975 on All in the Family where they played BFs, and was later joined on the Oscars stage by many actors from Reiner’s movies including Demi Moore, Keifer Sutherland and Christopher Guest: “The comedy was turned up to 11,” Crystal said of Reiner’s first film as a director, the hilarious mockumentary Spinal Tap. “My friend Rob’s movies will last for lifetimes. And for those of us, who had the privilege of working with him and loving him, all we can say is, ‘Buddy, what fun we had storming the castle.’”

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— Rachel McAdams paying tribute to Diane Keaton, Catherine O’ Hara, Diane Ladd and Claudia Cardinale by quoting the old Girl Scout song Keaton used to sing on set, adding: “She meant so much to so many of us. To our friend Diane Keaton, celebrating a life in silver and gold, a legend with no end.”

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— Barbra Streisand honouring Robert Redford, who said he first turned down the role opposite her in The Way We Were, and later sang a bit of the classic movie’s theme song: “He said the character had no backbone. ‘He doesn’t stand for anything.’ And he was right. So many drafts later, Bob finally agreed to do it. Bob had real backbone, on and off the screen.”

— Jimmy Kimmel presenting the best documentary: “As you know there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS.”