I think the biggest story going into this year’s Oscar ceremony was the increase of best picture nominations from five to ten. Personally I think the experiment was a failure and I hope it doesn’t continue, though I don’t think there’s very much chance of that. When ten pictures get nominated the prestige that the position holds is completely shot to hell. If everybody gets recognition then nobody gets recognition. I understand the reasoning behind the move, to shift the focus of the awards a bit away from solely being about tear jerking dramas that not many “regular” people have seen and more towards genre movies that have traditionally been underrated by the academy and that hold more interest with the general public; but I think the experiment failed and hurt the credibility of the award. When things really got down to business and it was time to give out the statue only two or three of the nominees were considered to be realistically in the running, so what was the point of the other seven films having their hats thrown in the ring? If anything I think the field of nominees should have been lessened from five to three. Then, the idea of getting a best picture nomination starts to look really important. Clearly, this move was made for financial reasons alone. Now ten movies can stick on their DVD cover that they were nominated instead of five. That’s a lot of increased visibility and, theoretically, increased sales for the industry. Now people who liked, or maybe even just saw movies like The Blind Side, District 9, and Inglorious Basterds have something to root for. Look at the nominees from last year. How many people saw Milk, Frost/Nixon, or The Reader going into the show? Most likely it was primarily film buffs who were going to tune in to the broadcast already anyways. Nominating this many films is a money grab and a ratings ploy, plain and simple. That’s all fine and good, theoretically, but I think they are sacrificing their long-term viability for a short-term gain. If you don’t protect the sanctity of an Academy Award nomination then the public is going to lose interest in who’s winning them. When that happens they’re going to lose a lot more people than they gained by adding a couple of genre films into the mix.
The second big experiment going into the broadcast was the introduction of the dual host concept. I think that this one worked out much better than the increased nominations. The banter back and forth between Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin was really fun to watch. Having someone out there with you must take a lot of the pressure off, and I really think it helped relieve some of the stuffiness of the host segments. As the awards progressed things started to take on the feel of a raucous boy’s club. Baldwin and Martin were clearly having a good time out there and that translated into me having a good time watching. I also think having some support out there made them less conscious of pulling their punches when they were roasting the audience members. I especially enjoyed the threesome and Nazi paraphernalia jokes they lobbed at Meryl Streep. That level of absurdity isn’t often seen at these ceremonies.
One thing that stood out to me as being weird during the show was the multiple references to the Twilight series. New Moon got a shout out both in Neil Patrick Harris’ pointless opening musical number and in the montage film in tribute to the horror genre. Really academy? Really? How big was the payoff to get these kids from this horrible series involved in the show? It would have felt a lot more natural to have them show up at The Razzies. Clearly, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner were there as yet another ratings grab. What was it that I was saying about credibility? And speaking of the tribute to the horror genre, the idea of the Academy Awards doing a tribute to horror is completely ridiculous considering the complete lack of consideration it gets every year. To be fair to the academy, most horror movies are really bad, but given that fact what was the point of this video other than being a time waster on an already too long show?
One thing I really did enjoy was the video explaining the process of sound mixing that led into the sound awards. I love the idea of using the Academy Awards as a platform to educate the public about film making. It’s stuff like this that keeps me watching and keeps the ceremony from becoming a dumbed down, too flashy, too trashy, reality show-like presentation. The John Hughes tribute was another video package that I really enjoyed. It made me realize just how well his movies reflected everyday American life over the last 30 years. It’s not hard to see bits of his characters in yourself or to relate to their struggles, and it’s not hard to understand why the things that he created are so well loved. Because of him I get to watch Home Alone every year on Thanksgiving. That’s a great gift and he will be missed as a force in Hollywood. James Taylor doing The Beatles for the dead people package was awesomely sappy. People still refuse to not clap during this segment. Maybe it’s time for us to embrace the fact that some lives are just worth more than others and encourage the hooting and the hollering. Also, it didn’t feel like very many people died this year. So, I guess that’s good. Or maybe more people just got left out than usual. That would be bad.
