Monday, February 23, 2009

Oscar Night (Part Two)

Once again the Oscars have come and gone.

As I've said before, I'm a huge Oscar fan. There's very little they can do that will upset me. But this year managed to pull it off. I really did not like the broadcast this year - worst ever that I've seen, in fact.

Hugh Jackman was not a host, he was a side show - and a poorly put together one at that. The highlight of the presenters was undoubtedly Steve Martin and Tina Fey. The nominees may disagree with me, but the bringing out of all those people and having us sit and watch them while they "extemporize" about how wonderful everyone is was embarrassing to me at least.

And those musical numbers. Oh my god. What was Baz Luhrman THINKING!?? Not everything needs to be a medley, people. Really! And while I love John Legend, he just didn't sound right singing that Peter Garbriel song. Tsk tsk tsk. No, no, no.

I did appreciate the "grouping" this year - the design oscars being together, the sort of "story" it all told (i.e. "how a movie is made.") And the Best Picture montage may possibly have made up for the rest of them. Except...Good Will Hunting was in there, and that didn't win no best picture. Hm. Confused.

As far as the awards went, there weren't any major surprises, as far as I was concerned. I was thrilled for Penelope Cruz and Sean Penn (and Heath!), all of whom I picked to win. Slumdog seemed to sweep most of its categories, and rightfully so. Kate Winslet cannot be more glamorous and beautiful even if she tried. And yes, I will say it - Poor Merryl. Maybe 16's a charm.

The surprise of the night, for me was Dustin Lance Black. Personally, I wanted WALL-E to win for best original screenplay, but let me say two things:

-His speech was incredibly special and so worthwhile (Fey and Martin were awkward getting back into the humor after that.)

-And it occured to me, afterwards, that even though it may not have had the strongest character relationships, this script was so vitally important to our day and time; and perhaps the members of the academy saw that, too. And if that's true, then I am so happy, and I hope that the tide of history is truly turning in favor of equal human rights.

Either that, or the academy really just is, as Sean Penn put it, "A bunch of commie, homo-lovers."

2 comments:

Kim said...

I really enjoyed the broadcast, overall. I thought the fact that they HAD a musical number was awesome, but I agree with you that it was just all shades of wrong.

I REALLY loved the way they displayed/presented the makeup/hair/etc. awards. REALLY.

I didn't see many of the movies, so I wasn't all that invested - I was more interested to see how they had "changed" it all this year...and I rather liked the nod to 1940's nightclubs.

tony said...

bt...

the five past winners talking to the five nominees was absolutely my favorite part. i got teary several times. i mean, c'mon - shirley maclaine telling anne hathaway how wonderful her performance was? oy. loved it, and i thought it said a lot about acting. passing the torch. actors supporting actors, instead of tearing each other down.

the first musical number i didn't mind. hathaway singing, love it. (i like her!) but that second one...OH GOD. really. that number would have been embarrassing on the TONY'S! what in the world?!

i like so much more of the show than i usually do. and i'd only seen, what?...two of the nominated movies.

tc