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yendiYou know, the show takes a hit every year, but it's really hard to judge the quality of the show based on the awards and speeches, which aren't exactly in the hands of the producers.
So, for the stuff that they had control over:
The good: Anne Hathaway, who was a blast, and always seemed to be having fun, even when wearing that godawful last dress. Also, Kirk Douglas, Jude Law and Robert Downey, Bob Hope, and Billy Crystal. And Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock were both fun (although Bridges seemed much more at ease). Seeing Spielberg introduce the Best Picture award by acknowledging that the award is completely irrelevant was awesome.
The bad: James Franco may or may not have been high, but he lacked charisma and good material. Making audiences listen to Randy Newman, Celene Dion, and Gwyneth Paltrow (who simply cannot sing live) was cruel and unusual. Wasting any time (even on a show that was only fifteen minutes overtime) on ABC execs coming out to brag about renewing their contract was insulting. Having Kathryn Bigelow come out in a year in which there were no female director nominations was a nice big "yeah, back to the old ways" (because, you know, it's not like Julie Taymor or Nicole Holofcener made movies last year, right?).
As for the parts that weren't in the script:
The good: Um, not much? I mean, the awards were generally predictable, which isn't bad, per se, but it's not exciting. Seeing Melissa Leo win was awesome, and both she and Christian Bale gave great speeches. Seeing a Twitterstorm of whining about how poor Social Network got screwed was a little amusing, I suppose. Seeing Inception win most of the technical awards it was up for (and it should have won Best Score, with all due respect to Trent Reznor, who had the weakest entry of the five nominees), was nice. Seeing Shaun Tan win an Oscar to go with the Ditmars is nice, but in all honesty, the Ditmars are something he probably should be prouder of.
The bad: Let's face it: The reason the show sucks so much is that the it's four hours of back-patting and boring speeches. And that's never going to change. If you don't watch the Oscars on a time delay with a DVR, you've only got yourself to blame for sitting through a four-hour suckfest*. As always, most of the awards were not only poor choices, but were in categories in which deserving candidates were left off the ballot entirely (don't even get me started on the lack of Tangled and Despicable Me in the animated film category, or that category's limit of three films to begin with). Basically, it's a show that will alway suck unless they spend hours on comedy bits to dilute the crap, in which case, it'll end at 1 in the morning. If you go in with those expectations and a fast-forward button, you won't be disappointed.
*"Four-hour Suckfest," incidentally, is the name of Vincent Gallo's next movie.
So, for the stuff that they had control over:
The good: Anne Hathaway, who was a blast, and always seemed to be having fun, even when wearing that godawful last dress. Also, Kirk Douglas, Jude Law and Robert Downey, Bob Hope, and Billy Crystal. And Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock were both fun (although Bridges seemed much more at ease). Seeing Spielberg introduce the Best Picture award by acknowledging that the award is completely irrelevant was awesome.
The bad: James Franco may or may not have been high, but he lacked charisma and good material. Making audiences listen to Randy Newman, Celene Dion, and Gwyneth Paltrow (who simply cannot sing live) was cruel and unusual. Wasting any time (even on a show that was only fifteen minutes overtime) on ABC execs coming out to brag about renewing their contract was insulting. Having Kathryn Bigelow come out in a year in which there were no female director nominations was a nice big "yeah, back to the old ways" (because, you know, it's not like Julie Taymor or Nicole Holofcener made movies last year, right?).
As for the parts that weren't in the script:
The good: Um, not much? I mean, the awards were generally predictable, which isn't bad, per se, but it's not exciting. Seeing Melissa Leo win was awesome, and both she and Christian Bale gave great speeches. Seeing a Twitterstorm of whining about how poor Social Network got screwed was a little amusing, I suppose. Seeing Inception win most of the technical awards it was up for (and it should have won Best Score, with all due respect to Trent Reznor, who had the weakest entry of the five nominees), was nice. Seeing Shaun Tan win an Oscar to go with the Ditmars is nice, but in all honesty, the Ditmars are something he probably should be prouder of.
The bad: Let's face it: The reason the show sucks so much is that the it's four hours of back-patting and boring speeches. And that's never going to change. If you don't watch the Oscars on a time delay with a DVR, you've only got yourself to blame for sitting through a four-hour suckfest*. As always, most of the awards were not only poor choices, but were in categories in which deserving candidates were left off the ballot entirely (don't even get me started on the lack of Tangled and Despicable Me in the animated film category, or that category's limit of three films to begin with). Basically, it's a show that will alway suck unless they spend hours on comedy bits to dilute the crap, in which case, it'll end at 1 in the morning. If you go in with those expectations and a fast-forward button, you won't be disappointed.
*"Four-hour Suckfest," incidentally, is the name of Vincent Gallo's next movie.