UGH!
That was my primary reaction watching last night's telecast of the 81st Annual Academy Awards. What should be frothy and light and entertaining was instead grueling; a seemingly unending parade through awards nobody cares about and innumerable montages of largely awful films (three words: "The Love Guru"). Hugh Jackman hosted, and while I am firmly pro-Hugh - He sings! He dances! He acts! He has a superhuman healing factor! He adopts mixed-race babies just like Brangelina! - I think we finally found Wolverine's kryptonite, as not even that magnificent hunk of beefcake could keep this bloated mess moving.
To be fair, Jackman was fine for most of the time he was on screen. But he wasn't really on all that often. After his self-deprecating opening monologue (we get it: "Australia" sucked) he predictably switched to the song-and-dance number saluting the Best Picture nominees that started out waaaay too slowly. But then he got to "Frost/Nixon" and somehow brought Anne Hathaway into the thing playing Richard Nixon and BLAMMO! Magic. I mean, it's Anne Hathaway. The line "You really frost my Nixons" got thrown in. The segment ended with Jackman-as-Frost nearly making out with Hathaway-as-Nixon. And if that's what that actual movie entailed, I probably would have seen it. His 80's dance bit about not having seen "The Reader" was pretty damned good too. He came back out for a couple other segments - the less said about Baz Luhrmanm's flaccid tribute to movie musicals the better (EXCEPT, way to lip synch, BEYONCE) - but it seemed like there were entire hours that went by without Jackman anywhere near the stage. And he wasn't shirtless even once. Why hire Hugh Jackman if he remains fully clothed for the entire night?
The set was lovely. I actually liked having the band on stage. And I think the idea of having the five past winners present speeches to all the nominees in the acting categories was really special. However, they took awards that would have taken two minutes to give out and stretched them into 10-minute segments. For a show that already runs too long, that's a problem. (Especially when the nominees for Best Song were crammed into 40-something-second segments.)
And yet, instead of honoring movies that were actually nominated, instead we got montages featuring a bunch of movies that weren't. We got segments showcasing the year in film divided by romance, comedy, action, and animation. The comedy clips were pretty fantastic (and the bits by the "Pineapple Express" team were great too), the romance montage featured WAY too much "High School Musical 3" (and co-presenter Robert Pattinson from "Twilight" is really trying too hard with this "I'm so cool I'm over Hollywood and the Oscars" shtick; he was awful), and the action mix was basically just shit blowing up. But it was the animation package that really stuck in my craw. According to that montage there were only like six or seven animated movies made this year. If that's the case, why have a montage at all? Especially when said montage heavily features, of all things, "Space Chimps"? How in the name of god did "Space Chimps" get more prominent Oscar coverage than, say, actual Best Actress nominee Melissa Leo? How does that happen?
My friends and I all disbanded shortly after 11 p.m., when it became clear that this sucker wasn't ending for quite a while. And it didn't; I believe the telecast wrapped shortly after midnight. If you factor in the red carpet coverage that immediately preceded the show, that's four hours. FOUR HOURS. No awards show needs to be that long. I just don't understand why, if we have a technical Oscars show that happens off-camera a few weeks prior (this year's was apparently hosted by the charisma vacuum that is Jessica Biel), the viewing audience has to sit through awards for Best Sound Editing or Best Sound Mixing, or any of those similar categories. These are awards I can virtually guarantee you that 99 percent of the viewing public has no interest in seeing. They are technical categories. Why are they in the live telecast? Why did I see speech after speech by filmmakers I don't know or care about talking about sound engineers or agents or foley artists that nobody outside of Hollywood has ever heard of? I understand that these people work hard and this is "their moment." But it's not. It's MY four hours. Your four hours. And if the Oscars want us to keep watching, they should really think about how valuable that time is.