I have a love / hate relationship with the Oscars. They are my very favorite thing to watch every year, yet at the same time they can be bloated, long and overly self-congratulatory. Sometimes I’m elated by the results and sometimes I’m pissed off beyond belief. Being a big fan of most of the nominees this year I figured it was a pretty safe bet that I’d be happy with this year’s ceremony and for the most part I very much am.
I won’t go into everything I liked and disliked but over all I was impressed and entertained with this year’s presentation. I’m not sure Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were quite as good as Hugh Jackman was last year but they still did a great job and brought plenty of laughs.
I think the producers did a pretty good job of trying to streamline the show and keep it at short as they could but as always there were plenty of things they could have cut out. I don’t mind them celebrating various genres or movies and the like but can’t we all just agree it’s time to cut out he dance numbers for the music categories? They did away with a lot of the fluff for the Best Original Song category but then threw in a completely needless dance number to the scores, that didn’t really feel like it related to them or was germane in any significant way.
I also love the groups of actors love fests but I don’t think it would hurt to tighten them up a little bit. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when it seems like it took them 30 minutes to present the Best Actor and Actress awards. Look, I know the Academy Awards are long, they’re meant to be long and they’re never going to be that short and that doesn’t bother me I’d just prefer if they kept things moving from one thing to another a little faster so they didn’t feel like they stalled out from time to time.
My only other MAJOR complaint was Taylor Lautner and Kristin Stewart presenting the tribute to horror movies. Great idea for a tribute, totally worthy and respectable but having the stars of NEW MOON present anything relating to horror is like having Pauly Shore present a tribute to war movies because he starred in IN THE ARMY NOW. I can honestly think of very few more sacrilegious or infuriating things I’ve EVER seen and as a resulted it’s multiplied my hatred of that insipid franchise even more and renewed my purpose in insuring that it is destroyed.
All that aside though I loved a lot about this years Oscars. The opening Neil Patrick Harris number was awesome as was the Ben Stiller AVATAR bit, the whole Robert Downey Jr. / Tina Fey screenplay presentation, and probably best of all the awesome John Hughes tribute. If anyone ever had any doubt about that man’s influence on an entire generation of not just artists but kids and teenagers in general that more than proved just how huge that man was in so many people’s lives.
Then of course there were the awards themselves. I’ve been saying from the moment the nominees were announced that I was going to be happy regardless of what won just because I was so thrilled by all the nominees. I was sort of hoping and expecting an upset with INGLORIOUS BASTERDS but it came as no surprise that THE HURT LOCKER took it all. While I’m bummed Megan won’t be the first woman to win Best Director Kathryn Bigelow was more than deserving and I’m ecstatic for her and for the fact that yet another glass ceiling has been shattered. The Dude, aka Flynn, aka Jeff Bridges has an Oscar and all is right with the world. Christoph Waltz and Sandra Bullock were deserving as was UP and so many others. I think perhaps my favorite win of the night however might have been by Michael Giacchino for his brilliant score for UP. The man wrote the two best scores of the year (The other being STAR TREK) and is hands down one of the three best composers in the industry at the moment so it was more than fitting to see him take home the prize. Not to mention he had one of the single best acceptance speeches of the night. I’m also elated because I can now say STAR TREK is an Oscar winning film which makes me uber-excited.
I could go on and on about the Oscars and that’s because despite they’re flaws, despite the fact that THE HURT LOCKER won Best Screenplay when it really should have been INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, despite the silly dance number and the superfluous bits I just love the stupid show. About the only thing I get more jacked up for all year is Comic-Con but even then I’m not sure anything fills me with a since of magic like this yearly awards show. You see the reason I love the Oscars so much, the reason I continue to watch them year after year is because they inspire me. This is the dance I want to be invited to, this is the world I want to be a part of and just like me at one point or another all of these people were nobodies, complete unknowns with nothing more than their dreams and loads of perseverance. The Oscars may be lots of glitz and glamour but they’re also the culmination of a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears. They’re the end game for people like me, a beacon in the night that drives us forward and spurs us on. For people like my sister and I they’re not an awards show, they’re a gauntlet that’s been laid down in front of us, a challenge to fight our way through it all to join the fun. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go continue trying to do just that. The Oscars are rocket fuel for my dreams and it’s time for lift-off.
