News: Oscar Postmortem

     Where should I begin? I think I will start with my own predictions. After doing a decent job of forecasting the Oscar nominations, I was a bit disappointed with my prognosticating powers to pick the winners. I was 16/24 (or 2/3, 0.67777777777) which isn't terrible, but I felt like I could have done better. There were a lot of tough categories this year, especially some of the tech categories, but I still think I should have seen some things coming. In particular, in the Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction categories, I knew "Alice in Wonderland" was the most obvious choice, but my hatred for the movie, as well as getting caught up in the whole "The King's Speech" sweep talk, led me astray from two choices that would have bumped me up to a healthy 18 correct predictions. Hopefully it is a lesson learned for next year.

     Then there was the show itself, which is not going to win any "Best Awards Show" award any time soon. In someways, it was a much cleaner production than previous years, and I did love some of the production design of the stage, but the main problem was the show's hosts, in particular James Franco. While Anne Hathaway wasn't very funny, at least she was giving it her all and did the show with a pleasant smile, which is much more than I can say for James Franco. I don't know if it was stage fright, some subversive "too cool for school" act, or if he was just stoned out of his mind, but whatever it was, he would have done the Academy a better service if he hadn't shown up at all. He easily takes the cake as the worst host in Oscar history, and it just proved why they should let comedians handle the job. Contrasted with the hilarious Ricky Gervais hosted Golden Globe awards, the Oscars were pathetic, but the delicate sensibilities of the Hollywood elite (whose thin skin made sure that Gervais will never host a significant awards ceremony again), guarantee that we will never see a comedic host who is deemed "subversive". A good compromise I think though would be to have Ben Stiller host the Oscars. Whenever he has presented an award at the Oscars, he has been one of its highlights, and since he is "one of them", his jabs at other actors come off playful to the elites, but our still funny to the rest of us non-insiders.

     Finally there were the awards themselves. There were a few nice victories. In the night's biggest surprise (which still wasn't that big a shock), I was happy to see long-time Christopher Nolan collaborator Wally Pfister receive his well deserved Best Cinematography award for the camera work of "Inception". I was also quite pleased to see the hilarious live-action short "God of Love" win the Best Live Action Short category (if you haven't seen it, make the effort to find it, it is definitely worth the hassle). Despite what some may say about her f-bomb layered speech, I was glad to see that merit won the day over Victorian rules of behavior and class with Melissa Leo's Best Supporting Actress win. "The Social Network"'s win for Best Film Editing was a nice nod of recognition, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' victory for their haunting soul-searching score to the film was my favorite victory of the night, and saved the show from being a total disgrace.

     Even though I knew it was coming, I am still having a hard time swallowing the fact that Tom Hooper won Best Director and "The King's Speech" won Best Picture. Luckily the film did not get the massive sweep that many were predicting (winning only four Oscars, compared to the 7/8 some were expecting), showing the Academy did take time to consider the merits of each category, but it is still disappointing to see something so trite beat a film as well executed, and as insightful as "The Social Network". Hell, even if say something like "Black Swan" or "Inception" had won instead, while not my first choice, at least I could understand the thinking behind it, but "The King's Speech"? And Tom Hooper? Hooper, who made an extremely paint-by-numbers film, beat out not only the great David Fincher, but Darren Aronofsky, the Coen Brothers, and David O. Russell (not to mention non-nominees Christopher Nolan and Danny Boyle). These are some of the best auteurs of their generation, and they lost to this stereo-typical (even if well meaning) puff film. It's really a shame and another entry in the Academy's long list of goofs. Especially after a few years of some decent choices ("The Departed", "No Country for Old Men", and "The Hurt Locker"), to see them slide back to awarded typical prestige-fare is disheartening. As always, time will be the ultimate judge, and in 20 years, people are still going to be watching and analyzing "The Social Network", while the only thing "The King's Speech" will be remembered for is that it won Best Picture. Of course it is the Academy's right to make crappy decisions, just as it is mine to complain about them, and so it appears the typical cycle starts again until hopefully next year, when they might actually award something worthwhile.

(For a complete list of last night's winners, click here).