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Monday, February 25, 2013
AWARDS SEASON 2013
A Long, Strange Trip, With Or Without
Timothy Leary
Kristin Chenoweth and Oscar host
Seth MacFarlane at the end of last night's 85th Annual Academy Awards.
Michael Yada / ©A.M.P.A.S.
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Monday,
February 25,
2013
Were Academy Awards show producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan sleeping or just
plain exhausted when devising the 85th Annual Academy Awards? It's a
question more than a few of those watching live worldwide may have asked
themselves on Sunday. For whatever the producers feverishly planned for
months on end resulted last night in a strange, vacillating telecast, uneven and
punctuated by the bizarre, sometimes misogynist antics of host Seth MacFarlane,
who did a "we saw your boobs" song and dance routine that was juvenile, silly
and insulting.
It was a strange show all around, with an overlong opening self-mocking number
with William Shatner that quickly became monotonous, then unfunny.
For Mr. Meron and Mr. Zadan such distractions appeared to be primarily about
showcasing their productions rather than the awards speeches, a number of which
were meanly cut short with John Williams' "Jaws" score.
Huh?
If the Academy believes that it has the most prestigious film awards on earth,
then it would do well to prevent its telecasts from hitting new lows each year.
The world is watching. What are they to think?
This year's show was worse than last year's.
If the comedy from the host wasn't at best falling short, the sound mixes were
off for Adele, who won a Grammy just two weeks ago. These faux pas
occurred just minutes after
"Skyfall" won for best sound mixing (in a tie
no less, only the sixth in Academy Awards history.) Adele would win her
first Oscar soon after for the best original song she just sang, albeit without the
audio backing anyone of her stature merited. Even more out of sync was the outro music played to some of the winners as they finished speaking. "Out
Of Africa" was used at one point, and for
Quentin
Tarantino the music was "Gone With The Wind", a weak attempt to
link "Django
Unchained" to the 1939 classic.
As the night went on Mr. MacFarlane's facial expressions seemed to convey
the realization that he wasn't penetrating the audience before him at the Dolby Theatre.
Apparently they didn't care for his brand of comedy,
"Ted" or
no "Ted". (He even said "you must be sick of seeing this guy", in some
knowing self-referencing near show's end.) There were fewer wisecracks
from Mr. MacFarlane as the night advanced. Still, that didn't stop some of
the events around him from being awkward, including
"The Avengers"
grouping.
Samuel L. Jackson apparently ad-libbed and got a little impatient if
not ticked off at his Avengers cohorts -- most notably Robert Downey Jr. -- as they
presented the nominees for best visual effects Oscar. Both actors made
jokes about their long-known drug abuse history, which fell flat, were
meaningless, and further padded the show's interminable length.
The Academy claimed to be celebrating song, dance and music in film (the CT
Express that is Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum worked well) for this year's
show but the broadcast itself was pure musical chairs. When the music
stopped, stranger things happened. It appeared that in trying to celebrate
musicals in the classic Hollywood sense -- not the great movie musicals, mind you
("Chicago" and "Dreamgirls" are hardly big screen classics) -- the Awards appeared
to stand for nothing at all. The depth factor was left lacking more holes
than Edam cheese.
Simply put, the 85th Annual Academy Awards suffered from a lack of organization,
gravitas and coherence.
The most effective parts of Oscar night were its old guard, who reminded us that
past performance is far better than present. The "50 Years Of Bond"
segment was the night's best, with Dame Shirley Bassey bringing back yesteryear
in style. Now 76, Ms. Bassey re-ignited her classic "Goldfinger" opening
credits song to fine effect. Ms. Bassey's rendition was so vivid, alive
and spine-tingling fantastic. Ms. Bassey looked as dynamic and beautiful
as ever. She hadn't lost a step.
Nor did Jennifer
Hudson, in the night's most resonant vocal performance, singing her
heart and soul out for the iconic "Dreamgirls" song "And I'm Telling You I'm Not
Going", reminding the appreciative audience and those worldwide that her Oscar
win in 2007 was well-deserved. (No lip-synching issues for Ms. Hudson, by
the way.)
Dame Shirley
Bassey during last night's 85th Annual Academy Awards.
Matt Brown / ©A.M.P.A.S.
The lights in the newly-renamed Dolby Theatre didn't go out either, on this, the
second Super Bowl of February in America, but they should have on Mr.
MacFarlane, who decided to poke fun at himself early on in a pre-emptive strike
of sorts. In the opening sketch set in 2015, fake newspaper headlines
screamed, "Seth MacFarlane worst Oscars host ever." Two years into the
future Mr. Shatner evidently knew Mr. MacFarlane would be bad, but did Mr.
MacFarlane have any idea in 2013?
