Daily life in the USA: Oscar night

Dominating social media, the news and the papers for weeks, the Academy Awards are propably the most talked about awardshow of the year in the US. Named by Bryan Cranston as the 'Hollywood Holiday', it causes daring betting pools at work, hundreds of predictions online and endless pre-shows and after-party's. In the end it all evolves around the question of who will win the highly desired 'Oscar' for best actor, best actress and best film. And will it finally be Leo's year?

But besides these film related questions, the debate dominating everything this year was the diversity issue after no colored actor was nominated. It proves how important this Awardshow has become in American life. Therefore, I just had to watch my first ever live Oscar show.

These are my highlights of the 88th Academy Awards, in random order:

Chris Rock. De host of this year's Oscar

s was comedian Chris Rock. Even though he was pressured to step down as a host among the diversity debate, being a person with dark skin himself, he stayed on and did an amazing job. He opened the show with a strong monlogue about the diversity issue and added humor to the debate and the show as a whole. Especially the short remakes of the trailers of the nominated movies for best film were really funny and a great way to address it.

Mad Max: Fury Road. Sweeping away a number of 6 oscars at the award show, Mad Max was the surprising winner. Although all in technical categories, it does say something about a changing mentality at the Academy. Mad Max is, after all, a rough and violent film, one that some years ago would never have been recognised. Personally, I am glad something changed and the Oscars are well deserved!

Lady Gaga.

She changed from the weird girl wearing meat to a powerful singer making a statement about sexual assault. Her strong performance therefore made it to my list of highlights...

Sasha Baron Cohen. Comedian Baron Cohen introduced Oscar nominated picture Room. And he didn't do this as himself, but as his most popular character 'Ali G': 'I know what you was thinking when I walked on, here comes yet another Black presenter.(...) But I is here. Representing all them that was overlooked. (..) Now check out a movie about a room full of white people.'

The minions, Toy Story & 3CPO. The Academy introduced a whole new category of presenters when inviting The Minions and Toy Story characters onto the stage. It was funny and a fresh breath of air after all the serious actor faces. Afer the visuals of The Minions there was a real life 3CPO walking on stage, resembling himself to the Oscar statue... A nice touch and one of my (geeky) highlights!

Ennio Morricone. At 87 years old Italian composer Ennio Morricone finally won his first Oscar for his music in The Hateful Eight. The fragile man really moved the audience when accepting his award and nobody questioned whether he deserved it or not.

Leo. Last but certainly not least is DiCaprio's his

toric (yes, I can say that) win at the Oscars. It wasn't a big surprise, but still resulted in a standing ovation from the crowd at the Dolby Theatre and teary eyes after he finally won his first Academy Award, 22 years after his first nomination. This makes me believe it wasn't only for his amazing performance in The Revenant (go see it!) but appreciation from the film industry for all of his work. And even though this was probably the most well deserved Oscar ever, there is one minor disadvantage about him winning: no more #OscarforLeo memes...