It’s a Monday morning here and the rain is beating ceaselessly against my office window. The gray overcast sky that permeates the majority of winter doesn’t want to go away. I’m thinking to myself “maybe it’s just February.” Like any other drone I double-click over to the Internet and find this apropos quote from last night’s 83rd Annual Academy Awards:
“It might be bad. It might be horrible.”
This was said by actor James Franco before he and co-host Anne Hathaway MC’d last night’s Oscars. It couldn’t have been more spot-on. Hathaway kept up pretenses by being exuberant and begging with a “please like me” smile as the show went on while Franco looked more and more despondent each time he joined her on stage.
I can’t speak of the opening which, I’ve been told, inserted both actors in various movies (an old gag used by Billy Crystal when he hosted). I did see the “Brown Duck” clip a la “Black Swan.” It was amusing. Truth is I had a phone call to take and didn’t start watching until an hour in. By that time the damage had set in.
For those of you who know I keep up decently well with most years on the top movies this year I was off-game for several reasons but the biggest of them all: 2010 plain-out sucked as a movie year. For every “Inception” or “The Town” there was “Splice” and “The Wolfman.” The number of films had been greatly reduced due to the recession, illegal downloading (the “patsy” of why the studios are supposedly losing money) and the lingering effect of the writer’s strike a few years back. 2010 was so bad a year for movies that I couldn’t come up with a Top Ten much less roll the dice for my usual Oscar picks.
As far as things go I was hoping for Jennifer Lawrence to bring home for “Winter’s Bone,” but really it was an honor just to see her nominated; people from Kentucky making it into the Academy Awards is a rarity moreso at her age. I agree with Jeff Bridges – I look forward to watching her career unfold. For a moment I do want to call out the Press for the fact that within MOMENTS of the Best Actress award being given and Lawrence NOT winning blogs were uploaded about that fact as if they were waiting for it not to happen. You stay classy, people.
And now, some more of my thoughts on the Oscars:
– If ever there was a year that it was bad instilling a new rule about Best Picture nominees it was this one. I had a problem coming up with ten movies I LIKED in 2010; I don’t know how the Academy did. With the general correlation between Best Director and Best Picture going to the same people it’s a slap in the face to the other five for NOT adding five more directors to the Best Director category.
– Speaking of Best Picture: I know the Academy LOVED this movie however I would’ve really liked to have heard the sound from the clips of the other nominees instead of the “King’s Speech” overlay. Just saying.
– Props to Spielberg for insinuating that just because you don’t win Best Picture it doesn’t mean that your film is devoid of longevity. Comparing previous Best Pics to “Raging Bull” and others was priceless. Way to stick it to ‘em.
– While I liked the fact that the Oscars “In Memoriam” segment had well-visible clips of the departed (as opposed to whatever year they decided to film them off a TV screen projection) the slo-mo looked bad and when I die do me a favor by NOT having Celine Dion sing.
– Oscar rule: when the movie you’re really behind (“Inception”) wins for cinematography and the sound editing and mixing it’s the Academy’s way of saying, “Thanks for your effort, we recognize your blockbuster movie and while it may be good there’s no way you’re winning Best Picture.”
– What was the deal with all the retro? It was one thing “borrowing” Billy Crystal’s Oscar gags. It’s another to have Crystal himself introduce a segment about Bob Hope. This year’s Oscars seemed to acknowledge the fact that 2010 sucked and that maybe, just maybe, by showing the halcyon days of Oscar lore the viewers at home may have a reason to stick around and be interested in people paid to professionally pretend pat each other on the back. Having Hope’s voice segue over to the hosts? I think they may have gone a bit too far.
– And the short music video montage clips –thing. Bad. Horrible.
– Same thing goes for Franco being in “drag” as Marilyn Monroe.
I’m not forecasting whether I will watch next year’s because I have no clue as to what’s being released this year. I want to say that I will but I’m making no promises; this year’s almost gave a good reason not to go see movies. In closing I would like to thank my readers, the blog…