To be fair, hosting the Oscars, an event of stiffer upper lips than even the
BAFTAs, is no small feat. Nerves are inevitable, and Mr. MacFarlane looked
nervous from the start. He never got untracked. Mr. MacFarlane's
comedy was blunt not sharp, and the latter is required at the Oscars.
Blunt sells at the Globes.
At least the speeches elevated the night. Somewhat.
Some speeches were near perfect.
Christoph Waltz, to a quite a few a surprise
winner for "Django Unchained", in a supporting performance curiously very
similar in cadence to but more comedic than his Oscar-winning work in Mr.
Tarantino's "Inglourious
Basterds" just three years ago, was as nice as you could expect:
grateful, gracious and humble.
Mr. Waltz, a bona fide gentleman, may have rubbed off on his director. Even
the normally bombastic Mr. Tarantino, rightfully criticized for his frequent use
of that six-letter "word" of ugliness and hate during press conferences for "Django",
gave as good a speech as this big occasion could have asked for. He was
perhaps inebriated but no less generous than Mr. Waltz in his words about the
cast of his film, for which he also won his second original screenplay Oscar.
("Pulp Fiction" was his first.)
Ang Lee, Michael Haneke, Adele and Daniel Day-Lewis were all succinct, humorous
and sincere. Jennifer Lawrence just spoke from the heart, and especially
backstage. (She had fallen over as she tried climbing the stage stairs in her
dress, an event I didn't see.) Everyone else, from the "Searching For Sugarman"
winners to Shawn Christensen (winning for the best live action short film
"Paperman") did quite well under time pressure. Their speeches would have
been even better though, without the musical numbers that bogged down and slowed
Hollywood's biggest night to a crawl of molasses.
Anne Hathaway gave the night's worst speech, trying to be cute but all that made
the
airwaves was self-serving platitudes. On the Oscar.com "thank you" cam
backstage Ms. Hathaway added that, "although I'm not on Twitter and social
media, I really appreciate you all, all my fans so very much." It sounded
so inauthentic, pretentious and empty, just like the night itself. (Alas,
the business of Hollywood has changed Ms. Hathaway. You can see it before
your very eyes.)
The tweets on Twitter about the Oscars show were more entertaining than any of
the jokes Mr. MacFarlane could muster, and that's not good news for a Family
Guy. One of the very best tweets was from none other than Mia Farrow.
Her
tweet was re-tweeted no less than 5775 times
(and counting.) Ms. Farrow wouldn't name-drop but Kristen Stewart looked
as if she had been drugged, perhaps with painkillers. (Ms. Stewart had a
good reason: she was on crutches, unfortunately.) And in a rare moment of
humor Mr. MacFarlane tossed some Jameson to George Clooney, who playfully
attempted to open it and drink away.
This year it seemed as if the Oscars actually became the Golden Globes -- not a
good thing -- even though Oscar needs to loosen his bowtie a bit. Ben
Affleck, who was the butt of one funny joke early on, chided Mr. MacFarlane with
a sarcastic "I thought the show was going quite well. Maybe you can make
it better," which drew some audible nervous laughter.
Simply put, this year's show lacked an anchor, and a fluidity. A good
portion of the awards sequences were truncated or pre-recorded, so we never got
a feel for Oscar's (and Hollywood's) hallowed history or its triumphant
celebration. Some of those who helped make Hollywood the classic place it
once was
were omitted from the "In Memoriam" reel.
A quick shot of the legendary Sidney Poitier during one of the taping award
segments revealed a man with slurred speech, a sad image. You want a man
like Mr. Poitier, now firmly in his 80s, to live forever. To remember him
as a majestic movie man. To that end and others, last night's awards
seemed to lose sight of its past, or made sloppy connections to it.
Some dance numbers were incongruous or mysterious. The
"Les Miserables"
musical number was stirring and felt flat in parts. The "All That
Jazz" number from "Chicago" was dazzling but only because of Catherine
Zeta-Jones, who was better live ten years hence her Oscar win in 2003 than she
was in Rob Marshall's best picture winning film.
Then, in a nice but disjointed touch, First Lady Michelle Obama presented best
picture, rendering Jack Nicholson irrelevant. It was the first time the
White House had ever presented a best picture Oscar. Maybe Jack Nicholson
will preside over next year's State Of The Union address. Just not in
"Mars Attacks!" fashion.
Still, few could quibble with last night's winners, even if
"Argo",
not a particularly great film, won best picture. Everyone however, could
immediately identify the losers. The closing credits musical number, sung
by Mr. MacFarlane and Kristin Chenoweth, was aptly titled, "Here's To The
Losers", a song which seemed so painfully anticlimactic. It felt as if Mr.
MacFarlane was rubbing the viewing audience's noses in the muck of a poorly
produced and directed show. (Gil Cates is missed even more now, perhaps,
than ever.)
The reality is that the losers last night were those millions of people around
the world who couldn't get four hours of their precious lives back.
COPYRIGHT 2013. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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