Well, first things first:
The Host
I say give the hosting gig back to Billy Crystal, permanently!
(“2006 Oscars,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 6, 2006)
This is how I felt about Billy Crystal until he returned last year to fill in for Eddie Murphy at the last minute. It may be that he just did not have enough time to prepare. But his staid performance was a tremendous letdown, which his botoxed face did little to uplift. This was brought into stark relief by Seth MacFarlane’s hilariously entertaining and irreverent performance tonight.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, MacFarlane is the creator and voice behind the hit TV show, Family Guy, and the blockbuster movie, Ted. But just imagine a host delivering Richard Pryor-style stand-up lines, acting Steve Martin-style bits, and singing, well, Hugh Jackman-style show tunes. McFarlane did all that, and then some….
His Ted bit with Mark Wahlberg about the location of the post-Oscar orgy he knew A-listers were having and why it would be helpful for the Catholic Wahlberg to say he’s Jewish was ROFL funny!
Which compels me to suggest the Academy give the hosting gig to Seth McFarlane, permanently! He was great! Except that his opening monologue was a bit too long … and enough of the Chris Brown-Rihanna jokes already.
The Singing Performances
Ironically, the singing performances at this awards show for acting put to shame those at the awards show for singing, the Grammys, which we were treated to a few weeks ago.
Based on the praise I heaped on Adele in picking her to win the Oscar for Best Original Song, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I thought her flawless rendition of her theme song for Skyfall was the highlight. Except that Dame Shirley Bassey upstaged her, literally – not only by performing first but also by singing a truly stirring rendition of her theme song for Goldfinger. Which is why her standing ovation, which Adele did not evoke, was not just an homage to her longevity.
Dame Bassey is what Adele, and every singer who’d rather be known more for how she sings than for how she looks, should aspire to become: a woman who sounds more beautiful than any woman could ever look.
On a slightly sour note, I’m not sure how many more times Barbra Streisand can be billed as giving a “rare” live performance. To be fair, though, she demonstrated with her performance of “The Way We Were” that she’s every bit as talented as Dame Bassey. But every time I hear Streisand sing I can’t help thinking how remarkable it is that a person with such a bitchy reputation can sound so much like an angel.
The Tribute to Musicals
Frankly, Hollywood is such a monkey-see-monkey-do industry that I fear the success of Les Misérables is going to spawn so many cinematic musicals that Broadway musicals might become extinct.
Mind you, the only reason this musical was such a hit on screen is that the female and male leads, namely Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman, are A-list actors who just happened to be A-list singers too. After all, A-list actor Russell Crowe demonstrated in this same film just how badly producing musicals for the big screen with A-list actors who can’t sing could flop.
Apropos of which, does anyone recall even seeing the cinematic musical Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor (2001)? Never mind wondering why it did not win an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
Which is why I could have done without seeing Catherine Zeta-Jones reprising an equally forgettable performance from the Hollywood version of Chicago.
I say leave the musicals to stage actors … and on Broadway.
Well, okay, so I really enjoyed the Hollywood version of Dream Girls with Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé. And Jennifer showed why with her performance of “And I Am Telling You.”
The Tribute to Bond, James Bond
I am as big a fan of the Bond films as anybody else, and I don’t mind admitting that Sean Connery is my favorite Bond. Perhaps this is because he played the role at a time when not just geopolitical intrigue but also cultural norms more closely resembled those Ian Fleming depicted in his novels.
Still, as much as I enjoyed the mini retrospective of their films, they were clearly upstaged by Adele and Dame Bassey performing their Bond-themed songs.
Incidentally, the biggest fake out (and perhaps disappointment) of the evening had to have been the onstage reunion of the cast from the Avengers. This, because there was so much media hype about a reunion of all of the actors who have played Bond that never happened.
The Awards
I really enjoy cinema. And I appreciate the attention the Oscars often give to good but relatively unseen films like Atonement. Unfortunately, with all due respect to critics and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Academy), how much a film makes, not whether it wins an Oscar, is the generally recognized measure of its success.
