oscar
I didn't get to see all of the Oscar telecast, but what I did see really annoyed me. For those of you who didn't see...
During the big montage of everyone-who-died-this-year, they had Queen Latifah singing on stage--which was fine, she sounded great--but instead of showing the montage itself like they always do, they filmed the screen that was showing the montage, so lots of the time it was too far away to really see, and then they kept swooping around so it was hard to read the names and I got seasick when I tried.
The acting awards (I didn't get to see the supportings, but I understand the same thing happened there)--instead of showing clips of the people, you know, acting in their roles, they had previous winners telling the nominees how great they were. The speeches were kind of nice--Anne Hathaway in tears as Shirley MacLaine praised her was one of the highlights for me--but I really wanted to see the clips. Every year when I see clips of movies I haven't seen, I decide I want to see them.
They did show clips for the Best Picture nominees, but instead of straight clips, they interspersed them with clips from older movies that supposedly had the same theme. This was bizarre, and confusing, and hard to describe. I'd seen three of the movies (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Reader), but even those ones, it was hard at times to tell which scenes were from the movie and which weren't; the ones I hadn't seen, I was totally lost. I can't imagine who thought this was a good idea.
I need to find a clip of the opening monologue to watch, because it looks good. And there were some great moments--besides Anne Hathaway, there was Kate Winslet asking her dad to whistle so she knew where to wave, and all the men in Indian-style formal wear, and the little kids from Slumdog who must have been incredibly overwhelmed (two of the three really do live in the slums of India). I usually have one award I have strong feelings about, and this year it was that I thought Sean Penn should win Best Actor for Milk. Actually, I thought everyone thought that, but I just heard his win referred to as "the one upset of the night" on The Today Show. Apparently Mickey Rourke was supposed to win.
During the big montage of everyone-who-died-this-year, they had Queen Latifah singing on stage--which was fine, she sounded great--but instead of showing the montage itself like they always do, they filmed the screen that was showing the montage, so lots of the time it was too far away to really see, and then they kept swooping around so it was hard to read the names and I got seasick when I tried.
The acting awards (I didn't get to see the supportings, but I understand the same thing happened there)--instead of showing clips of the people, you know, acting in their roles, they had previous winners telling the nominees how great they were. The speeches were kind of nice--Anne Hathaway in tears as Shirley MacLaine praised her was one of the highlights for me--but I really wanted to see the clips. Every year when I see clips of movies I haven't seen, I decide I want to see them.
They did show clips for the Best Picture nominees, but instead of straight clips, they interspersed them with clips from older movies that supposedly had the same theme. This was bizarre, and confusing, and hard to describe. I'd seen three of the movies (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Reader), but even those ones, it was hard at times to tell which scenes were from the movie and which weren't; the ones I hadn't seen, I was totally lost. I can't imagine who thought this was a good idea.
I need to find a clip of the opening monologue to watch, because it looks good. And there were some great moments--besides Anne Hathaway, there was Kate Winslet asking her dad to whistle so she knew where to wave, and all the men in Indian-style formal wear, and the little kids from Slumdog who must have been incredibly overwhelmed (two of the three really do live in the slums of India). I usually have one award I have strong feelings about, and this year it was that I thought Sean Penn should win Best Actor for Milk. Actually, I thought everyone thought that, but I just heard his win referred to as "the one upset of the night" on The Today Show. Apparently Mickey Rourke was supposed to win.