Going way, way back, I used to write up a review of the Oscars ceremony on a movie discussion group. My friend Royce from that group started a movie discussion group on Facebook and he remembers me writing those and asks if I will post about it. Since I watch the broadcast every year, it isn’t that hard to write something up, so I am putting the one I wrote this year here. I thought I had posted more of these on the blog, but the only one I found was from 2005 when Chris Rock hosted.
This year’s Oscar was not one full of surprises. FiveThirtyEight made 8 predictions and got 7 correct, barely missing on Best Documentary, which even today after seeing who won, I could not name. They do not try to predict Best Screenplay, but if they did I am sure they would weigh the Writers Guild awards as a heavy predictor, and this year, in fact, Oscar awarded the same two movies as the Writers Guild. So as far as the competition goes, yawn. And they brought back Jimmy Kimmel to guarantee the maximum possible predictability.
What was different this year, was getting lectured by almost every woman on stage. I know they are mad, but I did nothing wrong. I even believe in diversity and inclusion and all of that, so why do I need to be continually hit over the head with it? They also had a couple of short tribute pieces dedicated to basically the same thing. Three women took stage and introduced a segment like that, but what I did not realize was that they were three of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers. So maybe a little bit of hidden poignancy there.
I’m not down on all of it and they got some good lines from the topic of the night. Kimmel pointed out that the only other person ever kicked out of the Academy besides Weinstein was a guy selling his copies of movies he was supposed to evaluate, sparking Kimmel to say, So they get the same exact punishment? Harvey Weinstein assaults dozens or hundreds of women and gets kicked out like the guy selling bootleg DVD’s? Emma Stone, the presenter for Best Director, said after explaining the job of a director, Tonight we honor four men and Greta Gerwig for their accomplishment in directing . . . It was a nice dig and a tribute.
Other than that, the night was largely unremarkable except that a few years after the “Oscars so white” thing, Best Director, for example, had one white American man, a woman, a guy from Mexico, a black man, and a white Brit. It’s a small sample group and it isn’t always going to be that diverse, but it is still kind of a big thing that this diverse group were all entrusted with millions of dollars in investors’ dollars. There’s a lot more diversity there than the Fortune 500.
Jimmy Kimmel talked about giving away a jet ski for the shortest acceptance speech (pretty hilariously modeled by Helen Mirren acting like a Price Is Right girl), but if they want short speeches, just cut to a commercial after 30 seconds. Everyone would finish their speeches on time and it would be fair to everyone instead of doing what they do every time which is let the big award winners go on and on while the little guys get played off in no time (however, after Guillermo del Toro used up all the time for his speech on winning Best Picture, his co-producer was not allowed to speak at all, except Jimmy Kimmel let him get a sentence in). Though it is always a team effort and I might do exactly the same by pulling out a list of names so I don’t forget anyone, man I hate it when they pull out the list. del Toro told a couple of great stories and so did some of the others and that meant a lot more. Even Frances McDormand who thanked a lot of people before launching her one-woman crusade speech was preferable to just a long list of people I’ve never heard of.
The show went 50 minutes over, so you can’t blame it all on long speeches. Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave out the stupid 10-minute stunt where they took some actors over to a theater to thank theater-goers by giving them candy? It’s a night of congratulating people for their accomplishments, while I think that’s nice, let the movie makers enjoy their night. Save thanking the moviegoers for the People’s Choice awards maybe instead of one where a small group of insiders vote on all of the awards. And why thank them anyway, since the movies winning are some of the lowest grossing of the year?
One thing that I used to like and now I like much less is that they play every nominated song. I didn’t think the songs were that great this year, but they were okay to listen to. What I really didn’t like was the syrupy introduction by a presenter at the beginning. Ugh. Just introduce the song. That would save a few minutes. And they had a short piece honoring filmmakers who served in the military. Pick a theme. If this year it is inclusiveness, then give us a few minutes of that. Next year give the veterans their due. We’ve got a show to run.
I have been paying attention the last couple of years to the studios with the biggest movies. Spoiler: It is always Disney which also owns Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. Disney won two awards last night and both went to Coco: best animated feature and best song. All of their other movies were blanked (which I think was just The Last Jedi and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 for effects). If this is in any way about the moviegoers (which it is not) then the big movies should win more awards. I’m fine with the Oscars being an incubator for well-made movies that may not be widely popular, but Marvel spent a billion dollars making one movie, paying thousands of people just like those that make up the Academy. Can’t part of diversity be giving an award or two to the biggest moneymaking movies?