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Techtite's TV Reviews! |
"Love or hate who won; this year's Oscar night was overtime, yet still managed to be boring. Sorry Steve and Alec, though it was." ---from the review
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Oscar Night 2010
True story: 24 hours before watching this year's Oscar telecast, I continued a tradition at my house, of watching a well done feature length TV special released back in 1991, of all the most memorable Oscar moments of the prior 20 years. Hosted by then-president of the Academy Karl Malden, it's a fantastic collection of Oscar night's very high "highs"(at its best) and outlandish "lows" (at its worst). Sadly; this year's Oscar night was too little of the former, and too much of the latter. No; do not blame dual hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Their opening monolog was one of the highlights of the evening, as they offered a classic, "machine gun style" barrage of one line zingers, without any mercy to the actors in the audience. Among my favorite jokes: "Look; over here is the 'Inglorious Basterds' section...and over there are the people who made the film!" Funny stuff, guys. Yet this is a mere drop in the bucket, in an ocean of boredom, doldrums, and monotony. Here was the first sign of boredom yet to come: the Best Original Song Category. Each song was merely announced, with no musical numbers at all. Seriously? Given that this Oscar night telecast was produced by Adam Shankman, who is no stranger to musicals (and is even the newest lead judge of FOX's So You Think You Can Dance), you would expect more music, dancing, and fun. Instead the only real song was sung during the memoriam, and the only dance number was given for the nominees of Best Original Score. Everywhere else was talk, talk, talk, and more talk. One of the few rare exceptions: a wonderful salute to the late John Hughes. An older and strikingly beautiful Molly "Sixteen Candles" Ringwald, and an also older yet quite dapper Matthew "Ferris Bueller" Broderick, introduced a montage of Hughes' many fine works. This was quite possibly the most enjoyable film montage in Oscar night history. Afterwards, Molly and Matthew are joined by other John Hughes film alums, including Ally Sheedy, Jon Cryer, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, and Macaulay Culkin. The surviving wife and family of Hughes was then allowed to stand to rousing applause from the audience. Wonderful! Yet for every great moment like this there was an enormous flub that seemingly lasted forever. No sooner does Roger Ross Williams arrive on stage to accept his award for Best Documentary Short Subject, then suddenly Elinor Burkett trots herself on stage to pull a "Kanye Moment," demanding that the "woman" be allowed to speak. FYI: Elinor was reportedly a journalist who worked on the film, yet left due to creative differences. The orchestra soon cut in, ushering her right off the stage...though not quite soon enough. Not that every speech was horrible. "Best Director" Kathryn Bigalow did remain humble when accepting her award for Best Director, which is more than I can say for Mister "King of the World," James Cameron back in 1998 (a fact that many predict was one possible reason he lost tonight). Oh, and man, that Jeff Bridges, man, while his speech was hardly Shakespearean, man, it was his first Best Actor Oscar after five nominations, man, though man, he sure said "man" a lot, didn't he, man? You can even forgive Best Actress winner Sandra Bullock for being so overwhelmed at her Oscar win, that her speech ended with her saying in a choked up voice that her mom taught her many things, though most importantly, "We are all deserving of love, so [I'd like to give thanks] to that trailblazer who allowed me to have...that," where "that" was her husband in the audience. That? Whatever. It was a cute speech anyway.Then there were the final two awards of the evening. Yes; the first woman won. Oh, believe me; even if you wanted to ignore that, presenter Barbra Streisand made sure that you could not. In fact; one can't help but wonder what Babs would have said, had The Hurt Locker not won. Her opening spiel, and I quote: "From among the 5 nominees tonight, the winner could be, for the fist time...A WOMAN!!! OR...it could be an African American...or, it could be one of the three directors who brought their own scripts to life on screen." So to paraphrase: golly guys we could make history if a woman won...though hey an African American is also nominated and that's cool...and oh yeah three other guys made movies that were nominated though, meh. Here's the problem with this; while I'm sure (well, kind of sure) that The Hurt Locker won fair and square, Babs made it sound as though the only reason anyone voted for The Hurt Locker is because a woman directed it. Sure, there are other reasons to like this movie. Too bad Babs was too busy ranting to list them. It was directed by a woman, you hear! Women women women women "Their time has COME" bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! So, to paraphrase, Babs: this was not a win due to a well written screenplay, epic cinematography, or, dare one think it, a talented director. Kathryn won, quite simply, because she has boobs. Way to rape Kathryn of her moment, Babs. Congratulations. Yet the biggest folly of the evening was hardly Avatar being snubbed. What does even James Cameron care? With billions won at the box office, he was perfectly willing to remain humble and give his ex-wife a standing ovation when she won Best Director. Yet this moment took a long time in coming for another reason: the telecast lasted over half an hour overtime...and for what? It's one thing to remove fun moments of the Oscars due to "time restraints." Replacing them with banter and monotony is not the way to go. Better luck next year, guys.
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