There were good and bad moments
Many readers have been defending last night's Oscar telecast. A few called it the best Academy Awards telecast ever. That may be a little strong. But obviously a lot of people enjoyed the show.
I didn't hate the show. There were just some real clunker moments.
It was impossible to overlook that second silly musical number. Hugh Jackman declared the movie musical is back and then sang songs from movies that were in theaters 25 and 30 years ago.
It would have been much better to have the cast of "High School Musical 3," "Mamma Mia!" and the Bollywood performers from "Slumdog Millionaire" perform. Imagine how cool it would have looked to seen the final group of dancers in high school basketball uniforms, disco attire and those beautiful Indian wardrobes. Toss in the Jonas Brothers and younger viewers would have watched.
There is no defending the set. It looked like a strippers closet (as I would imagine it) and did not support the show. It was an insult to those who died the past year to have so many technical problems with the set during that segment. The set also made the awards ceremony look small. This is the biggest awards show on television. The set should make the show look majestic not minor.
I still say hauling out five people to announce each acting category was a waste of time. The show needs to get faster. Less presenters, as was the case with Will Smith, is always better.
Ben Stiller should be banned from future shows. His lame attempt to milk a joke at the expense of Joaquin Phoenix fell flat. The director should have cut the bit in rehearsal.
And then there were the film clips for the best picture category. Who was the idiot who decided it made sense to cut in scenes from other movies? It was as if they were saying none of this year's nominees were good enough on their own. They needed some help.
There were also great moments. Hugh Jackman should host again. The opening number was memorable. Anne Hathaway should be a permanent fixture. And Sean Penn and Penelope Cruz can win every year if they promise to give these kinds of speeches.
It is great that many of you liked the telecast. As far as I was concerned, this was little more than a so-so Oscar telecast.
Comments:
The problem I had with the 5-presenter acting category set up was that they didn't show anything from the nominated performances, and so for the millions of people (3 out of 4 in my living room) who didn't get to see (by choice or by lack of availability) most of the nominated films/performances, the tributes were kind but out of any context.
Posted by: Jason at February 23, 2009 4:03 PM
Rick, I could not agree with you more about the nominations for actor awards!!!
SO BORING!!!!!
I want to see clips of the actors tearing it up on screen! I DO NOT want to see old has-beens kissing the butts of the current nominees!!!! (Poor Sophia Loren looked like she's been stashed in a box for the last 15 years.)
"The nominees are":
NAME, CLIP
NAME, CLIP
NAME, CLIP
NAME, CLIP
NAME, CLIP!
That's IT! That's ALL IT SHOULD BE!
If it ain't broke, don't fix it!!!
(Yes, I was so upset about this, I actually wrote to ABC and the Academy telling them it was the most boring Oscar presentations ever.)
Posted by: Mings at February 25, 2009 1:08 PM
for the most part the show and the results were predictible...bring back Billy Crystal...and when the memorials are shown...have more than two seconds per photo..these are people who gave us memories and great movies...most of them died at an older age and some were in movies we loved...give them more time...and less time to crappy dance numbers and terrible picks for "BEST SONG" god the songs were so lame this year they could only come up with 3 and two of those were not even in ENGLISH!!...PATHETIC.
Posted by: George (Duke) at February 26, 2009 7:41 PM
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