The Oscars

So of course I watched the Oscars last night. I lost my pool, in fact I came in 8th, one of my worst showings (though I did get 18 out of 24 right, the same as the winner). I've heard a lot about how this was the worst Oscars ever and while I agree it was boring, I don't think it was that bad.

I did really like that they let the winners speak. Out of an average length Oscars (3 hours, 15 mins), 34 minutes were actual acceptance speeches. And they didn't cut off people too badly. Most winners got a minute and the music stayed low while they finished. The actors got two to three minutes. I think the bigger problem is that most of the speeches weren't particularly memorable. I think they should offer coaching to their speakers like TED does. The King's Speech winners all gave good speeches. Colin Firth, Tom Hooper, and David Seidler (the writer) were my favorites. There were a couple of politics moments but I thought they worked. If you win for Best Documentary you can say something political about what your film was about. I also noticed several of the technical winners thanked their union crews.

I liked the opening stuff. The pre-taped stuff with Hathaway and Franco inserted in some (but not all?) of the Best Picture nominees was good. I also mostly like their monologue (duologue?). It also was short. 11 minutes and we were off to the first award. I remember some Billy Crystal ones where he did the opening film, then sang and then did a monologue and it was a half hour before we got to an award.

I liked Anne Hathaway a lot. She was charming, funny, and beautiful. She also sang a lot better than Billy Crystal ever did. She is not a comedian and didn't have quick one liners between awards to move things along. Crystal would have done well with Melissa Leo.

So now the bad stuff. James Franco was awful, stiff, detached and rude. Saying "All right, congratulations nerds" after the 11 technical awards given out earlier this month got all of two minutes summed it all up for me. The crazy big special effects films get all the box office money and the people that make it happen barely get recognized and get called nerds. The real problem is that he meant it as a compliment.

I'm not sure about the whole idea of making it hip and appealing to the younger demographic. Okay fine, they should do that, but not by be so self-referential. And if that's the goal, don't move right into a quick tribute to Gone With the Wind. The theme this year seemed to be referencing when the Oscars first did things, that's not young and hip.

A lot of the standard stuff they really gave short shrift to. They've moved the lifetime achievement awards to another night, but they still mention it and they brought out Francis Ford Coppola and Eli Wallach out on stage but didn't let them say anything. I don't get that. They spent time having Bob Hope tell a joke! They even told us to watch as the stage moved!

With 10 nominees for Best Picture I'm glad they stopped introducing each one throughout the show. The montage at the end was good, but it was odd that the sound for all of them was from The King's Speech. I think if you didn't know the films you didn't know what you were looking at. There was certainly nothing shown that would compel people to go see the wonderful Winter's Bone (and oh yeah, James Franco made fun of the title).

The In Memorium montage was also weak. They just showed the images of the people and their name and if they weren't actors their job title. Couldn't they have included clips or images of the films they worked on? Tom Mankiewicz wrote three (ok bad) Bond films and Sally Menke was Quentin Tarantino's editor. Wouldn't it have been far more interesting if they had told us that? Even putting the titles of some of the films they worked on up on the screen would have helped things a lot. And not having Celine Dion sing would have helped things even more. Could they have found anyone less appealing to the young and hip?

The bit where the president of the academy and of ABC came out and said how great it was that they signed a contract for the next 9 years was stupid. Really stupid.

They spend five minutes giving out two awards for sound that no one knows the difference between. It's still five minutes that bores everyone. Maybe if they explained what they were giving these awards for people might care a little.

I thought the presenters were overall pretty good. I liked Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake, Russell Brand and Helen Mirren, Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, and Kevin Spacy. Steven Spielberg might have had the best introduction for Best Picture. "One of these 10 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 Wraith, Citizen Kane, The Graduate and Raging Bull." Now that's how to make everyone feel good.

McConaughey and Johansson were awful and that shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. I think everyone agrees about Kirk Douglas. It was nice at first but then got awkward. Jake Gyllenhaal introduced short films and said: "Shorts are also the hardest category to predict on your home oscar ballot. One mispick could mean the difference between you ending the night in victory or defeat. So make it a point to see short films throughout the year, they'll inspire you and they might just make you a winner." I kinda like the reference to a home pool, but I was insult about being told to see shorts throughout the year. The problem is they don't play anywhere (except in front of Pixar films). If Hollywood wants me to see them (and I'd love to) then they should distribute them.

So here's what I would like. I think The Oscars should be about the best films and filmmakers of the year. They should not be about the Oscars. They did fine letting the winners speak, but they should help them be slightly more interesting speakers. They need a host who can work a live room and ad lib. The timings of things was right. It worked having presenters give two awards though they can break up the songs so they break up the evening a little bit. They should also stop kidding themselves and schedule the thing for three and half hours, it's going to be that anyway. Rather than having one of the hosts tweet throughout the night, how about they put the short films on their website so people can see them.

This year there were a lot of very good films nominated. All ten best picture films are worth watching. Only two of them (Toy Story 3 and Inception) were in the ten highest grossing films of last year. But, many of the nominees didn't come out till Christmas and their grosses are split over two years. This year, the ten best picture nominees did pretty well at the box office.