Kimmel on Spider-Man Oscar snub: ‘When did we decide the best picture has to be serious?’
Jimmy Kimmel took issue with the 2022 Oscar nominations announced on Tuesday morning, which did not include a nod for last year’s biggest blockbuster, Spider-Man: No Way Home. “How did that not get one of the ten nominations for best picture? There were only 11 movies made this year!” he joked on Tuesday night.
“Forget the fact that the movie made $750m and is still going – this is a great movie. It wasn’t in the top 10 best movies of the year? There were three Spidermen in it!”
Kimmel was particularly annoyed that Spider-Man, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya, was snubbed in favor of such “serious” movies as Don’t Look Up, a darkly comic parable for climate emergency directed by Adam McKay.
“You’re telling me Don’t Look Up was better than Spider-Man? It most certainly was not,” Kimmel said. “When did we decide that the best picture has to be serious? As far as I know, this was not the point of feature film when they started making them. Ben-hur? Chariots and leprosy. Frankenstein? A monster powered by lightning. Fantasia? Mickey Mouse on an acid trip. The Wizard of Oz? Flying monkeys and a witch. These are great Oscar-worthy movies!
“Now, there’s nothing wrong with a serious movie, a lot of them are fantastic and worthy of Oscars,” he added. “But why do they have to be serious, is what I’m saying. When did that become a prerequisite for getting nominated for an Academy Award?”
“Here’s what happened,” he concluded. “The Academy voters, they looked at the list, they saw the names Leo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep, they checked that box, and then they put their kids in the car and they went to see the movie Spider-Man, and they loved it.”
Trevor Noah
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah checked in on efforts to curb Russia’s incursion on the border of Ukraine, which has teetered on the brink of open conflict. “Because war is bad for business and also human life,” Noah explained, “every country is trying everything that they can to talk Russia down from its invasion plans,” including the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who met with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday.
“People had high hopes for this meeting,” said Noah. “Because the French and the Russians, they have a lot in common. For example, both have disgusting salad dressings named after them. But despite this commonality, the meeting did not go well.”
After five hours of tense negotiations at the Kremlin, talks of de-escalation appeared to fail, and Macron warned that “the risk of destabilisation is increasing.” But Noah only had eyes for the biggest thing in the room: Putin’s massive white meeting table, was was over 20ft long.
“Why are they sitting so far apart? I’ve been in zoom meetings where I’m sitting closer to the other person,” he mocked. “Why do you even have a table so big? Did you see that thing? Maybe Putin isn’t trying to take over Ukraine because he’s evil – maybe he just needs space for his giant fucking furniture.”
“Apparently the reason for this distance is because they want to make sure that everyone is safe,” he continued. “And I’m not talking about Covid; I’m talking about Putin. Yeah, if he wants to kill you, at least with this table he’s got to catch an Uber to get to your end.”