Really. There's no reason that this year's Oscars should have been this freakin' bad. Like, I'm pretty sure they plan this thing for months, at least, and they probably focus-group the hell out of it, and they probably pay boatloads of reasonably smart people to try and come up with at least a watchable event. This year, in particular, was supposed to be the rebound year for the Oscars after a relatively steady decline in ratings over the past half-decade or so. I'm sure that viewership was up this year, but I sincerely hope (though I also sincerely fear that they will anyways) that the powers that be don't mistake the boost in ratings for compelling television.
Anyways, it was bad. Point made.
I don't tweet, but if I did, it would probably look almost precisely identical to this.
That said, I will try and give you a brief rundown of precisely why this year's Oscarcast was so eminently wretched – and hopefully, if things go relatively well, I can shoehorn some suggestions (that presumably, nobody with any decision-making powers for next year's ceremony will ever come close to seeing) for how to make next year's show...less...bad...
It is also probably worth mentioning, before I launch into this, that the Academy probably isn't trying to win me over. Nor, for that matter, are they probably trying to win Roger Ebert over – who's twitter feed I just linked you to above. It would seem that my personal hero Mr. Ebert and I both really liked many of the Oscarcasts in the last half-decade and really hated this one. So maybe there's someone out there that the Academy was aiming to please with yesterday's sorry excuse for an Awards Ceremony. If that's the case, I'm not entirely sure who exactly that person is, regardless, it needs to be said that the Academy probably doesn't give a damn what their base thinks. They were likely trying to appeal to the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, or the Twilight, or the Valentine's Day crowd(s). Not the...Hurt Locker (?) sort of crowd. I know...It doesn't really make sense to me, either.
That said, what I think actually ended up happening in their sorry attempt to simultaneously appease “serious” and “casual” filmgoers alike was something much akin to my opinion of the Black eyed Peas, which can be perfectly summed-up in this article. In fact, I can simply take the first sentence of that particular review, and change a few words to fairly accurately sum-up this year's Academy Awards. Here are the two side-by-side:
“The Black Eyed Peas make effective pop/crossover music, but with all the limitations of the form — vapid lyrics, clumsy delivery, vocals smoothed over by Auto-Tune, and songwriting that constantly strains for (and reaches) the lowest common denominator.”
The 82nd Annual Academy Awards garnered better ratings than in past years with their attempt at a pop/crossover ceremony, but with all the limitations of the form — vapid banter, clumsy delivery, and shameless pandering that constantly strained for (and reached) the lowest common denominator.
See. There you go. If you wanted one sentence that perfectly sums-up this year's ceremony, there you have it.
For those of you who want a little more substance, let's break this $hip down.
The real problem that the Academy Awards are facing recently is that they seem unable to decide why, exactly, they exist at all. In theory, the Oscars exist to award and promote good film-making, and to function as an annual celebration, and a fitting symbol of closure for a year of movies (and their creators). It is fairly evident that it doesn't necessarily always work out like that – there always seem to be some pretty ugly politics and internal-Hollywood-dynamics going on behind the scenes, and the actual awards are often inconsistent, but these things are to be expected of Awards Ceremonies of this nature. In spite of the errors that the Oscars have, more-or-less, always had, for the past several years, that had at least gotten the most important things right – whether or not I agreed with the results, I always had a general sense that the ceremony was a fitting tribute to films. More recently, however, there have been some growing tensions that are transforming the ceremony into something much more sinister. With a constant need to remain relevant, but an evident lack of understanding how to do that, the Oscars seem to be hastening their own obsolescence.
The relevant tensions, as far as I can tell, are primarily those between “ardent” and “casual” film fans. The past half-decade was marked by some pretty excellent, but equally difficult films that were recognized by the Academy. There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men, for instance, were both towering cinematic achievements, but both were also fundamentally niche experiences. Perhaps the advances in film-making widened the chasm between “meritorious cinema” and “popular cinema”. One can't be sure. Nevertheless, the evidence seems to suggest that the critically-best movies in recent years did not properly align with the most popular movies. And in the years that some of the best films of the year did align with some of the most popular [read: the Dark Knight in 2008; every Pixar entry every year] – the Academy seemed unwilling to adapt, and thus ruined their own cause. This, of course, meant declining viewership (and revenues) for the Oscars, which is, of course, intolerable. The Academy's answer has been to appeal to the lowest common denominator. They want more viewers. They want the Oscars to be popular and relevant again. So they respond by removing the fundamental sort of movie-ness out of the Oscars. The result: The Oscars don't really feel like a warm hug for the year-in-movies, but a cold and shameless cash-grab. It's pretty flagrant. And it's pretty offensive. And it's really pretty sad and pathetic.
