![]() Not even Gwyneth Paltrow performing a song from Country Strong left much of an impression. ![]() Song performances: This was a rough batch of Best Original Song nominees, won practically by default by Randy Newman for Toy Story 3. Even Aaron Sorkin’s acceptance of the Best Adapted Screenplay award fell short of his capacity for grandiose self-regard. Less heralded but no less spectacular was Cate Blanchett, who paused after the clip reel of Best Makeup nominee The Wolfman to shudder politely and say, “ Gross.”Īcceptance speeches: All four acting winners - Melissa Leo, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, and Colin Firth - gave solid if unspectacular speeches. Presenter banter/writing: Kirk Douglas presenting Best Supporting Actress, not realizing that winner Melissa Leo would be his rambunctious equal, was a highlight. The King’s Speech took the top prize - along with Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay. Winners/narrative: The Social Network was the talk of the industry for months leading up to the Oscars, but by the time we arrived to the ceremony, the old-fashioned appeal of an English monarch learning to believe in himself and defy the Nazis was entirely too much for the Academy to resist. Hosts: Everything that can possibly be said about James Franco and Anne Hathaway’s disastrous hosting performance has already been scorched into the history books, but to sum it up: Franco was low-energy to the point of a flatline, Hathaway tried to crank the theater-kid vibe up to 11 to compensate, and viewers wanted to crawl out of their skin. Other memorable moments: A catch-all for anything else about the year’s ceremony that we remember. Did these particular montages enhance the moment? Montages: A recurring bugaboo for Oscar clock-watchers is how much time is spent “wasted” on montages. Yes, including Seth MacFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs.” Song performances: Not just the nominated Best Original Songs, but any other musical number presented on the show. How memorable were this year’s speeches? How many would you go back and watch again and again? Presenter banter/writing: Were the presenters left to die on the vine with crappy preamble? Were there entertaining bits before the nominees’ names were rattled off?Īcceptance speeches: Self-explanatory. Winners/narrative: Did the “story” told by the Best Picture and major acting categories present viewers with a sufficiently engaging competition to follow? Host: How well that year’s host did with the monologue, interstitial comedy, reactions in the moment, and keeping the show moving along. Is there an ideal version of the Oscars? Is there a perfect balance between commercial and commemorative that, if perfectly struck, would give the largest number of people - viewers, nominees, and Academy members alike - what they want out of an Oscar ceremony? In an attempt to answer these questions, we dove headfirst into every Oscar ceremony of the 21st century, starting with the American Beauty-crowning Oscars of March 2000. There are two warring camps: those who think the Oscars’ watchability hinges on a short-as-possible ceremony full of big stars and a parade of blockbuster movies, and a second who acknowledge that the show’s continually sliding ratings are a symptom of the shift of how people watch TV, and that producers are better off letting the Oscars be the Oscars - long, self-indulgent, and with an eye toward honoring the breadth of cinematic achievement. A scramble to find a host, which ended with comedian Kevin Hart departing the job within a week in a hail of old homophobic tweets and non-apologies, didn’t help anything.Īs we amble towards this year’s hostless ceremony, the debate over what makes an Oscar telecast “good” has become an essential pop argument. Fans of the Hollywood horse race have wondered since the summer, when the Academy announced a series of major changes to the ceremony, including limiting the telecast to a tight three hours (a mark that the show hasn’t hit since 1973) presenting certain “unsexy” categories during commercial breaks (a decision reversed after major industry protest) and adding a new award for the best “popular film,” an amorphous category scrapped only a month after being announced.
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