The Oscar broadcast: When you're upstaged by a stroke victim and a dead man...
No real surprises in any of last night's awards, although I was hoping that the voting battle between The Social Network and The King's Speech would allow another film to sneak in. (And I didn't realize until afterward that Annette Bening hasn't won an Oscar yet!) So, instead, let's focus on the Oscars as TV entertainment. How'd it do? NOT WELL.
Some commentaries today mention that James Franco looked bored, distracted, stoned, etc. I don't know exactly what was going on, aside from the fact that he was Tweeting and sending videos online from backstage throughout the night, and he reportedly jetted back and forth between LA and NYC in the two weeks before the show, possibly cutting into prep/rehearsal time. Basically, he seemed disinterested; on the flip side, Anne Hathaway became more animated and frenzied as the night went on, almost as though she were trying to compensate.
Franco and Hathaway may be gifted actors, but neither of them is a ad libber, which is what you'd think would be required of an Oscar host! Granted, that alone isn't enough (as David Letterman learned); besides being a comedian, you have to be truly excited -- or at least ACT as if you're excited -- by what you're doing, while making the live audience feel that they're nobly participating is The Greatest Industry in the History of Mankind. It's not easy. Hope and Johnny Carson were excellent at it, Crystal did a terrific job his first few times (people forget that he was criticized in his last stint for doing the "same old" stuff and being too cozy with his audience), and Baldwin and Steve Martin were good last year. Here's a prediction: Ricky Gervais will NEVER be an Oscar host, since he showed during the Golden Globes that he couldn't give a crap about paying homage to the (ahem) glorious people of Hollywood.
Random notes:
Some commentaries today mention that James Franco looked bored, distracted, stoned, etc. I don't know exactly what was going on, aside from the fact that he was Tweeting and sending videos online from backstage throughout the night, and he reportedly jetted back and forth between LA and NYC in the two weeks before the show, possibly cutting into prep/rehearsal time. Basically, he seemed disinterested; on the flip side, Anne Hathaway became more animated and frenzied as the night went on, almost as though she were trying to compensate.
Franco and Hathaway may be gifted actors, but neither of them is a ad libber, which is what you'd think would be required of an Oscar host! Granted, that alone isn't enough (as David Letterman learned); besides being a comedian, you have to be truly excited -- or at least ACT as if you're excited -- by what you're doing, while making the live audience feel that they're nobly participating is The Greatest Industry in the History of Mankind. It's not easy. Hope and Johnny Carson were excellent at it, Crystal did a terrific job his first few times (people forget that he was criticized in his last stint for doing the "same old" stuff and being too cozy with his audience), and Baldwin and Steve Martin were good last year. Here's a prediction: Ricky Gervais will NEVER be an Oscar host, since he showed during the Golden Globes that he couldn't give a crap about paying homage to the (ahem) glorious people of Hollywood.
Random notes:
- When the 93-year-old Kirk Douglas staggered out, I started to squirm, embarrassed at the thought of this one-time icon of manliness -- and recovering stroke victim -- struggling to speak in front of a global audience. Well, maybe the mouth did struggle, but his mind was razor-sharp. He made jokes, flirted with Hathaway, and playfully teased the audience by not immediately revealing the Best Supporting Actress winner. It's the one thing I'll remember about this otherwise blah show.
- No reference to Ingrid Pitt or Tura Satana during the Dead Montage montage?! BOOOO! I would've died happy if Carmilla Karnstein had reached up through the stage and dragged Celine Dion down to Hell.
- Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bulloch heaped personalized praise on the nominees in, respectively, the Best Actress and Best Actor categories. Yet Bulloch's comments were amusing and short, giving the impression that she wrote them herself, as opposed to Bridges', which sounded pretentious and scripted. And I like Bridges!
- One thing that floored me was that the show kept referring to past and better hosts: Alec Baldwin in the opening (and clever) segment, Hugh Jackman in the unfunny "Les Miz" song, Billy Crystal getting big-time laughs (and a standing O, almost as if he were Moses come to bring the entertainment-starved audience to the Promised Land), and ending in the ghostly hologram of Bob Hope! I wonder if Hathaway and Franco thought, "Holy crap, we've been replaced by a dead man."