The first step that the Academy took leading into the 82nd Annual Academy Awards was to double the Best Picture category from 5 to 10. This is a move that is perfectly fine, in theory, and certainly proved to be a rabid success in drumming up pre-Oscar buzz. It allowed the Academy to finally get their popular-picks on the ballot, which in turn, allowed them to boost their ratings. Again, these are all things that are perfectly fine when taken on their own terms – I personally see no reason not to have the 10 film-ballot. It certainly made things interesting leading up to the big show. Where the let-down came was in the implementation of the thing. More on this later.
In the past several years, the Academy seems to have been stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge their own legitimate faults in addressing their declining viewership [I.e. nominating the Reader instead of the Dark Knight, for instance – or, more generally, not putting together a palatable/interesting lineup of films themselves], instead electing to place disproportionate onus on what should rightfully be the more trivial elements of the Oscars – the host(s), the stage(s), trivial production choices I.e. not enough irrelevant song-and-dance numbers. So, this year, they decided to try and play it safe. No Jon Stewart, no Ellen Degeneres, no Hugh Jackman. This year, they were going to hand the Oscars off to a pair of Hollywood stalwarts – Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. The two co-starred with Meryl Streep in a fair box-office success earlier in the year, and both represent a significant demographic draw – it seems fairly evident that the hosts were the Oscar's concession to the older members of the audience. Again, there is nothing wrong with this approach in theory. What is wrong with this approach is that, now that the Oscarcast has come and gone, it seems pretty clear, that beyond existing at the Oscars because the idea of them probably polled well with focus groups, the two-hosts brought nothing to the table in practice. Their banter was pretty flagrantly horrendous from start to finish – in particular the opening duologue – their comedic timing was cringe-worthy, and the whole thing reeked of a perfect lack of inspiration.
As an lol-aside. The Academy had to bring in Neil Patrick Harris to open the show because they wanted to have in the song-and-dance that Hugh Jackman brought the year earlier. What makes this hilarious is that instead of just getting someone talented and charming enough to do this sort of thing for the whole show, they had already sold-out the host jobs in a shameless bid to bring in the “safe” audience, so they had to outsource this segment, because they didn't want to risk losing their core audience to a host who was genuinely more capable.
Moving on, I would like to now touch on a slew of horribly awkward production decisions at this year's Oscars.
It seems awfully strange to upstage one of the most touching moments of the Oscars – the In Memoriam – with a live performance. I love James Taylor as much as anybody, but the In Memoriam portion of the Oscars is supposed to be a solemn tribute to those who have passed, there shouldn't be a live performer in between that and the audience. Add to this the absence of pop-culture icons Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur. and you have an In Memoriam that is almost as genuinely offensive as it is touching. Apparently the Academy's reasoning for not including Fawcett and Arthur is that the two were better-known as television performers, and that “there are simply too many people to include for the time allotted.” As far as I'm concerned, the Academy aren't doing themselves any favors with this truly sorry excuse. Last I checked, the Academy Awards are still about movies and the people who make them for chrissake. The In Memoriam portion should be essentially sacrosanct as far as I'm concerned. If the Academy loses a few viewers in the process, or if it makes the Oscarcast run a few minutes long then so be it. This section basically embodies what the whole stinkin' show is supposed to be about.
The same could be said about the Lifetime Achievement Awards. The Academy is constantly trying to find a way to cut the length of the Oscars, but they don't ever actually cut anything. What they do instead is replace it with something increasingly more shameless (another appearance by Miley Cyrus and Taylor Lautner!!!), thus undermining the very existence of their own awards show. Moving the Liftime Achievement Awards to another day, only to then recognize the lifetime achievers in the margins (they are apparently interesting enough to pan to in the audience and accept a standing ovation from their seats, but not to take the stage or say a few words) played out as pretty awkward.
