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Tuesday, March 4, 2014

AWARDS SEASON 2014 The 86th Annual Academy Awards
Excellent Ellen Crashes Twitter But Not Oscars Show

Ellen DeGeneres brought The Oscars into the 21st century on Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre in L.A.  A.M.P.A.S.
       
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Diversity, pizza, selfies and history.  The world (and the Academy) was starving for at least two of those on Sunday night, and Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres delivered, keeping a long show barely off life support with timely humor and spontaneously orchestrated moments amongst the crowd at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.  The 86th Annual Academy Awards was an unqualified success, with a host who did her utmost to connect with a global audience despite a largely conventional show that lagged after an hour and a half.

From the start, diversity, at least on Sunday, was the name of The Academy's game, a countervailing shift from its homogeneous norms.  An African-American female Academy president, a gay host, a multiracial Team Oscar group that pointed to the future, the darkest-complexioned supporting actress winner since Hattie McDaniel, a documentary feature winner about black women, a Mexican Best Director winner and a best picture winner directed by a black director.  Almost all of these were firsts.

Yet the show's production was very familiar.  Themes about heroes, some real, others mostly Hollywood-based, grew tired very fast.  The Academy stood stubbornly by its old pillars while slightly and gently opening its door to change, cosmetically or otherwise, yet the heroes theme itself didn't alter the show's running time, making it one thing about the Oscars that was so fashionably reliable.

Ms. DeGeneres was marvelous, and her caustic joke about "12 Years A Slave" and its best picture possibilities and The Academy and any racism within it butted up against an irrefutable truth about the complexion of its winners over its previous 85 years.  The joke would be a precursor for the night's events. 

There were uneasy fits between change and tradition.  John Travolta's screw-up of Idina Menzel's name -- he sounded as if he had a boiled egg he swallowed at the double quick -- was either stage fright, or, to some, symbolic of an older white guy out of step with the shifting times.  Maybe that's too harsh, but not nearly as harsh as the host's dig at Liza Minnelli, Ms. Degeneres's lone mistake of the night.

Throughout Sunday's broadcast more women were on stage than any time I can ever remember at The Oscars, including a diverse range of black women.  (To the best of my memory, no Asians were seen or heard.)  When Oscar winner Cate Blanchett pointed in her acceptance speech to the need to get more women into the big picture of film roles and filmmaking decisions, it was met with some of the night's biggest cheers.  The 77% male Academy heard the 23% roar.  It was a refreshing moment, one I hope translates to something tangible.  Next year, and for years to come, a woman -- name your director here -- should also direct and produce the telecast, which is needed again after an absence.

Twitter was a staple of The Oscars on Sunday, and the selfie sent round the world had a sponsor.  Ms. DeGeneres, who played social media and smartphones like a Stradivarius, kept many younger viewers connected, as did the two films that were the main contenders for best picture.  These elements, not the show's production values (those inflatable Oscars condoms) helped deliver 43 million sets of eyeballs within the U.S.  And it wasn't for the horror movie that was last year's Oscars host. 

Ellen DeGeneres was multitasker-in-chief, tweeting the Oscars, watching the Oscars, hosting the Oscars and doing her own popular talk show, sometimes all at once.  She was a vivacious cheerleader of the 21st century, a pitch-perfect pitch queen with the energy of Peter Pan, Puck and Peter Parker's alter ego.  Ms. DeGeneres ditched the pseudo-1950s vacuum cleaning act from seven years ago, and came updated with renewed interactive fervor, trying to liberate a tense Dolby Theatre audience from potential Depends moments.    

The selfie itself, however impromptu, was somewhat diverse, and a celebration, a subtle and blatant shorthand way for the Academy to celebrate itself.  On a night where Jared Leto earnestly reached out to Venezuela and Ukraine, the pizza feeding of millionaires was the unorthodox but contradictory image that made much of the world hungry. 

Related: A likely split on Oscar night
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