81st Academy Awards

ScottM

ScottM

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iBazinga!
Did anyone but me watch last night?

I admit I am a Academy Award junkie and start watching the whole thing that started months ago.

This year they went to a new format and I have to say there was a bunch of stuff I did not like.

I hate the first half hour. That stupid red carpet lead up has got to go. It is inane at best and made worse by having the audience outside screaming. Annoying as all heck!

I did like the theater set up, the stage being lower and closer to the stars was really much better and reminded of the shows back in the 60's. The host, Hugh Jackman did a pretty good job, I liked the opening number. The musicians on stage is a not a big deal to me. But moving them back there did help with the stage set up issues.

The presentations for the best actor awards with 5 presenters speaking to the nominees was mind numbingly boring. I prefer seeing the work they were nominated for. Then once the winner was announced I miss having the announcer say something like, 'Kate Winslet had been nominated 5 times, this is her first win'. It is nice to hear the winners win-loss stats.

The section on the people who have passed was very poorly done. I want to see their faces and names. But the director had so many long shots all you saw was the singer and a display in the background that was barely visible. It would have been much better if they would have just run the clips that were on the display.

The best song and best soundtrack were done very poorly. I had a hard time telling what music belonged to what movie or nominee.

Lastly the only award I was really annoyed with was Heath Ledger's. What a waste of an award. He did not deserve it and it was a gimme to the family for his unintentional suicide.

For this show it was great to see Jerry Lewis. He really struggled to get through his speech. he has been sick for so long, I was glad to see him up and in person.
 
I thought, as a show, it was the worst in recent memory. The musical bits all fell very flat, and the "let's get 5 people to step out and kiss some butt" was awkwardly embarrassing to watch, and really highlighted the whole self-congratulatory nature of the event. I kept trying to imagine some other profession having an awards banquet like that ("Ms. Librarian, your demonstrated knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System was both brilliant and inspiring"). It's amusing that the profession of "make pretend" can heap praise on itself with a level of shamelessness that exceeds any other endeavor. Of course, at a dentist awards banquet, the dentist can't actually ply his trade in his acceptance speech the way an actress "performing" her acceptance speech can.

In any case, Heath Ledger was a great Joker, and I think that would have been a big deal even without the usual "free statue to dead guy at all participating awards ceremonies, supplies limited" offer.

In general, though, I thought some of the excess heaped on Slumdog Millionaire belonged to The Wrestler.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
I thought, as a show, it was the worst in recent memory. The musical bits all fell very flat, and the "let's get 5 people to step out and kiss some butt" was awkwardly embarrassing to watch, and really highlighted the whole self-congratulatory nature of the event. I kept trying to imagine some other profession having an awards banquet like that ("Ms. Librarian, your demonstrated knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System was both brilliant and inspiring"). It's amusing that the profession of "make pretend" can heap praise on itself with a level of shamelessness that exceeds any other endeavor. Of course, at a dentist awards banquet, the dentist can't actually ply his trade in his acceptance speech the way an actress "performing" her acceptance speech can.

In any case, Heath Ledger was a great Joker, and I think that would have been a big deal even without the usual "free statue to dead guy at all participating awards ceremonies, supplies limited" offer.

In general, though, I thought some of the excess heaped on Slumdog Millionaire belonged to The Wrestler.
-harry
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harry for emperor
 
I can imagine no greater waste of my precious time than watching all those self-adoring maroons gush all over each other, swept up in their delusions of relevance.
 
I switched to it a few times wating for the race to end so I could watch the news.

They should let Wall-E host it next year.
 
By the way, for me, what made it all worthwhile, was the Japanese guy who ended his brief acceptance speech with "Domo ari goto, Mr. Roboto".
-harry
 
I'm not an awards show junkie, and I haven't watched in recent years, but I actually found myself enjoying the show last night. I saw Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday night, and I thought it deserved the awards that it got. I've not seen Milk, but I did see The Wrestler, and really thought that Mickey Rourke should have won the Best Actor award. I missed the part where they gave the award to Heath Ledger, but having seen that Batman movie, I thought he did an amazing job bringing the deranged Joker to life. He did an excellent job in that movie, and I think he deserved that award, regardless of whether or not he died.
 
I like the tribute to musicals. :redface:

Not so much the songs they chose to include, it needed more Fosse and less "Mama Mia" and/or whatever the kids were singing.

I wondered who that girl was - thinking she had a good enough voice to nail it. (Beyonce.) I'll have to Google to see where she came from. I'll let her sing "At Last," even if Etta doesn't like it.

I liked the 5 winners doing a tribute thing, too. My thinking is you've got 4 very deserving nominees who otherwise would only get to have their faces on screen to see how they react to losing...and there are probably 5 more who were never nominated. Getting the individual mention is a nice reward. especially when some obviously wrote at least part like Shirley MacLaine did for Anne Hathaway.

Didja notice in the new movies for 2009 at the end that there are TWO movies with Amelia Earhart? One will have Amelia played by Hillary Swank. Lets hope they get the flying stuff right. It could be a motivator for new (female) pilots.
 
If you saw that musical director on the pre-show waste-o-time you see he was patting himself on the back for his "creative" "mix-ups" like setting the theme to "Lawrence of Arabia" to a swing beat. There were a bunch of those but it was nearly impossible to figure out what the music was. He was responsible for that abysmal movie song medley.

He needed to do a whole lot fewer mix-ups and more playing what the REAL creative artists wrote. No wonder Peter Gabriel boycotted singing hsi song.

The only thing he did right by me was putting the orchestra on stage.


Roger Ebert agrees with me that the show was pretty good:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090222/OSCARS/902229997
 
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mikea said:
If you saw that musical director on the pre-show waste-o-time you see he wås patting himself on the back for his "creative" "mix-ups" like setting the theme to "Lawrence of Arabia" to a swing beat. He was responsible for that abysmal movie song medley.
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I saw him in the lead up, I was not impressed.
 
I couldn't possibly care less about the Oscars, but I happened to flip through it briefly right as Tina Fey and Steve Martin came on and presented the writing or whatever awards.

Seriously, I could watch Tina Fey watch paint dry for 2 hours and be enthralled. Absolutely enchanted.
 
ReverendSlappy said:
I couldn't possibly care less about the Oscars, but I happened to flip through it briefly right as Tina Fey and Steve Martin came on and presented the writing or whatever awards.

Seriously, I could watch Tina Fey watch paint dry for 2 hours and be enthralled. Absolutely enchanted.
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That was a really funny segment. "Let's not talk about our new made-up religion..." :rofl:
 
ReverendSlappy said:
I couldn't possibly care less about the Oscars, but I happened to flip through it briefly right as Tina Fey and Steve Martin came on and presented the writing or whatever awards.

Seriously, I could watch Tina Fey watch paint dry for 2 hours and be enthralled. Absolutely enchanted.
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It was one of the better dresses. not as many really bad outfits this year as in some of past. But I was wondering what the whole bride/princess things was all about. The guys need to be wearing real tuxes too. None of this black suit stuff. Mickey Rourke looked like an idiot in his outfit.

My last snippy fashion comment is to Goldie Hawn. Goldie, if you are going to a get a boob job, and lift, wear a dress that does NOT show the scar!! Geesh!
 
SCCutler said:
I can imagine no greater waste of my precious time than watching all those self-adoring maroons gush all over each other, swept up in their delusions of relevance.
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Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!

My sentiments exactly!
 
I've never been able to watch the Academy awards without sharing my meals from the previous couple days with anyone sufficiently unfortunate to be watching them with me.
 
SCCutler said:
I can imagine no greater waste of my precious time than watching all those self-adoring maroons gush all over each other, swept up in their delusions of relevance.
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smigaldi said:
Spike we are talking about the Academy Awards not Congress, oh wait. hmmmmmmm:rofl::rofl::rofl:
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Frank Browne said:
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!

My sentiments exactly!
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All I can add is, "AMEN!" I watched exactly 0 minutes, 0 seconds of that "show" last night. Don't think I missed a thing.
 
I am not a movie buff and haven't been to the theater in years. If Hollywood fell into the ocean it would not bother me a bit. And the award shows are just a way for them to help inflate their over inflated egos.
 
Academy Awards? Which Academy won? Naval, Air Force or West Point?
 
The red carpet walk I saw was on FOX's Pre-race show. Were they mocking or imitating the Academy Awards?
Good race, what I saw of it. Because of the rain delays, I managed to sleep thru most of the race, ultimately watching the last 20 laps.
 
mikea said:
BUT you still do your PATRIOTIC DUTY and WATCH THE SUPERBOWL, right? :rolleyes:
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Hahahaha.... no. :redface:

I do watch the Triple Crown races if I remember they are on, though. But then horse racing takes about two minutes, not hours, and I have a notoriously short attention span. :smile:
 
mikea said:
BUT you still do your PATRIOTIC DUTY and WATCH THE SUPERBOWL, right? :rolleyes:
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I feel about the SuperBowl as many feel about the Academy Awards. I just think the whole Super Bowl thing is pretty stupid. When the thing that is talked about most is the commercials followed by the half time show that tells me how boring and useless the game really is.
 
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