Due to some domestic emergencies, I had to pause last night’s broadcast of the Academy Awards for about 45 minutes. This made me have to avoid the internet for the rest of the night, lest I catch any spoilers. The advantage to this, however, was of course being able to fast forward through commercials and the speeches of award recipients that I didn’t really care about. (Sorry, Short Film people. I’m sure you’re lovely, but it was getting late for a school night.)
Perhaps it was this DVR magic that made me think so, but I remember feeling like these Awards weren’t too terribly long. The excessive length of Oscar broadcasts is a running joke, but last night’s show clocked in at 3 hours and 14 minutes, down a whole minute from last year’s show. (The longest Oscars was in 2002, when Whoopi Goldberg hosted and A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture. That broadcast was 4 hours and 23 minutes long.) I actually felt like there were some elements missing from the show.
The music was kind of meh, and I was missing the performances of the Best Song nominees. I’m always itching for another opportunity to see the Academy’s interpretation of a makeshift home recording studio in the ghetto.
I was really sad to see that the right side of Angelina Jolie’s skirt couldn’t make it last night. Not because I’m such a modest person who faints at the sight of skin, but because I was really annoyed with her leg insisting on being in every single shot of its owner.
I have a leg. I have a leg. Have you seen this leg? It's very fine. It's earning more money tonight on its own than you'll make in a lifetime. This leg? Brad Pitt strokes this leg. But not your leg. Just mine. LOOK AT MY LEG LOOK AT IT!
Yes, she’s very beautiful and fit and blah blah blah but I am just so over Ms. Jolie. I giggled gleefully when one of the screenplay winners mocked her stance. And it reminded me of a bony knock-off of the Showgirls poster, which is not a movie you want to remind anyone of when you’re an actress who hasn’t had a good movie in years.
I'm wearing Ver-SAYCE
The choice of veteran host Billy Crystal was telling to me, as was the complete lack of mention given to last year’s hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco. Hathaway and Franco’s hosting turn was generally regarded as one of the least funny things to ever appear on television and I think failed to attract a younger demographic. But did anyone even see them last night? Were they even invited? Yeesh. Maybe their performance was worse than I thought.
F-bombs seem to be an inevitable issue when you’re dealing with a live broadcast, though I refuse to believe that winners are THAT flabbergasted that they can’t feel one coming long enough to suppress it. TJ Martin, one of the winners for the documentary Undefeated, was the second Oscar winner in history to drop an f-bomb, the first being Melissa Leo when she won for The Fighter last year. But if it happens, I think instead of trying to act like it didn’t, own it and run with it. Billy Crystal missed an opportunity there.
One of the highlights of the evening for me was the Christopher Guest interlude. The mockumentary director provided a hilarious recreation of his vision of a test screening of The Wizard of Oz. Guest has the movie industry nailed, particularly when it comes to Oscar buzz, as we saw in his hilarious movie For Your Consideration. He’s not in the Oscars nearly enough. If I had my druthers, he would direct the Oscars from now on.
What did you miss from last night’s show?
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