Techtite's TV Reviews!

Oscars 2000

A Techtite Wrap-Up of the festivities

Well, what can be said of the year when the best films nominated include the well-made yet dark-humored perspective of American Beauty, the macabre ghost story Sixth Sense, yet another death-row inmate in The Green Mile, the reminder of the tobacco cancer wars of The Insider, and the sad orphanage life of Cider House Rules? 1999 was a very maudlin year in movies, indeed. Making the effect even worse were several presenters and audience members dressed in black; was this an awards show, or a funeral? So much for the first Oscars of the 21st century.

One pick-me up of the evening; Billy Crystal's return as host. Thanks, Billy! Some might have grumped that, with all his jabs at how long the show takes to complete, his own intro took 20 minutes. Regardless, he has a constant penchant for being given lemons by The Academy, and making lemonade. Among such moments was when he brings out a bag of oranges, with two Oscars hidden inside. He claimed he just bought it on the freeway, at a bargain price (one of many jabs at how the Academy foolishly let over 50 Oscar statuettes get stolen this year, only to find them...in a dumpster!). Other nice moments included a joke about how he could read the minds of audience members, only to claim Judy Dench was thinking, "This thong is killing me!" He was a great addition, to an otherwise dragging show.

As for the people he introduced (the awards presenters), not much can be said. Even Cher apologized for not dressing outrageously for the Oscars this year. The best presenters could be was, well..."cute." The first trio of presenters of the evening were the new Charlie's Angels for the upcoming movie (Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore). Later, the CGI-animated Toy Story 2 characters gave out the award for Best Animated Short Film. That was about it for memorable presenters, although I blame the writers, not the actors, for this flaw. Teleprompter dialog was uninspired and without any sense of humor; when Haley Jane Osment remarked to the audience, "You're all...alive!" a second presenter should've been present, to quip, "...are you sure?" However, there were no protests or other goody-goody monologues attempted, and, with a show that lasted over four hours, that's a very good thing.

There were other fine moments, too. Among them was one moment I thought would fail miserably; the singing of the Oscar-Nominated song, "Blame Canada!" from the latest South Park movie. Surprisingly, Robin Williams helped make the whole song into a hilarious, enjoyable, all-in-good-fun stage production, complete with mock protesters against Canada, and the Rockettes dressed as Mounties. A really fun moment of the show.

As for winners, there were no major surprises; every odds-on-favorite won. This included Hilary Swank's Best Actress win, for Boys Don't Cry. Thinking of her movie's title gives amusing irony to one of the best audience shots of the evening, when her husband Chad Lowe visibly broke into tears during her acceptance speech. Some people felt moments like this were over-emotional, though I say, good. The way I see it, I'd be much more upset if the typical Mr. Gracious Fancy-pants merely thanked all the "little people" in monotone. That's what the majority of other winners were, and you couldn't wake the audience with a cattle prod. There's a happy medium somewhere, I know, but until then, my vote is for the emotional moments, thank you...

Even technical awards were worth a look. One amusing win/loss scenario was The Matrix, which won every single decent special/visual effects Oscar, over George Lucas' Star Wars...The Phantom Menace. I think there is far more to this snub than meets the eye, and it has a large thing to do with "Jar-Jar Binks!" Sure, scenes of the Star Wars Galaxy's enormous Senate hall were breathtaking, as well as the Pod Race and that climactic sword fight. That still doesn't take away the fact that, if a little boy wasn't given a PC he didn't know how to play with, Jar-Jar Binks would never have existed, and Phantom Menace would've been 500% more enjoyable. Industrial Light and Magic has won numerous awards for special FX in films like Terminator 2 and the liquid creature from The Abyss; giving their former sure-fire Oscar wins to Matrix is the Academy's way of saying, "This is what you used to do." Let's hope they get the message by Episode 2.

The promise was that the show wouldn't drag this year, because all dance numbers were cut out...then why all the musical numbers? Sure, musical numbers for all "Best Song" nominees was required...a "classic songs" moment, later in the show, was not. Sorry, guys, though as much as I loved The Wizard of Oz, do I really have to hear an excerpt from "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"...again? It seems the same guy who didn't want Debbie Allen's dance numbers this year, desperately wanted to hear Garth Brooks sing "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," which is, IMHO, the biggest sign of drug use in the 60's. Sure, they're "classic songs," though this is the Oscars, guys, not the Grammy Awards! While slightly on-topic; there were many 1999 movies that would've been cool to salute at the Oscars, if just for five seconds in a montage. Instead, the only montages were of films many, many years old. It's getting so the Academy salutes the exact same classic movies, every single year. Enough.

In the end, I don't want to scare Billy away (nnnnoooo!), though I have to give this show a marginal thumbs-down. The whole Oscar show was upstaged by the commercials for the show (!), via all those GAP ads that saluted West Side Story with style. How sad is this?: Here's the awards show of the year, getting upstaged by 30-second commercials! That's pretty bad, guys. Maybe next year it'll be better...presuming Billy returns!

	Final Rating : Near-miss. Close, yet not close enough. Kudos go to Robin and Billy, for keeping the show from a potential "burnout" rating.
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