The thing that I’ve focused on most while watching the ceremonies over these past few years is this issue of credibility that I keep bringing up. Sure, there have always been controversies when it comes to the winners. That’s just the nature of the beast. There are countless examples of films now considered classic being beat out by films that are now relatively forgotten. I feel like things over the last ten years or so have gotten really out of hand though. Actually, looking back, I’m going to say the beginning of the downfall was with Shakespeare in Love’s win in 1997. Miramax famously spent a lot of money launching a promotional campaign to get Shakespeare in Love the award, and in the end it worked even though most people thought Saving Private Ryan was the more deserving nominee. Since then Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Million Dollar Baby, and Crash have all won the award for Best Picture and have all been movies that I have considered barely mediocre at best or actively bad at worst. That’s an impressively large amount of bad films to get Hollywood’s highest honor all in a short span of time. My enthusiasm for the event has gone down considerably over the last decade because of this. It seems like the awards are now given out to whoever spends the most money promoting the show, or whoever’s win would be the best real life story for the media to latch onto following the ceremony. The academy has become too focused on doing firsts; first black, first woman, first whatever, and the focus has been shifted too far away from who actually did the best work. Instead of being a legitimate award the Oscar has become a business used to generate hype and make money. It’s a real shame in my eyes and something that I think will wreck the awards if it’s kept up. To be fair, the problem has been lessened very recently and I don’t think an actively bad movie has taken away a bunch of awards from 2006 on; but The Hurt Locker sweeping up all the big stuff this year has me back on guard. I found The Hurt Locker to be a thoroughly mediocre experience. It was competent, and the bomb defusing scenes were tense and effective, but other than that I didn’t see the film as having much to offer. The script was poor, the acting run of the mill, the score overpowering and lame. It lacked thematic depth or memorable moments. This was the best picture of the year? Not for me. I have to truly wonder if this film really won because the voters thought it was the best film of the year or more because it would allow them to give a woman the Best Director award for the first time and it dealt with a hot button issue in the war in Iraq that could garner the award some extra attention. Just food for thought. To wrap things up I’ll give my impressions of some of the biggest awards given out
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
I haven’t seen The Messenger yet, but I’ve really been loving Woody Harrelson lately and his nomination reminded me that I need to check it out. That is a prime example of the promotional potential of the awards. It’s a double edged sword. On one hand they can be used to promote worthwhile movies and on the other it threatens to turn the awards into something that can be bought and paid for. Christoph Waltz had to win this. His performance was, truly, a revelation. I couldn’t take my eyes off him any time he was on screen during Inglorious Basterds and his scenery chewing and milk sipping was hands down my favorite performance I saw in anything this year.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox, but this one HAD to go to Up. Nothing else could touch it. The opening twenty minutes or so of Up were heart wrenching, beautifully rendered, and probably the best thing I’ve seen in the theater since There Will Be Blood. The rest of the film was funny, thrilling, and affecting all the way through. Up was my pick of the year for best picture overall, not just best animated picture.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Does anyone really care about this award at this point? There is never that much to choose from to fill this category up with nominees. Pretty much any song that gets written for a movie gets nominated for this. Unless, of course, you’re Springsteen and you actually write a great song for The Wrestler like last year. Then you get snubbed. They should just make Randy Newman one gigantic Oscar to keep at his house and get rid of this category altogether. Nice to see T Bone Burnett get the recognition though. The music crafted for Crazy Heart really added a lot to that film.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
I was torn as to whether this one was going to go to Up In The Air or Precious. Really, this was the only big award that I didn’t have the winner picked 100%. I haven’t seen Precious yet, but I guess I’ll have to give it a whirl since it’s become beloved by so many people. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Mo’Nique had this one locked down. I’m continually amazed at how I can predict all of the winners, somewhere in the 90th percentile, while only seeing like half of the things that were nominated.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN/ BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY/BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
All of these tech and art awards were basically Avatar’s to lose. While the movie didn’t have much of a script, it was probably the most technically astounding, visually dense movie that’s been made in my lifetime. The design of the world, it’s depth of focus, and the immersive experience of the 3D were all a gigantic, game changing leap forward for film. Take the way Citizen Kane’s increased depth of focus changed the way movies staged things both in the foreground and the background and times that by a hundred. Cameron pushed the whole industry in a new direction with this one and I’ll be interested to see where this whole 3D thing goes in the future. A more original story and less clunky dialogue would have gotten this thing Best Picture and a huge sweep of all the awards for sure.
BEST SCORE
I was pretty furious that Moon didn’t get nominated for this. Moon and Up had my favorite scores of the year BY FAR. Despite this, I’m very happy that Up’s score got the recognition in this category and not the over the top, guitar shredding nonsense that The Hurt Locker had as music.
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM/BEST DOCUMENTARY
I never see these until long after the awards are given out. It just goes to show the homogenized, boring state of film distribution in most of America. We can have gigantic multiplexes with dozens of theatres in a building, but they’re all showing the same six films.
BEST ACTOR
I thought that Moon was snubbed in this category as well. Sam Rockwell did an astounding job carrying that movie as pretty much it’s only on screen character. Never the less, Jeff Bridges gave a great performance in Crazy Heart and I was happy to see him get the award. This was a great way to honor an underrated career.
BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock. I don’t even understand how this happened. This was a mediocre performance in a sappy, mediocre film and I can’t help but wonder why we went into this with Sandra as the clear favorite. Who started the buzz for her? Was this another attempt at drawing in mainstream viewers for the show? Gabourey Sidibe would have been the most interesting story here and on the surface seemed like the obvious choice for the win. Somehow Sandra did it, though, she picked up the Oscar for Best Actress a day after picking up the Razzie for Worst Actress. “Oscar Winner Sandra Bullock”, now that screams credibility for your awards show!
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY/ BEST EDITING/BEST DIRECTOR/BEST PICTURE
I’ve made my feelings on this felt. I don’t think it deserved the recognition. I guess, in the end, I shouldn’t be too mad with the chick who made Point Break getting an Oscar.
“Utah, get me two!”
