A relatively middle of the pack Oscars. Not the best show but certainly not the worst and just what was needed after the awful Franco/Hathaway job last year. Some thoughts and some useless info you need to know:
· The only thing worse than that was seeing Oprah Winfrey given the Academy’s Humanitarian award. That was absolutely disgusting
· Billy Crystal was insanely good and gracious as a host but awful as a monologuist. However, this was the fault of his writers. As Jason says, the guy sells everything like it’s genius and makes it look like its his own fault a written joke bombed instead of the real person who is responsible. True class. His written jokes were bombing badly but once he was improvising (“I’ve never had those feelings.”) he was great. The guy really should lay off of the Botox though.
· I didn’t realize it until this morning: while I recognized Catherine O’Hara in the “Wizard of Oz test audience” skit, I failed to connect that the entire skit was a Second City/SCTV reunion!
· Jason and I loved the vignettes in which each nominee for every single category spoke about their film and their craft. All of these were directed, BTW, by Moneyball director Bennett Miller
· By far, the best year I can recall in seemingly forever in terms of acceptance speeches filled with grace and heartfelt emotion. As Jason said, it was the non-actors who gave surprisingly excellent speeches but the actors were pretty good this year as well.
· Not sure you guys were aware, but there was a double meaning to Jean Dujardin’s great joke at the opening of his acceptance speech (“I love your country!”) – he LOST Best Actor at the Cesars, France’s version of the Oscars
· Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez should be shot dead and have their leathery hides hung on the rafters of the Oscar theatre for the entire world to see. And despite what Diaz thinks, the audience was not jeering because it wasn’t funny – they were jeering because it was pretentious and classless and arrogant
· Sandra Bullock, Chris Rock and Emma Stone were awesome. I don’t think people quite realize that Stone was, believe it or not, a singing reality show contestant before she hit it big as an actress. Yep, she was one of the contestants for the New Patridge Family and won! The proposed new show, however, was never actually made
· I was utterly shocked that Robert Downey Jr. was so off in his live comic timing. I think the guy benefits more from film editing and direction that people realize or will admit
· So sad to see just TWO songs nominated for an Oscar. Remember the days when movie soundtracks actually sold entire albums and you could count on movie theme songs hitting the Top 10 on a regular basis?
· The cost to make Best Picture nominee Hugo was $200 million plus. The cost to make Best Picture Winner The Artist was $30 million. Interestingly, both are doing badly at the box office! Hugo has made a mere $70 million at the box office and The Artist has only just broken even at costing and making $30 million. The Help is the most successful nominee at a cost of $25 million and making $167 million
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