No, it wasn't "Here now are a couple of old Fokkers" or the sight of Dustin Hoffman drunk... To me, it was seeing Beyoncé make a fool of herself by singing the French nominated song from "The Chrorus" without proper coaching... in front of the composers, too. I guess when you're such a big star, nobody dares comment. And she was just back from Paris, too, emoting in "The Pink Panther"...

I thought she was singing esperanto at first. Then I put on the subtitles and was able to catalogue all her errors in pronounciation. My favourite was pronouncing the word "vie" (life - the final "e" is silent in everyday conversation but pronounced like the vowel of "fur" in poetry and song) like it was written as "vié" (no such word in French, but if there was, it would sound like vee-hay, which is exactly what we got). Also, her usual, run-of-the-mill, American Idol-type vocal tricks (popularized by Céline Dion, I'm afraid) were totally out of place in that song, especially where she put them, at the most dramatic moments, and they were borderline insulting, as if the song couldn't stand on its own without those little distracting grace notes, that had the whole orchestra and chorus thrown into disarray. The same vocal tricks made all three of the nominated songs she sang sound exactly alike, like they were put together on some Motown assembly line.

The producers assumed that anyone with a French accent in their name (Beyoncé) is qualified to sing in French. But they had the good sense to give the Spanish song to Antonio Banderas. Thank God for small mercies!

Ahahahah! My sister-in-law was putting my nephew to bed and I was in the bathroom, so we both missed the presentation and the beginning of that song. So, I get back to the living-room, sit down and start watching and immediately go "what the f*** is she signing and what frigging language is that?". At which point my sister-in-law enters the living-room and I ask: "What is she singing?". To which she replies: "I think that's the song from "Les Choristes". I went: "Is she singing in french???". She said: " I guess...". Note that both of us are french speaking and neither one of us could make out a single french word during the entire song. She might as well have been singing in Swahili.

I don't understand French, so it sounded fine to me. Interesting to hear the perspective from folks who know what they're talking about.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought Hoffman was drunk.

Sean Penn not being able to take a joke.

The "Who Wants To be An Oscar Winner?" ridiculousness of giving out awards in the audience and hauling nominees up on stage like it was all some cheesy game show. Awful.

yeah, I was thinking that too. It was obvious that he didn't mean Jude Law wasn't a good actor, but more that he's been making so many movies lately. Awkward!

that way they can sell more time to corporations to sell more products. it all makes sense......unless you're a movie fan or just a viewer. pretty soon, they'll phone them all in (literally) with commercials in between.

Not part of the awards show...but the pre-awards in which Chris Connelly told Orlando Bloom: "Before you were a movie star, you were a serious actor".

I was miffed that they didn't show any clips from any of the short films this year. (Although, I can't remember if they did last year or not.) I did like the compression on the time it takes people to walk up and get the award.

Yeah, that Beyonce thing was embarrassing.

So was the Sean Penn thing. Lighten up dude!

Presenting Oscars in the crowd and having all the nominees on stage was horrendous.

And the woman trying to pronounce Zhang Ziyi's name was just ridiculous. Ziyi's currently learning English and did pretty damn good introducing the award but the best the announcer could do was "ZeeZee Yang"!?

Ah, so that was the joke about Ziyi's "new name"!

And yes, Sean Penn needs to lighten up. WTF. He probably was dying to do some political speech, since the Oscar's are a more appropriate venue for that kind of stuff. They're not there to joke around!

I got the "ZIZI Yang". Zizi means "dick" in French, so it was hard to miss. But could anyone explain the Sean Penn thing? I must have been in the bathroom vomiting about Beyoncé...

sean penn sticking up for jude law was weak -- perhaps he would have been more credible if he hadn't left his tie at the bar. chris rock's comeback wasn't the greatest either.

did anyone catch the woman presenter (was she in phantom?) who slipped off stage as she was walking out and an audible yelp was heard? embarassing for her, but her recovery was excellent.

kms

oh man, I can't believe I missed that! I live to see people slipping and falling in public. good stuff. hopefully they'll be a clip

I was having Real People flashbacks and was afraid that Fran Tarkenton was going to be the next presenter.

My thoughts exactly... who was the marketing genious who came up with the Beyonce and the Antonio "Zorro" Banderas performances, and said, "...you know? I"ll bet America will really want to see this." Awful...

link (though I'm pretty sure Chris Rock hosted the Oscars, not Jamie Foxx )

I also believe Penn started off the statement with "For those who don't know..."

Banderas may be relatively new to singing (he learned for the reprise of "Nine" on Broadway) but at least Spanish is his native toungue and he and Carlos Santana did a glorious job of it, IMHO.

Who actually chooses who sings the songs? I would think the individual nominees would choose and not the Oscar producers

yes, there was plenty of glory in their performance


anyway, just because something is in spanish doesn't mean it's sexy and I want to hear it and take off my shirt and salsa dance and shit. did you see that guy who won for best sound mixing for a short film or whatever that sang more Spanish tunes? gimme a break!

Giving out awards in the audience was almost like telling the short-film nominees that their winners weren't worthy of going up to the stage. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but it was still lame.

This USAToday review seems to think most of the show was an embarrassment:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/...o-review_x.htm

Banderas did a fairly good job while Beyoncé was godawful. And if you decided what to put on award shows based on what America wants to see, White Chicks would have won the Oscar for best film.

I thought it was embarrassing that the telecast audio levels on the opening montage, the announcer, and the stage mic were so undermixed as to be almost inaudible at most points. I was dynamically adjusting the volume on my tv throughout the whole show just so I could hear what the hell was being said. It's like they mic'd the auditorium but had no direct feed for the vocals.