Oscars!!!!!!!!!
83rd Annual Academy Awards Review
Overall, I think the show was not quite a disaster but not good. It was a big mistake to hire two actors who had never even met to host TOGETHER. Sure, they're both pretty fun people by themselves but their chemistry just did not work for the most part. James Franco looked totally bored for most of the show and apparently, did more tweeting backstage than actual hosting. Anne had to do all the heavy lifting and it just seemed really obvious that she was trying to overcompensate with extra bubbly enthusiasm that eventually became too over the top. She is very talented girl, there's no question, and I feel like the show would've been better if she just had this hosting gig to herself and didn't get dragged down by a co-host who seemed like he could care less. The double host should only be used if the two people have some kind of well-known professional and/or personal relationship, like if Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hosted. You can't just take two people who seem cool, throw them together and except a great show.
The opening video skit where they go through all the nominated movies was pretty funny, but it was too reminiscent of Billy Crystal's shtick and the MTV Movie Awards. But at least in the opening, Franco and Hathaway's chemistry worked well (probably because it's pre-taped and edited, so they could "work on it"). The monologue was not memorable at all. That's kind of when Hathaway's over enthusiasm started clashing with Franco's lack of caring. I did like when they talked about how lesbians were a big deal this year and "where's the dad?" in Toy Story. lol. The only time that I felt like Franco's heart was in it was when he talked about how dirty the titles were (How to Train Your Dragon, lol). Overall, it just seemed really unbalanced. I feel like I saw Anne Hathaway waaaayy more than James Franco.
The absolute worst and most pointless waste of money/time ever was the "scenic transition" idea where they randomly jump to past Oscars and then vaguely connect what's going on in the background to what awards they're presenting. Oh, Tom Hanks is presenting Art Direction and Cinematography, let's fill the background with past best picture winning films that have won both those awards! But then it turns out, art direction and cinematography split to two different movies and NEITHER OF THEM WON BEST PICTURE. Then when Cate Blanchett is presenting Costumes and Make-up, they do the same thing with Lord of the Rings because it won both those awards. LOL. So basically you just wasted like $5 million on that retarded backdrop and it didn't even relate to the evening. Also, the Harry Potter autotune thing was stupid and a waste of time.
I did like that they used clips again for the acting nominees, and they actually picked good clips to use this time. I totally thought they wouldn't be able to resist "I HAVE A VOICE" for Colin Firth but amazingly, they did. Also, the Best Actor and Best Actress presentations were nice in that the presenter said a few nice words about them first (and they sounded just as sincere as when the "friends" did it).
I also liked that they made one giant Best Picture montage instead of wasting time to individually present clips throughout the evening (hello! most people in the audience have already seen the movies cause they had to vote on them). But they basically made The King's Speech the "dominant" presence by using the climax of the film to frame the montage. It's like, gee I wonder who's going to win Best Picture. And on top of that, Steven Spielberg said this before announcing the winner: "In a moment, one of these ten movies will join a list that includes On The Waterfront, Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather and The Deer Hunter. The other nine will join a list that includes The Grapes Of Wrath, Citizen Kane, The Graduate and Raging Bull." LOL. That did seem like the writers' way of saying, yeah we know that The Social Network won all the critics awards and everything but we have a lot of old farts in the Academy. Retrospective oops! And sorry, The King's Speech, you were delightful but no one actually thinks you're The Godfather. More like Chariots of Fire (although at least that year kind of sucked).
So yeah, it's kind of not a good sign when the most entertaining part of the evening was when a 90 year-old actor made slightly creepy jokes and then awkwardly delayed announcing the winner, and the crazy supporting actress winner came up and dropped an F-bomb in her speech.
The wins were mostly expected and I don't have a problem with the four acting winners. They were all frontrunners who essentially swept the awards season. At the last minute, I thought that perhaps Melissa Leo's antics would hurt her but I think because she has done a lot of respectable work in the past (unlike say, Eddie Murphy), it didn't end up being such a big deal. It was funny that she name-dropped Kate Winslet in her speech cause they just finished Mildred Pierce together and I wonder if she got some of her Oscar campaigning tips from Kate. LOL. Kate did reek of desperation in 2008 as well, but understandably, she probably just wanted to not be known as that Oscar loser anymore.
I HATE what they did with the technical awards. Alice in Wonderland had great costume design but winning Art Direction was so annoying. That movie was ugly and the design was not at all "wonderland"-esque. It was drab and boring and most of it was CGI, which means it had no excuse for being that ugly. Even The King's Speech, with its gay porno set, had more interesting things going on. Inception should've won Art Direction by a mile and lost Cinematography (which I did not feel was as impressive as its art direction), finally allowing Roger Deakins to win. FUCKING 9 NOMINATIONS AND NO WIN. This was definitely his best chance because it was easily the most "beautiful" looking cinematography of the bunch. Ugh, can the Coen brothers please make another spectacular period movie so Deakins can finally win?
Lesson learned: Never bet against Tim Burton in Art Direction. His films have never lost in art direction and probably never will given the types of projects he's doing these days.
I was definitely pulling for a Bansky win, but after they announced that he wouldn't be allowed to show up in a mask, I was like whatever. And since they weren't going to see Bansky, I think they lost a big incentive for voting for Exit through the Gift Shop (still a great movie though). But I love Inside Job too (♥ Matt Damon's voice), so I'm happy that Ferguson won after No End in Sight was totally robbed a few years ago.
Tom Hooper, bleh. He did a fine job, but just not particularly interesting compared to the other nominees and the direction was not one of the film's great strengths. They already rewarded the acting and the writing, which is really what made the movie. Hooper didn't implode the film with his directing and wins an Oscar for it? lol.
It also seemed weird that The King's Speech won Best Picture with only 4 Oscars total. Since it's a period movie, I figured it would be in the 6-7 range at least. Even more puzzling is that it got passed over in the tech categories that could've padded its total count but then wins Best Director, the one award that almost everyone basically agrees that it doesn't deserve. Weird.
I did OK in my predictions. The ones that I missed were Director, the Song/Score categories and the Shorts. I really think watching the shorts actually makes predicting harder because you have your own favorites and they usually never actually pick the best ones. But I at least had most of the winners as my alternates so it won't do so much damage to my score.
I enjoyed the fashion this year. It seemed to skew fairly young, so we got a lot of fun dresses. Some of my favorites were Amy Adams in L'Wren Scott (love that she changed it up from her usual but hate the necklace), Natalie Portman in Rodarte (not so much the earrings though), Jennifer Lawrence in Calvin Klein (she finally looks her age!), Cate Blanchett in Givenchy (only she can pull it off) and Mila Kunis in Elie Saab (I was waiting for her to wear something sexy). I also like Michelle Williams in Chanel but she does wear that color/texture A LOT. I think she wore similar dresses to both Cannes and Venice this year. As usual, Marchesa was little too common on the red carpet but I liked it a lot on Hailee Steinfeld cause I think their puffy ballerina-esque dresses really suit a younger girl, but I do think her headband popped out too much. Sandra Bullock was another good one. Gwyneth's dress was interesting, but it looked a lot like what Melissa Leo wore to SAG and I'm not crazy about the hair. Nicole Kidman was the most disappointing though cause her dress made her look old and it was wrinkled. Melissa Leo looked like she was wearing a futuristic table cloth. I did like Anne Hathaway's Valentino but it wasn't spectacular, though she changed out of it like 5 seconds anyways.
But my favorite people of the entire night...
