Techtite's TV Reviews!

"Did Chris Rock do the worst hosting job of the Oscars ever? Nope. He just was handed lemons and never made the lemonade."

---from the review

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The Good Points...  

In any three hour telecast, of course there'd be those little details that don't make it into the review, though are worth mentioning. Here are the five best:

---Among all the economy crunching this year was very poor audio work, albeit with wit from the presenters to cover it up. After a gun-sounding "boom" due to an improperly unplugged stage mike, presenter Jeremy Irons jested, "I hope they missed!"

---While it can be considered spin doctoring, it is honest enough to say that Chris Rock's opening monologue left no stone unturned. He wound up poking fun at President Bush, Michael Moore and all in between.

---The only presenter who seemed to have fun this year was Robin Williams, whose monologue about various actors as cartoon voices turned out to be funnier than all of Rock's jokes as host.

---Among the funny shots the TV audience didn't see; an online photo of Tim Robbins shows him giving Chris Rock the bird --with a smile!-- after Rock announced him as a guy who is often "boring us with his politics."

---Well, at least it was an admittedly short show. 

The Bad Points... Then again:

---I'm no fan of Joan Rivers, but Star Jones' alternate E! pre-show approach was not good TV, even if the stars did like her gushing all over them that night.

---Chris Rock's shtick about going to the "man on the street" took about 5 minutes too long to tell an old joke we knew the punch line to 30 seconds in. Yeah, we know; more people saw bad films than Oscar nominees. We get it.

---A homage of Oscar night clips as hosted by the late great Johnny Carson was narrated by Whoopi Goldberg alone. Why? It's not like hers is an expert opinion on Carson, nor was she the only star that should've been allowed to offer their own anecdotes about the man. This may have seemed "P.C." to someone, but in the end it was poor taste.

---Oh...whatever. The telecast was boring.

---From the "quantity does nothing but reduce quality" department: come on. Seven standing ovations?

The 77th Annual Academy Awards, 2005

A Review by Techtite

It is time to decide. Who won...? No; I don't mean best picture, best actor, or even best dressed. I'm talking about Best Standing Ovation. There were seven of them this year. Yes; seven! What's more; even Chris Rock got one as host. You have to hand it to the congeniality of a man like Chris Rock; this guy never hosted the Oscars before, basically called the whole event a "gay fashion show" in the media, yet even before opening his mouth on stage, got a rousing standing ovation from the audience. What...Was...Up...With...That...?

I guess the audience was out to "prove" something. They aren't racists; isn't that nice? To bad they're still rather pompous, especially where the allegedly "lesser" awards of the evening are concerned. To wit: someone decided to cut time on the telecast by handing out many awards in the aisles. Even Scarlett Johansson --who hosted the prior night's technical awards-- had to present this segment of the awards show from one of the box seats on the side. Each time these aisle Oscars were delivered, the camera would pan in from far away, apparently to show how large the theater is, although it wound up showing how far in the "boonies" these awards were handed out. I'm reminded of Daffy Duck's classic cartoon line, "This is a close up?" That was funny. This was not.

These award winners would turn out to be the lucky ones. All other awards considered to be not "major" enough had to have all nominees on stage at once. Why? Well, apparently someone felt these folks are seated too far away from the stage to warrant the time it would take them to walk on stage, so why not put all nominees on stage in advance, hand the Oscar to the lucky recipient, and force the other nominees to scurry off in shame afterwards? This was a really cheap and cheesy way to cut telecast time. The only saving grace is it leading to Chris Rock's funniest joke of the evening, implying that next year they would have an Oscar drive through takeout window. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually did.

I guess we could all see the writing on the wall from the way the Oscars opened this year. The opening video clip montage of old movies was rather dull, even when seeing Shrek walk off with Charlie Chaplain; that's cute, yet not cute enough to warrant such a time consuming video montage. Then Chris Rock stepped on stage and...well...how do I put this delicately? See; that's what divides me from Chris Rock. Rock would simply look at such a performance, from a third person perspective, and say the facts: he blew it. Yet I must remain cordial and put it subtly. In short: Oprah's jaw dropped. That isn't easy. Imagine how bad the jokes must be --and from a fellow African-American no less-- when even Oprah's jaw dropped.

