Oscar Recap

I watched the Oscars at a friend's house with a bunch of people. Everyone found it a bit more boring than I did and there was some snarky fun had. It's wasn't a great show but of course TiVo makes TV better.

Billy Crystal wasn't great. He did his standard opening with inserting himself into films, a monologue and then a song medley about the best pictures. It was ok and given that there are nine best picture nominees, reasonably short at about 12 minutes. Actually maybe unreasonably short. His monologue was one minute and only had one good joke, "Nothing can take the sting out of economic problems like watching millionaires present each other with golden statues." But throughout the evening too many of his jokes were about how old something was; whether a clip from When Harry Met Sally, his relatives or Christopher Plummer. It was kind of sad.

Tom Hanks had an odd bit backstage just before the show and then during he came out and talked about a seat warmer who's been doing that for 59 years before presenting an award. Crystal also spent a fair amount of time announcing who deserves credit for something we just saw, making the audience applaud everything a second time. This is what introductions and closing credits are for.

So that was about 15 minutes then in the next 15 we got four minor awards and a montage of movie clips and one of three montages of actors talking about the profession. The awards were fine, not particularly memorable but that's how cinematography, art direction, makeup and costume goes. So the first half hour wasn't great but was at least brisk.

But then it turns out, the next hour was really great. Sandra Bullock presented the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for A Separation. Asghar Farhadi's speech was the most political of the night and was a model of how to mention politics at the Oscars. "At this time many Iranians all over the world are watching us and I imagine them to be very happy. They are happy not just because of an important award or a film or a filmmaker, but because at the time in talk of war, intimidation, and aggressions exchanged between politicians, the name of their country, Iran, is spoken here, through her glorious culture. A rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics. I proudly offer this award to the people of my country. A people who respect all cultures and civilization and despise hostility and resentment. Thank you so much."

Next Christian Bale presented the first big award of the night, Best Supporting Actress. Ocatvia Spencer thanked a few people and then was overcome with emotion. It was genuine and heartfelt and made everyone smile.

Then Crystal introduced a bit about focus groups which sounded stupid but turned out to be very funny. In supposed lost footage Bob Balaban was questioning a group having just watched the Wizard of Oz. Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Jennifer Coolidge and Fred Willard were a riot deadpanning really stupid opinions (cut the rainbow song, flip the color, more monkies).

Then there were awards for Film Editing and then Sound Effects Editing. Usually boring, but Philip Stockton who won for Sound Effects Editing for Hugo said: "I just want to thank everybody who is here tonight and everybody who isn't and everybody who's ever been born or may be born or be born again or reborn. If I've forgotten anybody then you probably know who you are." That's kinda fun.

Now at the one hour mark Kermit and Miss Piggy introduced Cirque du Soleil. I feared Debbie Allen like interpretive dance number, but they had a ton of acrobats doing astounding things for five minutes. It turns out they regularly do a show in that theater so the rigging was all there. They should have saved it until later as it was the perfect way to wake everyone up. And then Billy Crystal said "Wow. I pulled a hamstring just watching that".

Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow faked some kind of documentary thing. It might have been a dig on James Franco tweeting while hosting last year. Downey was playing a Tony Stark-like annoying character and Paltrow was doing her Pepper Potts thing. It wasn't very good but their innate chemistry made it passible. Then Undefeated won for Best Documentary. The only doc nominee I didn't see because it doesn't come out for another few weeks. I don't get it. But P. Diddy was an executive producer so he now has an Oscar.

Then Chris Rock presented Best Animated Feature. He was the best presenter of the night and should be a model for everyone else. I wish his hosting had been this good. Here's his speech:

"I love animation because in the world of animation, you can be anything you wanna be. If you’re a fat woman, you can play a skinny princess. If you’re a short, wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you’re a white man, you can play an Arabian prince. And if you’re a black man, you can play a donkey or a zebra. You can't play white, my God!

Now I hate when people go on TV and tell you how hard it is to do animations. 'Oh, Jay, it's such hard work. It's so hard doing animation getting into character.' No no no, UPS is hard work okay. Stripping wood is hard work. I've done some animation and here's how easy it is. It's the easiest job in the world. I go in a booth and I go 'What's the line' and the guy goes 'It's time to go to the store' and then I go 'It's time to go to the store'. 'You like that? Oh we can move on, okay'. And then I go 'What's the next line?' 'It's getting dark outside' 'It's getting dark outside' And then they give me a million dollars!"

Ben Stiller and Emma Stone presented Best Visual Effects. They did some extended banter that worked because he was unusually subdued and she was charming as always.

And then Melissa Leo presented Best Supporting Actor. Christopher Plummer gave the best speech of the night. This is how you do it. "[Looking at Oscar] You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life? I have a confession to make. When I first emerged from my mother's womb, I was already rehearsing my Academy thank-you speech. But it was so long ago, mercifully for you I've forgotten it. But I haven't forgotten who to thank. The Academy, of course, for this extraordinary honor, and my fellow nominees: Kenneth, Nick, Jonah, dear Max. I'm so proud to be in your company. Of course, I wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for Michael Mills and his enchanting film Beginners. And my screen partner of course, Ewan McGregor, that superb artist who I would happily share this award with if I had any decency, but I don't. All the producers at Olympus films, especially Leslie Urdang and Miranda de Pencier, and all the people at Focus for their tremendous generosity and support. And not to mention my little band of agents provocateurs: Lou Pitt and his wife Berta, Carter Cohen, Pippa Markham and Perry Zimel, who've tried so hard to keep me out of jail. My daughter Amanda, who always makes me proud. And, lastly, my long-suffering wife Elaine, who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for coming to my rescue every day of my life. Thank you so much."