To state a more broad complaint, I feel like the presentation of each individual category was vastly worse than in the past several years. There were a few categories where they did some cute things – the presentation of Best Animated Picture was pretty nice, and for the Adapted Screenplay category, there was a brief moment where I was personally like “Well, that book just turned into that screenplay. That was pretty cute.” Tina Fey and Robert Downey Junior also had a nice little bit introducting the screenplay awards. Beyond that, however, I don't really have anything good to say about any of the other awards.
The decision to intersperse the ten Best Picture nominees throughout the show was kind of neat for roughly the first nominee – but quickly grew tiresome – especially when the end of the show finally came, and ended up playing out as the single biggest anti-climax of the night (and of any Oscarcast that I can personally remember). Not to mention that whoever did the editing for the Best Picture clips did a truly horrendous job – I can't imagine that it was the actual filmmakers themselves – because the vast majority of the nominees ended up being rather egregiously mis-represented.
Apparently the breakdown of the show also ended up forcing out the live-performances of the best song nominees. This year had a fairly weak line-up, so it ended up being less noticeable than it could otherwise have been, but the Academy still managed to successfully rid their show of one of the most consistently interesting elements. The Academy desperately wants to add-in poorly-thought-out and scarcely relevant big-production numbers, but they are quick to dispense with something that is both compelling and relevant. Can someone help me out here?
On a similar note, the Academy also managed to reduce the class of the other music category on the ballot by turning the best original score presentation into a So You Think You Can Dance competition. I understand that ABC wants to capitalize on the popularity of their numerous dancing reality shows, but this was another deeply offensive moment. The scores can speak for themselves. The highpoint of recent Oscar memory was when Itzhak Perlman performed violin-solo versions of the best original score nominees in 2008, which was incalculably more classy than the treatment that the category got at the 82nd annual awards.
Add to these affronts the categories that got practically no treatment at all – including a particularly interesting and outstanding year for best Cinematography and for Film Editing. Sure, these categories don't carry much popular appeal, but if they deserve to be there at all, they deserve to be done right.
It is also worth mentioning the absolute epitome of long-winded and awkward lead-ins – those for the Best actor and actress categories. It's a nice idea to have individual presenters say some nice things about each of the nominees, but in practice, it just ends up seeming like a bunch of phonies saying nice things because they have to. It's really rather awkward. Not to mention the fact that it seems to take a hundred hours for them to get through it all. Show clips from the movies and let them speak for themselves. Seriously.
Finally, there was the inconsistent tribute to Horror films, which, again, didn't play out like a tribute to horror films so much as it played as a shameless nod to sort-of-horror films, rounded out nicely with a shot of Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart from twilight right alongside Hitchcock and the Shining...right...
Anyways, it is also worth mentioning the two things that I think the Academy got unequivocally right last night – the John Hughes tribute. Everything about the Hughes tribute was appropriate and touching. What made that moment so bittersweet was that it showed us a glimpse of the Oscars at their best before it returned to the rest of the show, which was, in essence, the Oscars at their worst.
The other flawless element of last night's Oscars: they didn't give Best Picture to Avatar.
Now, since I promised to be constructive in my criticism, I will offer a few ideas to try and make the Oscars more interesting while still remaining classy. Apparently the Academy thinks the only thing they've got left to bank on is pure starpower, because yesterday's Oscars felt suspiciously like a celebrity showcase with a movie-awards-show shoehorned in. Personally, I feel like it would be best executed in the opposite fashion. Alas, here are some thoughts:
* Place an outright ban on “thank-you lists”. I'm serious about this. If time is such a big issue, why not do something radical about it? When the Oscars are done well, I'm as big a fan of them as anybody, and my least favorite part is – and always has been – when someone wins and gets up and has to thank everybody in the freakin' world. Obviously, the thank-yous are nice and all – I'm glad that all of the big stars are so cordial – but can't we just assume that you're appreciative of everyone that you worked with that led to you just winning one of the crowning achievements of your career? Either way, it's probably a moot point, because even if any of the winners were genuinely unappreciative and they didn't honestly mean it when they go up and thank every one in the world, they would do it anyways, because otherwise they would look like a profound jerk. So let's just do away with it. Make an announcement to both the nominees and the public that if they get up and thank any more than five people personally, then they're getting their mic cut off. I guarantee it would cut out a lot of filler, and guarantee more interesting television. As it stands, there are maybe a handful of genuinely interesting speeches each year. If you mandate that a speaker get up and actually say something other than “thank you” - you would either save a lot of time, or promise a lot more interesting speeches. That's a win-win.
