Did anyone else watch; it was a pretty blah show, punctuated by a few silly musical numbers (like I am Ken with Ryan Gosling running though the audience), and a big gaffe by Al Pacino neglecting to read the Best Picture nominees and only announcing the winner--sadly, I think the man's mind is going (but he might have been drunk ).
The main complaint I had was the same as the last few years with their tribute to those who have died--they had some singers (OK, the Bocelli father and son) and dancers in front of the screen with the slides/clips being run, and the cameras focused more on the performers that the clips; many time I didn't even see who was being featured. Come on--this is the movies; how hard would it be to get a good director (I'm sure many would do it for free) to put together short film illustrating the work of those "honored" and skip the performers? The producers also seemed to be trying to rush the entire thing so it would finish in time for ABC to run an episode of some comedy at 10:30 in the east.
It's getting harder and harder to watch, but maybe that's the point and it will ultimately be streamed instead of broadcast; then it could be more of an awards show than the rushed extravaganza they are trying to make it be now. That's pretty much what happened with the SAG awards.
I did like the opening of the In Memoriam, where they played the clip from last year's documentary Oscar winner Navalny, of Navalny telling his followers what to do if Putin kills him. That bit made me cry.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
Oscars producer Molly McNearney told Variety in an interview after the telecast that “it was a creative decision” to have Pacino jump straight to the winner.
“By the time you get to the end of the show, you’ve seen all 10 best picture clip packages,” McNearney said. “People just want to hear who wins and they’re pretty ready for the show to be over. At least that’s what we anticipated. So we did not give him a clip package. We did not give him nominations to read. I apologize if our decision to not have to read through all those nominations put him in a tough spot.”
Not sure if they are just covering for him, but it looks like they just wanted to rush so ABC could run their show. Naming ten nominees could take, what, 30 seconds? A minute or two if they added short clips? Pretty sad.
The only Oscar pics I saw this year - both on line streaming - were Oppenheimer and The Holdovers. Both were good - a friend recommended The Holdovers to me and Da'Vine Joy Randolph who won 'Best Supporting Actress' did an excellent job. I have long been interested in the Manhattan Project so I watched Oppenheimer as soon as it came out on Peacock. They retold the story of how Oppie tried to poison his research supervisor at Cambridge, Patrick Blackett. I met Blackett in 1969 although he chose not to share the Oppie story with me. (OK I shook his hand at a meeting.) Blackett was awarded the Physics Nobel in 1948 for his work with cloud chambers which allowed visualization of atomic disintegration.
I didn't see not reading the nominees as a gaffe at the time (and if he had them on the teleprompter, how would he have missed them?) To me it was the way he just let the name of the winner fall out of his mouth, that caused the audience to need a beat to realize that he had announced it, that was off.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."
His brain is likely scrambled by the time he's spending with his infant son. Oh wait, that's right, he split from the mother three months after the birth. She probably forgot to be sexy and fawning in the aftermath of growing and pushing out a human.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
He looked a bit out of it to me when he came onstage--but then he always looks like that; part of the image he is trying to project I guess (Nicholson did it better IMHO). It wouldn't have surprised me if he just ignored (or missed) the teleprompter as it made little sense to read the winner without recapping the nominees as they did for every other award. If it was an accident, it shows why you have to watch who presents; if it was on purpose, it's asinine, regardless of whoever made the decision to skip that.
I'm not a lesbian, but as a menopausal woman I did take greater notice of the Birkenstocks - does Cena wear them in his real life, or did the infamous Oscars streaker wear them, so they were costume? That was my first thought.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
That's pretty funny; a friend of mine had a last name which sounded quite similar to a polite (more or less) euphemism for intercourse of the sexual kind; he gave each of his kids the middle name of the town where they were conceived, so it would be something like William Vail Screw--he said they'd always know where they came from. Haven't seen him for years, so I wonder if the kids use those middle names.
I was flummoxed by this post until I opened the SOTU thread and read Sue's latest contribution. I think your reply was meant to go there?
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
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