So now we're at the hour and half mark and the last hour has been how to do an awards show. Great presenting, great speeches, two big awards and a good number of minor ones that were still entertaining and two very fun performances. Now the next hour forgot how to do all that.

Crystal does some bad bit with reading minds of celebs in the audience. The only saving grace was he just grunted for Nick Nolte. Then the president of the academy came out and spoke. It was dignified but boring and all of one minute long. Crystal then said "Thank you Tom and thank you whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Mr. Excitement." Funny but it pointed out the boredom. It was made worse by him introducing are large music stand set piece rising from the stage. It took a while and seemed like something went wrong, particularly because Crystal said "This is why there's a buffet."

Penelope Cruz and Owen Wilson quickly introduced Best Score and then Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis did a pretty good extended cymbal bit to introduce Best Song. There were oddly only two nominees this year and I was happy with the decision to not sing them. As expected "Man or Muppet" won and now Bret McKenzie, half of Flight of the Conchords, has an Oscar. Crystal then blows introducing Angelina Jolie and does an old Robin Williams rewind to get it right. Jolie presents adapted screenplay and The Descendants won. Then I learned that the dean from Community is named Jim Rash and was one of the co-writers and now he has an Oscar. He also mocked Jolie's stance of having one leg prominently displayed through a thigh-high slit. Co-writer and director Alexander Payne dedicated the award to his mother who was in the audience. "After watching the show a few years ago she made me promise that if I ever won another Oscar I had to dedicate it to her just like Javier Bardem did with his mother."

Jolie then presented for original screenplay and Woody Allen won and since he never goes to the Oscars we got to skip a speech and go into another montage of actors talking about the movies. Milla Jovovich then introduced a minute clip about the technical awards given another night.

Then the cast of Bridesmaids came out to present the awards for shorts. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph decided to emphasize the word short and do dick jokes to present Live Action Short. Really. Then Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy presented Doc Shorts. They had someone in the audience yell "Scorsese" (as if it wasn't said enough times in the night) and pulled minute vodka bottles out of their dresses and did a shot. Juvenile but kinda worked for me. It was annoying because they presented the award to Saving Face, and amazing doc about victims of acid attacks in Pakistan which actually has a reasonably happy ending and everyone should see. Instead of telling anyone about this or any of the other short films we get dick jokes and drinking games. Then Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper said something about animated short nominees having to live up to John Lassiter founding Pixar. They then gave the award to two film makers who worked at Pixar and struck out on their own.

Michael Douglas presented Best Director by telling a joke that I think was originally about producers. Meryl Streep then introduced a two minute clip about the Governors awards. These are big deal lifetime achievement awards that are never presented in an interesting way, so I guess it's fine that they've moved them to another ceremony. Then they the In Memoriam segment. Mostly black and white still images of people who died this year while someone sang "What a Wonderful World". it was pretty, but since most of the people were crew and not performers we had no idea what they worked on. And they left out Harry Morgan, Charles Napier, Jeff Conaway, Michael Gough and others.

So that got us to the 2:45 mark and now there are just three big awards. I like the new trend of having an actor say something about each of the nominees performance in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories. They've streamlined it by having one person do it all and it worked well. As expect Jean Dujardin won and gave a fine speech. Meryl Streep was kind of a surprise win over Viola Davis but was well deserving and gave a great speech. And Tom Cruise presented best Best Picture to The Artist. Those three awards took 25 minutes and it was time well spent.

So the opening half hour was weak. Then they had a really strong hour followed by a weak 75 minutes and a strong finish. The host and most of the writing wasn't great and they had technical issues. There was feedback much of the night with the microphones. Really there's no excuse for that. Also when cutting to commercials they often spent a little too long showing a band in the balcony or oddly showing women handing out popcorn to the audience. That's easily time recovered. Then there was everyone watching a music stand rise. And if you're going to outsource the lifetime achievement awards, skip the president of the academy not whipping everyone into a frenzy. Three times they had montages of actors talking about the first movie they saw, how hard it is to make a film, etc. Not a bad idea but it didn't really work for me. It was like a collection of weak tweets. It would have been better to have one persons tell one good longer story.

Here's an idea. Have the studios create new and really good commercials for the nominated films and show them during the broadcast. Half the films are still in theaters (and some have barely come out) and the others should be on DVD or rentable (and if they aren't, for shame). Make them more like tributes than commercials and make them more interesting than the clips shown in the Oscar broadcast, that shouldn't be difficult. Otherwise let Chris Rock host and tell him to write like he spoke this year instead of when he hosted. Or get Neil Patrick Harris to do it.