Indeed, it might surprise, if not disillusion, many of you to learn that studios covet an Oscar for Best Picture primarily because – as Sumner Redstone, the owner of Paramount, conceded in a moment of extraordinary candor – it guarantees millions more in box office receipts.
(“My Review of the Oscars 2008,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 25, 2008)
And surely even more disillusioning is the fact that winning an Oscar has more to do with crass political campaigning (i.e., bribery) than artistic merit. And there is no better campaigner in this respect than Harvey Weinstein, the master producer of Oscar-winning films, including last year’s The Artist, and The King’s Speech the year before that. To stack the deck this year, he successfully campaigned to get three of his films nominated for Best Picture, namely, The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, and Django Unchained.
I invite you to check out my pre-Oscar picks with explanations in my Saturday commentary below.
With that, the Oscar goes to:
- Actor in Supporting Role: My pick was Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln.
The winner was Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained. What was great and unnerving about this first award of the evening is that nobody, and I mean nobody, predicted him. Despite winning in this same category in 2010 for another Quentin Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds, Waltz must have felt like an interloper. He exuded humility – bowing, literally, to favorites Jones and Robert De Niro to begin his terrific (and what had to have been truly impromptu) acceptance speech.
But suddenly the favorites in all other categories must have developed upset stomachs….
- Actress in Supporting Role: My pick was Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables.
The winner was Anne Hathaway. She has the reputation of being a pretentious bitch. But she gave one of the most gracious and eloquent acceptance speeches ever.
Anyway, I’m sure the other favorites all breathed a sigh of relief. But we are already three friggin’ hours into this show and only two of the six awards anybody cares about have been presented…. This must be torture for nominees still waiting for their category to be called.
- Best Original Song: My pick was Adele for “Skyfall.”
The winner was Adele. Enough said? Well, except, take that, Dame Bassey! The Dame did not win for Goldfinger.… Moreover, I think Adele’s “Skyfall” has just replaced Streisand’s “The Way We Were” as the Oscars’ Best Original Song of all time.
- Best Director: My pick was Steven Spielberg for Lincoln.
The winner was Ang Lee for Life of Pi. So much for the favorites breathing a sigh of relief. This was almost as shocking an upset as Waltz winning Best Supporting Actor over De Niro and Jones….
- Actress in Leading Role: My pick was Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook.
The winner was Jennifer Lawrence. Her shining moment was dimmed only a little by her falling flat on her face as she was walking on stage. It’s too bad she did not have the presence of mind to accept the pitying ovation graciously. But I love her otherwise refreshing, care-free personality, and she’s a very beautiful girl.
- Actor in Leading Role: My pick was Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln.
The winner was Daniel Day Lewis. The first winner in any acting category to receive a universal and genuine standing ovation, and deservedly so!
- Best Picture: My pick was Argo.
The winner was Argo. But really, Affleck had 16 years to mature, not to mention having about 16 opportunities this awards season to perfect his acceptance speech; yet he sounded every bit like the giddy and excitedly incoherent kid he was 16 years ago when he and pal Matt Damon won Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting.
Even worse, though, was what he said. He thanked his wife for spending the past 10 Christmases working on their marriage, saying that “it’s the best kind of work” for Christ’s sake. Which I suppose explains what happened to Jennifer Garner’s thriving acting career after she married him. If this shockingly chauvinistic pig had more time he probably would have added that she enjoys staying at home in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. Who knew?
At any rate, it was a terrific surprise having First Lady Michelle Obama present this award live from the White House…. But I still think she looks silly wearing those teenybopper bangs.
- Best Dressed
The winner of this most popular, even if unofficial, award was a tie between Jessica Chastain and Zoe Saldana:
Jessica, who played the badass CIA analyst in Zero Dark Thirty, for pulling off that irresistible combination of looking like a Jessica-Rabbit babe who could also kick your ass; and
Zoe, who played the equally badass warrior princess in Avatar, for doing a titillating job of making Bradley Cooper regret dumping her … again.
That’s a wrap!
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Oscars 2012…