84th Academy Awards Thoughts

I guess I'll do this the way I did the others.

The 84th Academy Awards





Host: Billy Crystal
Winners: The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius, Jean Dujardin, Meryl Streep, Christopher Plummer, Octavia Spencer
Notable Occurances: Crystal returns as host; Meryl Streep finally wins her third; a silent film wins Best Picture; the Kodak theatre is no longer the Kodak
Best Dressed: (see later post)
The Good: Emma Stone. Start there. Her presentation with Stiller was hilarious. Some of the technical categories were presented with respect - costume design and makeup, being two examples. The acting winners speeches were pretty terrific. Billy Crystal's comment after Tom Sherak spoke ("he really whipped this crowd into a frenzy") and the ensuing reaction was probably the funniest moment of the night. Angelina Jolie's slightly self-mocking pose, and Jim Rash (DEAN PELTON FROM COMMUNITY!) doing it too. I missed Sacha throwing ashes on Ryan Seacrest but that made me happy. I thought Diaz and Lopez double diva pose was fun, even if they thought it was greater than the crowd did. Meryl Streep delivered a beautiful speech, funny, emotional, but... (see The Bad.) I must admit I was almost crying with Octavia. Rose and Melissa pulling out their minibottles when someone yelled SCORSESE - well, that's gonna be at every award show from now on, isn't it? Chris Rock was really funny, in fact I heard a lot of people say they want him back as host. We'll see. The In Memoriam with Esperanza Spalding was probably one of the best I've seen, though I wondered why they showed some people in color. Not that its directly related to the telecast, but the Ellen/JCPenney ads were raelly fun. Most surprising of all, only like 2 winners were cutoff! PROGRESS! Oh, and Bradley Cooper's pornstache. OMFG. He looked so buff and hot. He needs to drop his beard and come out already. Other hotness: the set. Yeah, I'd love it because I love old theatres, but it was really lovely.
The Bad: Rought start, very bad start. Crystal's opening movie and his songs at the beginning were terrible, TERRIBLE. I must admit, part of me was thrilled because I've always found him an overrated host. So if he failed, that meant we could stop hearing "bring Billy back" as if he was some savior that would deliver us from award show mediocrity. Tom Hanks presents first again, two categories like last year. Then we get what made have been the dumbest montage in the history of the Oscars. I'm not even sure what it was for? It started with Forrest Gump, then Titanic, then it seems romantic, then Jaws??? Like, WTF was this montage even about? From there, things improved thankfully. Regarding Meryl Streep's win, well, even she knew Viola deserved it. It stung, albeit very briefly. If there's anyone who can make things do a 180, its Meryl. The past couple of months, all we've heard about it how humor is going to play such a large part of the show. That apparently meant Tina Fey and Bradley Cooper present three awards, and Tina gets in one funny line. Will and Zach, likewise, were muted but I did like how Brad seemed genuinely worried. Most offensively, that's all you let the cast of Bridesmaids do???? The acting (leading, still???) tributes felt really bleh this time. They were much better last year. Colin's to Meryl was great, but Natalie (surprise, surprise) was so stiff.

I thought it was a decent show, far from perfect but not the failure it started out as. I'll be back later on with Best Dressed.