Oscars: The Day After

March 5, 2009

Okay, so here is my thoughts on the Oscar’s this year (almost two weeks late, oops)

So, the show was actually enjoyable this year. I usually get bored within the first hour of award shows but i must say that this year’s show kept my attention for the whole four hours. I mean, there is only so much you can do with an award show to make it watchable throughout. It is still insane that it has to last four hours but I guess there is no happy medium.

First off, Hugh Jackman was an excellant host which was very surprising. There was a lot of buzz prior to award night that he was going to flop since he was a comedian (the traditional type of personality meant for hosting the Oscar’s). But he delivered everytime. Of course, I’m sure he had a whole team of comedy writers behind him pulling the strings, but who cares. His opening sequence was awesome and real (especially when he warbled that he hadn’t seen The Reader to Kate Winslet). I liked his hosting because I believed what he was saying was more or less the truth. Or maybe I’m just being naive because I’m a Jackman/Wolverine fan.

Moving along in that thought process, I found that there was a lot of playful fun-poking going on. I loved Steve Martin and Tina Fey’s bit when they presented the screenplay and writing awards and i howled when they blasted Scientology. I would have loved to see the actor/scientologists squirm in their seats for that joke. Ben Stiller, who has sort of fallen out of the comedic spotlight in my opinion, was awesome as slam at Joaquin Phoenix as a bearded weirdo. I started to question how Hollywood would take this ribbing. I liked it a lot because I find sometimes Hollywood likes to stroke its own ego and the Oscars are usually a platform for that.

I thought the five person presenters they had for both supporting and lead roles for both actors and actresses. It was kind of neat to relive some of Oscar’s past and have each presenter speak personally about each nominee. Also the montages they did for animated, comedy, etc of 2008 were really cool. I thought it was a nice way to give movies that don’t normally get nominations some much deserved screen time.

My one big gripe was the red carpet special before the show. Okay, I get the Oscars is just as much about fashion that is about awarding excellence in film. But honestly, can’t the get some reporters that know how to have real conversations. I can cope with the banter about designers but when you get a douche (i know that sounds mean but he deserves it) like Tim Gunn (from Project Runway) who asks assanine questions like, “Hey, Amy Adams, are you worried about winning supporting actress since you were a nun who couldn’t show skin against Marisa Tomei who showed everything but her cousin Vinny?” I almost stopped watching at that point. I would expect that kind of question from some new young (and probably blond) fashion correspondent but this guy portrays him as a proffesional. I mean, seriously. The best part was when some other fashion ding-dong correspondent was talking to Jack Black. When he gets fuddled by Black’s simple question of how he was doing, Black went out to berrate him for trying to find a bigger movie star that will pander to his inane questioning of “Don’t you think the Slumdog kids are cuuuuuuuuute???”

Which brings me to my final thought on the Oscars: Slumdog Millionaire. I was so happy that it won eight Oscars. It truly deserved everything it won. I think about half way through the show, I became so tired of hearing Benjamin Button. Nothing against Brad Pitt or Cate Blanchett. The film was really good but it has won enough awards and made its money. It wasn’t even that original. I feel that of all the other award shows, the Oscars should be the one to truly award film excellence.

check out these links for some of the best parts of the show: