clckworang

This was definitely the best Oscars telecast in a number of years. My friend who watched it with me agreed as well. It did drag a bit in the middle, but it was so good right out of the gate. Even when it dragged some in the middle, there would still be moments that would pop just enough to keep that goodwill.

I was also caught off guard with some of the winners. I thought the Academy might keep up its recent trend of really spreading the wealth around. Yes, it did that somewhat this year as well, but I never would have guessed Banshees, Fablemans, Elvis, and Tar would all go home empty handed.

I figured Spielberg would duplicate his Private Ryan feat and win best director but lose best picture. Going into the show, I had Butler pegged for best actor, but as the show went, I thought just maybe they'd give Colin the Oscar as a way to honor that film. Also wasn't expecting All Quiet to take so many technical prizes. It really had much stronger support than I realized. Sarah Polley was also a surprise, but I was happy to see her get a win.

feenst

Looks like the telecast is up on Hulu

tanman

That was the one win I was pissed about. That soundtrack was just terribly grating. The same three notes for three hours. I've never seen someone win an Oscar for writing three notes but there you go. I don't know why I hate on this movie so much but I do. I think it's because of all the praise it's getting but it's such a dull by the numbers war movie that doesn't add anything to the genre. That and also watching the English dub was probably a huge mistake on my part.

tanman

My wife and I noticed that and (not seriously) wondered if they were just doing one acceptance speech per award of if it was something else...then the win for best song but the second guy threw it off by yelling Namaste' before they got cut off. So that screwed up our totally scientific test.

Josh-da-man

Makes me wonder how they put these lists together.

Do they keep a master list of deaths, and when someone dies in that Oscar year they're added to the list. And then, when the time comes for the show, they trim the list down to who they're going to honor during the awards show.

Or do a couple of interns just throw it together at the last minute -- with the odd memo to include some obscure composer or cinematographer that an Academy bigwig was pals with -- which leads to the odd omissions like Anne Heche, Paul Sorvino, Charlbi Dean, Melinda Dillon, and Barbara Walters.

It has to be the latter. I can't see someone looking at a list of Hollywood deaths and saying "nah" to Heche and Sorvino.

Robert Blake and Tom Sizemore probably died too close to the show to be included... I think they have a cut-off date. Though I could see them wanting to ignore Robert Blake for obvious reasons.

tanman

I thought it was a great Oscars. Best one in a very long time. Loved that EEAAO took home the really big wins although I can see JLC win being one of the more controversial ones. It really felt like more of a career win then anything else. Because her performance itself wasn't anything that spectacular. Like a lot of people have already said Stephanie Hsu's role was a much meatier role and she did a great job with it. Even though I don't think she was quite shunned Angela Basset's role in Wakanda Forever was amazing. It was a bit too bad that she didn't get it and that Marvel didn't get their first acting win.

Aside from that really awkward Malala interaction (she did a great job brushing it aside and not playing in to it), I thought Kimmel did a good job. You could tell the jokes were really watered down. Which is fine to me. I never really quite understood why the Oscars were the right place for some really off colored jokes. Anyone remember Seth MacFarland's entire song and dance number about "we saw your boobs"? I loved him calling out Tom Cruise and James Cameron not being there after telling people to come to theaters. And as an AMC goer his joke about Nicole Kidman being released from an empty theater and for promoting the theater to people who were...already in a theater. I also liked his addressing of the slap incident last year. Calling out the academy and onlookers for doing nothing. And loved his body guard audience call out, especially Andrew Garfield's hilarious look when called as Spider-Man.

Draven

That's good - turns out when you nominate movies people have actually seen, more viewers tune in. What a concept!

Ash Ketchum

The focus was on Academy members. That's why so many obscure publicists, animators, casting directors, executives, etc. got mentioned but all kinds of major names were omitted. I never even heard of half the people mentioned. Here's some they left out:Melinda Dillon

Gilbert Gottfried

Clu Gulager

Philip Baker Hall

Anne Heche

Bo Hopkins

L.Q. Jones

Robert Morse

Nehemiah Persoff

Henry Silva

Paul Sorvino

Stella Stevens

Larry Storch

Sylvia Syms

Jean-Louis Trintignant

Fred Ward

David Warner

Cindy Williams

P.S. Mira Sorvino tweeted about how pissed she was that her father wasn't included. Hell, Ray Liotta was and they could have just showed a clip of the two of them from GOODFELLAS.

