Oscars 2018: 9 Ups & 8 Downs

Downs...

8. That Failed Attempt To Shorten The Ceremony

Because it's a common complaint that the Oscars is a bloated, needlessly overlong ceremony - largely due to the abundance of commercial breaks, let's be honest - Jimmy Kimmel stated at the start of the show that the winner who gives the shortest acceptance speech would win a fancy Kawasaki jet ski.

The almost $18,000 vehicle ended up going to Phantom Thread's costume designer Mark Bridges, who wrapped up his speech in a tidy 36 seconds early in the night, and nobody else ever really came close.

Despite the allure of the jet ski and Kimmel even adding a trip to Lake Havasu later in the broadcast, this year's show still ended up being the longest Oscar ceremony since 2007, clocking in at a brutal 3 hours and 50 minutes.

Considering that some recent shows have run over half-an-hour shorter than this, there clearly needs to be a reworking of the almost unbearably turgid format next year.