Jimmy Kimmel has plenty of experience with hosting, from his late-night talk show to various award ceremonies, like last year's Emmys. 2017, however, marks his first time hosting the Academy Awards. Earlier we covered how he used tonight to continue his feud with Matt Damon, but now Kimmel's entire monologue is available to watch.
Kicking off his monologue (posted on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel) by observing how the Academy Awards is being viewed across the world by 225 countries "that now hate us." Jimmy Kimmel then got in a little self-deprecation in by making it clear he would not be the one uniting everyone tonight, though in the process got in a couple digs at Mel Gibson ("Mel, you look great. I think the Scientology is really working.") Even though he's not the man who will fix all our problems, Kimmel did try to bring about a little peace by calling for us to have a conversation with someone not as a liberal or conservative, but as an America. Of course, that was just a ruse for him to target Matt Damon, but we've already been through that.
After getting the Damon insults out of the way, Jimmy Kimmel proceeded to target some of the award contenders, from noting how La La Land director Damien Chazelle will be able to go to any college he wants if he wins, to telling actress Isabelle Huppert that even though no one in the room saw her movie Elle, they absolutely loved it. Well, she's in good company, because Kimmel also noted how no one saw Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic. That also earned positive reviews, by the way.
Of course, if you paid any attention to the Golden Globes ceremony last month, you know that afterwards, President Donald Trump tweeted out how "overrated" Meryl Streep is after she spoke out against him. Not wanting to leave that to die. Jimmy Kimmel proceeded to reaffirm how "overrated" Streep is to the audience, and while the actress clearly wasn't keen on the attention at first, she took the jabs like a champ. In case Kimmel was being too subtle for some of you, we actually love Streep. She's a national treasure.
We'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn if/what President Trump tweets about this year's Academy Awards ceremony, but as far as monologues go, Jimmy Kimmel did a good job. He brought his usual brand of sarcastic humor to the table, and it got solid reactions. If the monologue wasn't enough for you, Kimmel also air dropped candy for the attendees and pranked a tourist group. All of this was basically like his talk show, only with more tuxedos and gowns. And that's just fine!