* Cut down on the Bull-sh... Seriously. Just get rid of it. Part of the reason the Oscars are so long is because they've been bloated throughout the years with a bunch of irrelevant and uninteresting nonsense. I understand that the Academy wants to capitalize on their starpower, so they try and throw every modestly-popular personality they can possibly imagine on stage for some reason or another. If someone would just step up and call this out as what it is – complete and utter bullship – then the ceremony could better be what it was meant to be about. I want to watch the Oscars because I like movies. I don't need the hottest tween star to come out and introduce the latest action hero who finally comes out and botches his/her teleprompter-reading of the intro to the actual category.
* Let the movies speak for themselves. The reason these movies (and performers and filmmakers, etc.) is (or at least should be) because their work is exemplary. Well, if it's so exemplary, then put it on display! Don't ham-fist some nonsense dancing with the stars crap into my best original score category. Use the production of the show to support the films themselves. The technical categories aren't uninteresting to the public because the categories are necessarily uninteresting themselves (and if they are that uninteresting then actually make that decision, and move them to one of the off-air ceremonies), but rather because they aren't fully understood in the public vernacular. Explain what Cinematography is and then show why these are all good examples of it, etc.
* Fix the ballot! Part of why the Oscars struggle for viewership is because they seem to be in an in-between phase, and they have generally lost sight of why they exist. They leave on technical categories that have little popular appeal, and try desperately to shorten the length of the show by moving the lifetime achievement award and other technical awards to a different ceremony. The Academy needs to figure out why, exactly, they exist at all, and design the ballot accordingly. If they want to leave on the technical awards, then make them relevant. If they are going to separate the shorts into documentary, animated and live action, then they should do the same with the longs as well. It doesn't make sense to call it Best Picture if they really mean best live-action feature, considering that they will never honestly award an animated film or a documentary, I think it would help if they fixed these ballot inconsistencies (which also create some pretty curious conflicts of interest I.e. nominating one animated for film for Best Picture kind of undermines the Best Animated film category).
And, finally, before I conclude my commentary on this year's Oscars, I should probably briefly defend my picks – which didn't turn out particularly well (I chose 15/24 correctly – which is decent, but certainly not extraordinary).
First of all, this years wild-card categories were pretty wild. Four of my nine incorrect predictions all came in categories that I felt could pretty easily be considered “toss-up” categories: the three Short-categories, and Foreign Film. Of these, the only one that I would really consider an upset would be Animated short. Logorama over A Matter of Loaf or Death marked the first time Nick Park has ever lost to anybody other than himself. The other three categories were pretty evenly up for grabs.
Of the other five categories I got wrong, two were in screenplay – both of which I would consider the biggest upsets (and most flagrant oversights) of the evening. By my estimation, The Hurt Locker was probably the third, if not fourth best screenplay in the category, and only one because it essentially swept all but one of the categories (cinematography) that it had a reasonable shot at. Similarly, with Precious, I felt like it was a bit heavy-handed, especially up against the exquisite Up in the Air.
Another of my missteps was in Sound Mixing – I suppose it could have been foreseen that whichever film took home the editing trophy (where I picked the Hurt Locker) would also get mixing, but this was another essential toss-up. I kind of figured that Avatar would take home more of the technical trophies than it did...
I also got costume design wrong, but that was also fairly predictable – the Academy can't resist a costume drama, but I wanted to stick to my Coco Before Chanel guns because it is about a fashion designer, after all.
Finally, I picked the big award – Best Picture – wrong. The Hurt Locker poured a veritable world of hurt on my ballot when it scored this award, and the overall count. My hunch was that this year was supposed to be the rebound year for the Oscars, and that they were going to try extra hard to try to pander to the mainstream audience, which was why I chose Avatar as the choice for the biggest award of the evening, and the overall trophy count. Needless to say, I was wrong. I didn't predict that the Academy would fail so profoundly to try and meet what I thought to be their primary goals on this front – both in terms of the ceremony in general, and in terms of the awards themselves.
All I can say is, that not giving Best Picture to Avatar was one of the few redeeming features of this years show. Maybe next year they can aim to get a few more things right.
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