Great winners, Horrible ceremony
If there's one word to describe this year's Oscar ceremony, it's CHEAP. Ironic considering how the nominations went full-blown money whoring this year but the entire production from the camera work (the first 10 minutes of the show felt like an amateur high school production) to the stars presenting (why are all these TV people here?) just felt like a cheap knock-off of last year's entertaining albeit trashy show. Tina Fey presents the same category! So do Cameron Diaz and Sarah Jessica Parker it seems every time. Ben Stiller put on a crazy costume.. again! The show ran over three and a half hours, which explains why Tom Hanks just skipped right to "the winner is.." without even recapping the Best Picture nominees. It felt like five hours to be honest. The order of the presentations was completely batshit. Why on earth would they present Best Original Screenplay so early on? That's one of the biggest categories and is usually presented near the end, sometimes even after a lead acting category.
The predictability of the winners was not much of an issue. It was more a relief and a sign that you could let go of the anxiety and just enjoy (?) the show. By the time The Hurt Locker won Best Original Screenplay, anyone who's paid attention to this awards season knew the show was over. After it won both Sound categories, it was beyond over. One thing to remember: everyone in the Academy votes for those categories and most likely very few know what good sound editing/mixing is. So what do they do? They put a check next to their favorite movie in the bunch. Then for the second category, they check off their next favorite movie. The fact that The Hurt Locker won both means the Academy loved it. The BIG question every year is-- who came in second for Best Picture? They will never release this to the public but looking at the composite of this year's winners, I would venture a guess that it wasn't Avatar or even Inglourious Basterds but Precious that ended up as the runner-up.
The horror montage had absolutely no purpose at all. There isn't a horror movie nominated this year even. The John Hughes tribute, while nice, felt unnecessary as well especially considering folks like Robert Altman, Sydney Pollack, Ingmar Bergman and Elia Kazan died in past years but never got anything beyond a spot in the In Memoriam segment. Yes, I get that a bunch of 40-something TV actors want to have a reunion but Oscars are not the place for that. The interpretative dancing was a mildly entertaining but completely irrelevant. The dances were pretty much random and had no relation to the films (especially The Hurt Locker one). It was just an undignified way to present this category. Remember at the 78th Oscars when Itzhak Perlman played snippets of the nominees? Well, that's how you make the show interesting but still elegant.
Did anyone else wonder why the camera constantly panned to Meryl Streep and George Clooney? Cause they were like the only legit Hollywood stars there. Yeah, Tom Hanks was there but it seemed like he just popped in there at the end to present Best Picture. The Oscars are supposed to be the biggest gathering of movie stars of the year. Instead, this year felt like the biggest gathering of has-beens, tween stars who will soon be has-beens, almost stars but not quite and a few real stars scattered here and there (aka the people who won last year plus George, Meryl and some of the 'friends' presenters). Honestly, when the 'friends' of the lead actors and Winslet/Penn stepped on stage, for the first time, it felt like "wow, these are the REAL Oscars". There was more star power on that stage to present the two lead acting categories than the entire show prior to that. And it truly is PAINFULLY obvious who is a real Hollywood star and who isn't by the way they presented. Kate Winslet is a true star. She whipped through her presentation like she hadn't a care in the world and could do this in her sleep. She gave a little 'screw you' to the producers by saying "And the Oscar goes to..." anyways. The folks giving the 'friend' speeches are real stars. They were eloquent and natural on stage. The tween actors and the newcomers just sounded ridiculously awkward in comparison. I mean, Jesus Fucking Christ, was Sam Worthington chewing GUM while presenting? Again, this is Oscar. Give the important jobs to the grown-ups. Diane Keaton. Nicole Kidman. Gwyneth Paltrow. Brad Pitt. Harrison Ford. They all have more reason to be there than Miley Cyrus and KStew, and it would've been a much better show that way.
Steve Martin is usually a competent host but having Alec Baldwin attached to his hip just made his delivery stiffer and less natural. What you want from an Oscar host is an ability to read jokes off a teleprompter without appearing to read off a teleprompter. Normally, both of these guys have a free-flowing comedic talent that feels spontaneous but having to alternate jokes on Oscar night just didn't work. None of their jokes stand out really. They were all very safe, mildly amusing pokes at all the people in the audience. No shocking groans but no big hits either. The Dame Helen Mirren joke was the closest thing to a real laugh. It makes me miss Chris Rock hosting even if he had a few tankers, he also had some really big laughs in there too and he wasn't afraid to offend anybody. Or Jon Stewart. He never made a big fuss about all the celebrities cause he's a political comedian but his monologues were tight, less fluffy and got right to the point. But of course, these Oscar producers think the audience wants BIGGER and FLUFFIER, which really has no effect on ratings. When blockbusters get nominated, people tune it. When great movies that no one saw get nominated (2007), people don't tune it. End of story. Stop trying to lure viewers with pyrotechnics and inane interpretative dance. No one cares.
Truthfully, the winners and speeches were some of the best of the decade at least. Except for a few bad eggs here and there (screenplays, cinematography and actress), the winners were quite spot-on. In my opinion, the best picture winner this year ranks among No Country for Old Men, The Departed and Return of the King in terms of deserving the award. It's just a shame they had to suffer through such an awful ceremony to have their moment. While her performance wasn't deserving of an Oscar, Sandra Bullock gave probably the best speech by an actress on the Oscar stage in the last decade. She was alternately funny, touching and humble. She wasn't a babbling mess like most actresses who win. She even paid tribute to her fellow nominees separately and didn't just clump them together. It's kind of amazing that Kathryn Bigelow was the biggest star of the evening. She's not a 20-something actress but a 60 year-old director of a completely unglamorous war drama, yet her history making moment was the big story.
And in the end, I suppose the winners are what count. Not how extravagant the show is. The Hurt Locker winning 6 Oscars, 3 more than its nearest competitor is quite an accomplishment for a movie that struggled to find an audience in theaters and is the lowest grossing Best Picture winner since Gigi in the 1950s (and that's NOT adjusted for inflation). What a way to cap off a decade that started off by giving the big Oscar to the blockbuster Gladiator over the far superior Traffic. Say what you will about the Academy's sometimes questionable taste, but they should be applauded for sticking to their guns on this one and not letting the entertainment media deter them from choosing the film they wanted. With all that talk about last minute ballots and campaign controversies that the media shoved down our throats, the right movie still won. And probably won by a wide margin looking at the other awards.
Oh and that crazy red-headed lady. She was pretty fun.