Last night was, once again, the biggest night in the movie industry. It was Oscar’s 83rd year and it was once again a bit of a snooze-fest. Every year I sit down to watch this thing hoping and praying it’ll be better than the previous year. Every year I’m left with the same feeling. Maybe it’ll be better next year.
I don’t know what the solution is because it’s impossible to please everyone. This year they obviously tried to appeal to the younger generations by having Anne Hathaway and James Franco host. I’ll give them points for trying, but in the end it all fell a bit flat. It’s a shame really. But c’est la vie, there’s always next year.
The highlights for me consisted of:
Christian Bale’s beard. And seeming to forget his wife’s name. Say what you want about the guy being an ass or whatever. The man grows a FANTASTIC beard. Not a lot of guys can say that. I still do a double take when I hear him use his natural accent too. I always forget about it. I sat there in stunned silence when he was trying to thank his wife too. Then I imagined what he felt. How horrifying. At least he didn’t forget to thank her completely.
Aaron Sorkin’s acceptance speech. Sure it was long, but he thanked loads of people and didn’t give a damn that the orchestra was trying to play him off. I always find it funny when people do that. I imagine it’s their way of giving the producers the finger and I say good on ’em.
Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law. Maybe those two should host next year. They play off of each other so well, have chemistry and are loads of fun to watch. It’s what made Sherlock Holmes so good. Listen up Academy….they’re gold. RDJ is incredibly easy on the eyes, and a lot of women (not me so much) think the same thing about Jude Law so you get the female audience. RDJ also exudes “cool” so the guy factor will watch just because of that. It’s a win-win.
Kirk Douglas. This is equal parts of happy and sad. It breaks my heart to see Kirk Douglas these days. Much like seeing Dick Clarke. But I’ll give it to Kirk….he was great. He was funny and charming and a sight to behold. He was hard to understand at times, but he still commands respect. Melissa Leo is a lucky woman to have gotten her award from such a legend.
I know acceptance speeches are a necessary evil and each winner deserves the right to get up there and thank everyone on the planet, but I have such a hard time sitting through them. I did however like the speech given by David Seidler for his Best Original Screenplay win.
I also kind of like that the guy behind Nine Inch Nails won an Oscar. That’s pretty cool. I was rooting for Hans Zimmer because I adore the Inception soundtrack, but I’m happy for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The score to The Social Network was great and their award was well deserved. I was hoping he’d bust out in a medley of NIN stuff during his speech though. Sadly, he didn’t.
The rest of the show however was stilted and seemed somewhat forced. Roomie said that to her, it seemed like Anne Hathaway did a big huge bag of blow, and James Franco smoked a big joint. She was hyper and he wasn’t. Hell, he was even non-existent though the second hour. He was probably back stage mackin’ on cupcakes.
The annual In Memoriam piece was better than last year. Although I prefer last year’s performance by Queen Latifah. They screwed up last year however by focusing more on the performer with shots of the dearly departed going on in the background. This year we got Celine Dion. But they actually focused on the dead and not on the living dead.
There was also no mention of Corey Haim in this years montage either. Last year we went through the same scandal with Farrah Fawcett. I’m sure the Academy will say the same thing they said last year, “we didn’t have enough time to include everyone.” It’s really a shame too because they all deserve some recognition. But on the flip side, the telecast was already too long so I can see their point. It wouldn’t have been a big deal to throw in a picture of him and give him two seconds though.
The Best Song performances are always hard for me to watch. I just get bored. Thankfully they’ve done away with the awful dance numbers, but can these be the next to go?
The auto-tune section was dreadful as well. Turning non-musicals into musicals by doing this was just as irritating as turning a non-3D movie into a 3D movie and it wasn’t necessary. Stop going for the quick laugh and for the love of God, stop using footage from the Twilight movies.
I think that about covers my feelings on this year’s show. Like I said, I don’t know what the solution is but they need to do something to at least make the show entertaining. Either that or cut out all the peripheral stuff, do a marathon award presenting session and get the show done in about an hour and half, two max. Maybe they need to include the countdown clock from 24. That way people know how much longer they have to wait. I’m just sayin’…..it’s just an idea.
This post was original content of www.ReelGoddess.com and is posted here with permission. C’mon over and see me some time!
You can also follow me on Twitter at @baddladd.
