The Academy has just gotta do something because this show is becoming more and more unwatchable every year. The three hours and 9 minutes of this year’s extravanagnza had only seven memorable “Oscar moments” and six of them were not in the script – the heartfelt acceptance speeches of winners J.K. Simmons, Patricia Arquette, Pawel Pawlikowski, Common, Graham Moore and Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The ONLY brilliant moment in the telecast that had been planned by the producers was John Legend’s performance of the song Glory from the movie Selma.
But, generally, the Best Song category chews up way too much time and is often a buzz kill. Except for Legend, it was bad this year, too – and the Everything Is Awesome number was hallucinogenicly bad.
In the last two years, the Academy has even ruined the Memorium montage – usually one of the most moving and evocative moments. This year, the producers didn’t even show any stills or clips from the artist’s cinematic work, and they bracketed it with an acting school emoting lesson by Meryl Streep and an irrelevant song by Jennifer Hudson.
The worst of the broadcast, of course, was the serious of forced gags like the one about Octavia Spencer guarding the Neil Patrick Harris’ Oscar predictions; unfunny the first time, it wore and wore until Harris’ and Spencer’s dignity were completely eroded. Horrible.
As to the awards themselves? I was deliriously happy that Ida got its due as Best Foreign Language Picture, a choice that proved that some taste and decency lingers in the Academy. I was sorry that Boyhood – the best movie of the decade, let alone the year – didn’t win Best Picture, but Birdman is pretty special, too.
Coincidentally, I was recording the 2006 Children of Men during the Oscar broadcast, so afterwards I could revisit the amazing 8-minute battle scene shot by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (deserving winner for Birdman). One of the greatest single shots in cinema. Felicidades, Chivo.