P.P.S. From the Academy itself:
An Academy spokesperson clarifies that the Academy committee that makes In Memoriam decisions features a representative from each of the organization’s 17 branches, and some names that are more familiar to audiences cannot be included because all branches are entitled to representation during the limited time allotted for the segment.

Toddarino

Three of those were Peckinpah regulars plus Stella Stevens. Coincidence? Yeah probably.

tanman

I think that's the kicker. They try to have their cake and eat it to. They try to operate as some exclusive club with exclusive members yet also want to take advantage of the general population. Can't have it both ways without pissing people off. Why don't they do it the other way around and put the popular people on the broadcast and the lesser knowns on the online video.

Were those excluded part of the online video they had?

Coral

So basically, don't nominate the best films/performances/etc... nominate the most popular.
The Oscars haven't been a great gauge of quality over the years, but this type of pandering makes it even more meaningless.

Did Monica Vitti even make it on the In Memoriam?
Seriously, how hard is it to add another minute or two to the segment to get a more complete list of those who died? It seems like every year there are usually 15-20 people who are questionably left out - are they not worth the extra minute?

The Antipodean

Just. Stop. Running. The. In. Memoriam. Segment. Seriously, feels like there's a whole cottage industry of grievance out there each year waiting to pounce and it's beyond annoying. Simply have Tom Hanks or someone say up there, "and now let's have a moment of silence for those we lost" without naming names or fucking Lenny Kravitz. It shouldn't be this hard.

tanman

Do one or the other. Either do it and do it right and include as many people as they can or just don't do it at all. This half ass pandering to only their members schtick is ludicrous and has gone on for far too long.

Michael Corvin

With the 3-4 hour run time, he didn't want to keep his girlfriend out past bedtime.

First time I've tuned in in years. Pretty entertaining.

This reeks of "I only listen to bands that haven't been discovered yet" mentaity. There's a balance between popular and indie/obscure. Wanting a telecast of nothing but films that only 50 people saw is crazy. That'd be like watching a 3.5 hour Oscars with nothing but Documentary and Shorts categories. Nobody in the audience or at home wants that, it doesn't matter how amazing someone or some film is. Plus isn't that what they've been doing for the last 10 years? They did a pretty good job picking some mainstream stuff and obscure fare. It felt pretty balanced to me.

Not to mention the whole concept of absolute zero sum "BEST" performance is all subjective anyway. Example, everyone in this thread thinks Stephanie Hsu should have won over Jamie Lee Curtis. I disagree. JLC put in a pretty kick ass subdued performance when every other role around her went big and over the top. She could have done the same but I bet it would have come out more like a cartoony Scott Pilgrim villain. Hsu may have had to display a wider range of feelings but to me she was just a typical bratty teen rebelling against authority. A stereotypical role that's seen all the time. She was the least memorable thing in the entire movie.

JeffTheAlpaca

I heard Leo was at a pre=party with Gigi Hadid

https://www.sheknows.com/entertainme...ars-pre-party/

tanman

I think that's the first time I've ever seen anything about EEAAO and subdued in the same sentence.

Draven

Corvin addressed this too, but it's more that the Academy seems to think, in general, that wildly popular movies can't also be some of the best movies of the year. One of the reasons a movie might be really popular is specifically BECAUSE it's also really good.

It's ridiculous that more comedies, horror movies, super hero movies and sci-fi don't get nominated for the big awards. It shows a real bias from the Academy that those aren't "serious" enough for the recognition. Which is ridiculous.

And it's not just movies - I'm a big fan of genre TV and would argue that shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Fringe" and "Orphan Black" are as good as anything that tops the Emmy awards.

JeffTheAlpaca

Maybe if District 9 came out in the 2020's it would have won best picture.

Runaway

I think, for a couple of years now, the Oscars tended towards movie that had great acting and serious themes, but they didn't just recognize the great acting in the acting categories. I know they are people who like Nomadland as a movie. I think Frances McDormand gives a great performance in a scripted documentary with hardly any plot. To me it's just a boring movie. Not every popular movie is a good movie and not every good movie is popular, but you can have great movies without great performances or serious themes.
I wouldn't nominate most comedies, horror movies or super hero movies, since they are by the numbers, but so are most biopics. I can still see the great performance of Joaquin Phoenix or Jamie Foxx, but Walk The Line and Ray are basically the same movie and nobody says, that they aren't serious enough.

Michael Corvin

I was thinking something similar seeing Elvis nominated for design awards. Congrats on recreating sets or clothing that someone else already designed for you to look at and redesign... I guess?