My Oscar thoughts

So, now that the dust has settled about the Oscars, I figured what better time to make my opinions on the awards show known.

First off, let me start with the telecast. I love Anne Hathaway and have nothing against James Franco (despite the way he was force-fed to us in Spider Man 3). However, as many others have said, they seemed to be yin and yang throughout the night and if they did have any chemistry, it wasn’t apparent.

Someone said that a show like this needs comedian rather than comedic actors to host it. I am inclined to agree. I mean, they were funny (most, if not all, was written for them), but a comedian would have been able to go off script and still deliver some hilarious lines and not make it seem so uncomfortable.

Next I want to commend the telecast for their attempt to honor the great (winning) films of yesteryear (and not so long ago), such as Gone With the Wind, Titanic, etc. However, they did seem to get away from this after the first award or two. Granted, I was flipping back and forth between the telecast and…I honestly can’t remember what else I was watching.

Anyway, my point is, if you’re going to do something like that, then do so for the entire show. Hell, the damn thing went on until after 11 CST.

Speaking of the length…does it really need to be that long? If it does, why is it they can’t start it earlier, or cut out some of the awards. I mean, does the general public really care about the award for best assistant director’s intern’s mailman’s cousin’s neighbor? Seriously?!? Just hand out the big one and a few of the not so important ones and move on. There is no reason this show should be going on this late….and don’t give me that mess about it being on California time. I don’t give a damn, and I know I’m not the only one.

The in memoriam was classy, as always. The song sung by Celine Dion was beautiful and fit the somber tone. Halle Berry’s touching tribute to Lena Horne was heartfelt and honest. However, and this seems to be something that happens every year, they left out some people.

A few that they left out that come to mind are Peter Graves, Corey Haim, Maria Schneider, just to name a few. Someone please tell me how it is that these people keep getting left out. I’m almost at the point that I want to say don’t even do these anymore, if you’re going to leave folks out.

My next topic is the awards. There are two viewpoints on these. The first is that, while all of these films are great feats in cinema, most aren’t exactly household names, even with the added girth, for lack of as better term, of the best picture category. Granted, this year’s crop of contenders were actually known to the public. Many of them even blockbusters, such as Inception and Toy Story 3. The stuffed shirts that run the Academy got their say with films like The King’s Speech and The Black Swan.

With all that, though, one still has to wonder if the Academy still has a disconnect from the general public. Of course, this is a dangerous line of thought. I was reading this morning about how some guy was calling the Grammy committee to task on how they vote, nominate, etc. because he felt more popular artists such as Eminem and Justin Bieber should have won awards instead of the actual winners, like Esperanza Spalding and Arcade Fire.

Should more popular movies win? Not necessarily, but that doesn’t mean they should be excluded. I mean, my two favorite movies of last year were The A-Team and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Does that mean they should have been nominated, let alone won best picture? No, because while they are enjoyable, they aren’t in the same league as Inception, Toy Story 3, or the other nominees. They’ll get their chance to win at the Kid’s Choice Awards, MTV Movie AWards, etc. (if they can manage to get more votes than The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (damn those tweens and their twitting votes!!!)) I’m just saying that while these more popular pictures weren’t nominees, it would have been nice to acknowledge them in some way, as they are the ones that bring in the real money, not these artsy-fartsy films (excluding The Social Network, which apparently made a nice amount of bank).

There was something that I need to touch on before I move on. Randy Newman, who won for best song, mentioned that all the other categories had 5 or more nominees, but that one only had 4. They couldn’t find one more? He does have a point. I realize this isn’t the music awards, but they made it seem like it was a second-rate award. Seriously, how hard would it have been to nominate another song?

Also, it was brought up that Honorary Academy Award winners, were trotted out there for a couple of seconds and then pushed aside. This seemed a bit…I don’t know. I mean on one hand, I’m glad they acknowledged these guys, but on the other hand, if this is all you’re going to do, why bother?

My next point is that with all the talk over these awards the past month or so, there really were no surprises. You can make the case that Inception won more awards than is was “supposed” to, or that The King’s Speech beating out The Social Network (something that upset quite a few folks for some reason) or The Black Swan was an upset, but not really. It was apparent they were trying to make the Oscars good TV. If they wanted to do that, then we needed an upset. I joked with someone the other day that maybe they should have nominated The Last Airbender or Sex and the City 2 and have that win. Now THAT would be an upset, but it would also take away any credibility the Oscars have, but I think you get what I’m trying to say.

My final point has to do with covering what these people are wearing. When did it become such a big deal what they wear? Do you really care that Halle Berry was wearing this designer or that? I know I don’t. I mean, I get the fact that they want to show off these expensive dresses and jewels on the red carpet. That is a Hollywood tradition dating back to before the days of Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Audrey Hepburn, etc. However, I do have to say almost everyone was radiant.

On the flipside, though, who was it that said Joan Rovers was the go-to voice for fashion? Seriously, this woman is nothing more than a walking advertisement for plastic surgery, nothing else. Couple  that with that anorexic chick from E!, some random, catty gay guy, and Kelly Osbourne (who seems to think that now that she’s skinny, people need to listen to her).

I don’t understand what the fascination is. Not everyone is going to look like a vision of perfection. Some people will take chances. Does that mean these bitches need to have a show to tear them down? In today’s society, apparently so.

In conclusion, I have to say that these Oscars weren’t the worst I’ve seen, but they weren’t the apparent upgrade that the powers that be would have liked for them to be. For all the good points the show had, one cannot overlook how much of a bore this show ended up being. Something needs to be done to fix this show before next year, but at least there weren’t any rabid fans attacking someones Wikipedia page and unjustly changing it because they were bitter about something they had no control over.