And the winner is...
Am I the only one who thought that last night's Oscar extravaganza was one of the most painfully dull egofests ever transmitted over the airwaves? It would seem that the producers of the annual Hollywood strokeapalooza were so eager to cut down on the longwindedness of the evening that they managed to completely do away with all pretense of festivity. They seem to have forgotten that we, the viewers at home, don't tune in to see Hillary Swank thank her lawyers (which she did, by the way)... we tune in to see Michael Moore take a swipe at the Bush administration... we tune in to see Bjork wear a dress inspired by dead poultry... we tune in to see a spectacle.
Hell, we even get a kick out of seeing the little people thank other little people. But this year, half of them weren't even allowed on the stage. The winners of awards for achievement in make-up and animated short films were relegated to making their acceptance speeches from the Academy's version of the kiddie table. They can tell that no body cares about their contribution to a film based on the size of their paycheques; they don't need to be reminded of their perceived unimportance on an international broadcast. Next year, they will likely face the same treatment as the film "geeks" who win awards for technical achievement, and won't even be allowed in the Kodak theatre with such luminaries as Marisa Tomei or Bobcat Goldthwaite. Because the Academy's real talent must be carefully sequestered from the plebians who actually make movies happen.
Comments
Heh :-) Personally, I was quite happy to have the whole thing over and done with by 8:30pm PST (well - 8:40pm. They did still run 10 minutes overtime)... I wasn't terribly upset with the new format. Of course, I wasn't one of the nominees who had to stand in the aisle to accept their award. Of course, the whole thing was made more entertaining for us because we played Oscar M&M Bingo while we watched :-) Tim can send you the link to where he got the cards to print out ;-) Let's just say - we ate a lot of M&Ms, despite the new format ;-)
Posted by: heather at February 28, 2005 10:46 PM
Agreed. The most irritating part was that some *non-celebrity* winners (writers, etc.) barely got to talk at all before the "you're done" music started playing. The LOTR sweep was much more fun.
Posted by: Luke at March 2, 2005 01:44 AM
Ah - but you got points for that on M&M Bingo! And in the new format it happened a lot ;-) I definitely ate my fill of M&Ms. Gotta look at the bright side ;-)
Posted by: heather at March 2, 2005 03:00 PM