I promise, it will be at least a few months before you have to hear me talk about Oscars so much again. I'll still probably talk about movies, but I'm just as likely to discuss my latest re-watching of 17 Again as any award-worthy film (so shoot me - what else is on tv on a Saturday night?).
The Ceremony - The Bad
General consensus is that it was a kind of dull show this year. I had fun watching anyway, for various reasons, but the biggest show in Hollywood shouldn't mean that everyone there takes a break from entertaining us for the night. We, the public, reward you with billions of our dollars so that you can have one of the best jobs in the world. You don't have to be a scripted character, but sweet jeebus at least prepare a witty anecdote or a moving story with which to accept your award. I wasn't really rooting for Sandra Bullock on an artistic level, but I was at least happy she won because she gives a good and entertaining speech rather than a laundry list. Your producer knows that you owe him, as does the casting agent and the man who gets your coffee. That doesn't mean they need or deserve a mention in a list of other names rendered meaningless as you read them off in front of a microphone. Five seconds later only the star and that person will even remember that they were mentioned, and you have a burden to the other million people watching to do something more relevant than that.
Other problems with the ceremony included a corny opening number with Neil Patrick Harris. Is it required that he be a part of everything on television for the next five years? I love him, but seriously. What happened to the old film-montage openings, digitally inserting the hosts into various films of that year? Is only Billy Crystal allowed to do that? If so, bring him back. I love a big gay dance number as much as the next person, actually, much more so than the next person given the fact that I reside in Indiana, but it was corny. Go back to doing what you do best, Hollywood - bring back the montage. Leave the dance numbers to the Tony Awards. I thought Steve and Alec were pretty good hosts, but like other commentators, I'm going to start rooting for the show to be hosted (and written) by Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr. next year, who were by far the best presenters in the history of presenters.
Then we have James Taylor, singing "In My Life" during a death montage that felt like it was on fast forward and didn't include Bea Arthur or Farrah Fawcett, as other friends and commentators have pointed out. How does that idea even look good on paper? The only thing I was thankful for was that they didn't do like some of the previous awards shows have done with the video production choices. In previous shows this season, they merely videotaped the big-screen montage that was being shown in the theater, meaning that I couldn't read half the names put on the screen because of how small they appeared on my medium-sized tv.
Let's see, what else was awful? I know Ben Stiller is being given kudos for appearing in full Avatar makeup and making lewd comments about his tail to James Cameron, but I refuse to acknowledge that he was even at the ceremony. I have blocked it from my memory.
One way they could have avoided going over on the ceremony was to not include that horror-movie montage. Not really necessary, just trying to tap into the latest craze, which is irrelevant to the Oscars because they so rarely get nominated.
I know everyone is against the interpretive dance number. I'll admit, it wasn't as good as I was expecting. I'm probably only defending it because I love the League of Extraordinary Dancers and the alumni of So You Think You Can Dance. Ugh. So let's just pretend that it didn't happen so that I can still be properly excited about both of those things in the future, ok? Besides, it still wasn't half as bad as some of the other choices they've made regarding the music categories in previous years. Am I the only one who remembers something involving seriously bad interpretive dancing and maybe even William Shatner? Or was that a fever dream? I'm not getting any good feedback from Google searches on that front. They also didn't make the people involved with the original song categories perform on stage (worked out great for Robin Williams and South Park, not so great for Amy Adams and Enchanted), and they didn't ask Beyonce to perform every song as if she were the only relevant songstress of the decade. There just isn't a really good way to get music into the production sometimes. They need to take into consideration what the nominees are before making those choices. This year probably would have been a good year to have people perform the songs. Anika Noni Rose, Colin Farrell, Marion Cotillard - they probably could have pulled off a performance. Or whatever - pull in Lady Gaga to do "The Weary Kind". That would have entertained me at least.
The Ceremony - The Good
Anyone else notice a major party missing from the ceremony? No Jack Nicholson this year! It felt like the last couple of years were just people constantly talking to him, about him, etc. It was getting old. Although, this is also kind of a negative, because it means that all of the jokes and attention that would have focused on him instead deflected to Meryl Streep and George Clooney. Streep was affable and entertaining to watch react to the jabs, Clooney looked like was pissed off or seriously ill. I thought he acted fine in the brief moment I saw him on the red carpet, so I don't know what happened, but he looked really tired during the ceremony and barely able to muster a smile.
Gabby Sidibe. Confident, sassy, and yet appropriately awed at the fact that she was sharing screen time with Meryl and got a lauded introduction by Oprah.
Again, Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr.
Most of all, the John Hughes tribute. A few weeks ago, One Tree Hill did an homage episode to Hughes. I know, cheesy - both that I watch One Tree Hill with regularity and that I loved the episode. I'm not going to say that all teen programming is a result of Hughes career, but what Judd Nelson said last night was right on - "He had a gift for treating young people not as children, but as developing adults." He was very influential on my adolescence and the tribute had me sobbing early on.
The Prediction Pool
My little pool consisted of my best friend (Momo), my law school roommate (Jersey) and her boyfriend - all extremely knowledgeable and passionate about movies. I'm sure they were in other pools, but I wanted to get the four of us back in the same pool we had last year in order to offer us a chance at a rematch against Momo. The pre-show rivalry was a bit intense and in the end, Momo came out with the win again. I advised him to stay out of New Jersey for a while. As usual, I lost. I'm never surprised that I lose. I can see exactly where I went wrong, and in every instance it was a situation where I picked who I wanted to win rather than who I knew would win. I read the articles and the analyses. It was almost a certainty that Bullock would pull of the Best Actress win, but I wanted Gabby, so I chose her. I also had indications that Bigelow would pull in the directing award, but I ignored my inclination at the last minute. It seems an anti-feminist thing to do, but in truth it was a very feminist choice. I pretended she was a man. If she was a man, would she have won? Maybe. It was an excellent movie, a challenge for any director and handled brilliantly. But I think part of the reason she won was also politics and the desire to see history made. It's fine, I don't mind it, but I thought Tarantino deserved recognition for his work on Basterds. Of course, that was possibly a political choice as well - James Cameron put an incredible amount of work into Avatar. But I didn't want to see him get up and make a douchy speech like his Titanic one, so that was a no-go for me. A lot of the categories were ones that pretty much everyone in my pool failed - the shorts and the sound categories were especially harsh on my pool members. Sometimes the only thing that saved me from an even bigger loss was the fact that the expected winner that others had chosen didn't win either - Adapted Screenplay going to Push, for instance. I had chosen In the Loop, some of the others had Up in the Air, the expected winner. Only Jersey chose the winner on that one, and she ended up in second place. The decisive factors in Momo's win were probably editing, costume and score. No one else got editing correct, and Jersey didn't get costume or score, so that allowed him to pull ahead in the end, with 15/24 correct. Like I said, it was not a good year. We *all* got Best Picture wrong.
For more entertaining commentary, be sure to check out the collection of slideshows put together on Television Without Pity, one of my favorite websites ever (each word goes to a different recap or discussion).
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