I won’t go into everything I liked and disliked but over all I was impressed and entertained with this year’s presentation. I’m not sure Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were quite as good as Hugh Jackman was last year but they still did a great job and brought plenty of laughs.
I think the producers did a pretty good job of trying to streamline the show and keep it at short as they could but as always there were plenty of things they could have cut out. I don’t mind them celebrating various genres or movies and the like but can’t we all just agree it’s time to cut out he dance numbers for the music categories? They did away with a lot of the fluff for the Best Original Song category but then threw in a completely needless dance number to the scores, that didn’t really feel like it related to them or was germane in any significant way.
I also love the groups of actors love fests but I don’t think it would hurt to tighten them up a little bit. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when it seems like it took them 30 minutes to present the Best Actor and Actress awards. Look, I know the Academy Awards are long, they’re meant to be long and they’re never going to be that short and that doesn’t bother me I’d just prefer if they kept things moving from one thing to another a little faster so they didn’t feel like they stalled out from time to time.
My only other MAJOR complaint was Taylor Lautner and Kristin Stewart presenting the tribute to horror movies. Great idea for a tribute, totally worthy and respectable but having the stars of NEW MOON present anything relating to horror is like having Pauly Shore present a tribute to war movies because he starred in IN THE ARMY NOW. I can honestly think of very few more sacrilegious or infuriating things I’ve EVER seen and as a resulted it’s multiplied my hatred of that insipid franchise even more and renewed my purpose in insuring that it is destroyed.
All that aside though I loved a lot about this years Oscars. The opening Neil Patrick Harris number was awesome as was the Ben Stiller AVATAR bit, the whole Robert Downey Jr. / Tina Fey screenplay presentation, and probably best of all the awesome John Hughes tribute. If anyone ever had any doubt about that man’s influence on an entire generation of not just artists but kids and teenagers in general that more than proved just how huge that man was in so many people’s lives.
Then of course there were the awards themselves. I’ve been saying from the moment the nominees were announced that I was going to be happy regardless of what won just because I was so thrilled by all the nominees. I was sort of hoping and expecting an upset with INGLORIOUS BASTERDS but it came as no surprise that THE HURT LOCKER took it all. While I’m bummed Megan won’t be the first woman to win Best Director Kathryn Bigelow was more than deserving and I’m ecstatic for her and for the fact that yet another glass ceiling has been shattered. The Dude, aka Flynn, aka Jeff Bridges has an Oscar and all is right with the world. Christoph Waltz and Sandra Bullock were deserving as was UP and so many others. I think perhaps my favorite win of the night however might have been by Michael Giacchino for his brilliant score for UP. The man wrote the two best scores of the year (The other being STAR TREK) and is hands down one of the three best composers in the industry at the moment so it was more than fitting to see him take home the prize. Not to mention he had one of the single best acceptance speeches of the night. I’m also elated because I can now say STAR TREK is an Oscar winning film which makes me uber-excited.
I could go on and on about the Oscars and that’s because despite they’re flaws, despite the fact that THE HURT LOCKER won Best Screenplay when it really should have been INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, despite the silly dance number and the superfluous bits I just love the stupid show. About the only thing I get more jacked up for all year is Comic-Con but even then I’m not sure anything fills me with a since of magic like this yearly awards show. You see the reason I love the Oscars so much, the reason I continue to watch them year after year is because they inspire me. This is the dance I want to be invited to, this is the world I want to be a part of and just like me at one point or another all of these people were nobodies, complete unknowns with nothing more than their dreams and loads of perseverance. The Oscars may be lots of glitz and glamour but they’re also the culmination of a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears. They’re the end game for people like me, a beacon in the night that drives us forward and spurs us on. For people like my sister and I they’re not an awards show, they’re a gauntlet that’s been laid down in front of us, a challenge to fight our way through it all to join the fun. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go continue trying to do just that. The Oscars are rocket fuel for my dreams and it’s time for lift-off.
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