In the end, Rock's faults were not unlike David Letterman's; a very funny comedian in the wrong place. It was silly for Letterman to attempt to bring a Stupid Pet Tricks shtick to the Oscars, but Chris Rock interviewing a theater group about B-grade movies wasn't much better. Nor was it anything but cliché when Adam Sandler pulled a "oops my fellow presenter isn't here" shtick, and Chris Rock had to act like he's a female presenter while Adam flirted with him via the alleged teleprompter dialog. This drove home the insult of "aisle-Oscars" even more. They didn't have time for all Oscars to be handed out on stage, yet they had time for this?

In Rock's defense, what did he have to work with...? Not much. Not even Billy Crystal could have found very much to joke about the nominees this year: a female Rocky, two bio-pics of now deceased celebrities, and...well, that's about it. Rock was given a basket of sour lemons yet lacked the sweetness to make lemonade. That's this year's Oscar show all right, with no "sweetness" to it at all.

As for the awards, they went to...care to guess? I think you can guess without me telling you, and a lot better than you think. I know many folks who said this year was a "close race." Heh, heh, yeah, sure it was. Hillary Swank won as Best Actress. Jaime Foxx won as Best Actor, who even went "Ayyyyy! Whoh-oh-oh!" before giving his acceptance speech. Was this the Oscars, the Golden Globes, or ...oh, it doesn't matter. The point is this just wasn't unexpected at all.

Not that I didn't feel happy for most winners. The Incredibles did not earn its rightful nomination as one of the Best Pictures of 2004, but it would win over box office juggernaut Shrek 2, as Best Animated Feature Film. Cate Blanchett would win a deserved supporting actress Oscar for her role as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator. As for the honorary award for the evening, it went to Sidney Lumet, who even had some nice things to say to his wife of 50+ years. That was sweet. I'd list those as my top three favorite Oscar recipients. In fact, there were hardly any disappointments. The Oscars all went to very worthy winners.

Then came the big final two: Clint Eastwood would win as Best Director, while his film Million Dollar Baby would win as Best Picture. I hear everyone saying that the surprise ending is what sells this picture and for me that's the exact reason it did not quite deserve the final Oscar of the evening. Rest assured; I won't give spoilers of a film's ending in an awards show commentary, but allow me to describe my disappointment with this film's finale, in the most cryptic way possible. Million Dollar Baby's ending is shocking, sure, but it was not plausible based on the characters involved. A lead character is shown as a go getter, a fighter, a bit of a hero, yet in the end...a quitter. Mind you; I'm not getting into their decision as much as how unlikely this decision would be made, based on the character. This isn't even getting into how the whole film felt like a reverse gender Rocky with the final reel of Terms of Endearment thrown in for a "shocker ending." That's simply not Best Picture, friend. The Aviator was simply Best Picture of the year.

Yet not all was bad when you consider how bad it often gets. Yes, believe it or not, one not so prestigious award may not get handed out this year; the For Crying Out Loud It Was Just A Movie acceptance speech award. With not a single "King of the World" or "You really really like me!" speech in sight, most couch potatoes would be hard pressed to find a speech this year that was particularly pretentious. Well, okay; Hillary Swank did ramble on a bit, but not enough to call her on it. Oh, but Hillary? Just because you "didn't thank Clint yet" is not reason for the Orchestra to allow you to keep talking. If that mattered to you, then maybe you should have thanked Clint Eastwood first. I'm just saying.

So yeah; it could've been infinitely worse. I'm not saying the writing is on the wall for next year to be any better, but I would love to see another "sweeps" year over another "it's anybody's ballgame but...not really" year. This wasn't a surprising show nor a very entertaining show. Then again, one parting thought is definite; yes, kids, all Oscar recipients deserve to be handed their award on stage. There are a lot of things that need to be added to the telecast for next year's Oscar night. Dignity is among the biggest of them.

                                                                    ---Techtite

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