I really enjoyed watching the Academy Awards last night, but as always, that was largely because I was with a crowd of people I enjoy hanging out with. The actual ceremony was... well, it was an improvement on last year. That isn't saying much, but the show was rarely embarrassingly bad this time around. No, it was safe, with a typically pleasant and inoffensive Billy Crystal cranking out wheezy old jokes (he started by calling himself a war horse and claiming that "extremely loud and incredibly close" is how his relatives watch the Oscars). Everything about the Oscars felt a little old: the jokes, the host, the nominees (Best Supporting Actor winner Christopher Plummer is now officially the world's oldest Oscar winner) and, uh, the movies highlighted.
Strangely, there was little emphasis on the movies 2011 had to offer, as we were given numerous sequences which highlighted movies of yesteryear. An opening montage paid homage to flicks like Ghost, Jaws, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc. A series of Errol Morris-directed montages featured a host of celebrities waxing eloquent about the older movies they love. A clever short film by Christopher Guest recreated a focus group discussion following a screening of The Wizard of Oz. A bizarre Cirque du Soleil performance took place in front of a screen offering clips of older movies. However, there were surprisingly few moments highlighting the actual nominees.
Perhaps that's appropriate, given that 2011's nominees were also ruminating on the past. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris may be a lesson about how we need to appreciate the present, but it still luxuriates in the glory of days gone by before it gets there. Hugo is in love with older movies. The same can be said of The Artist and Rango. Moneyball and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close look back at momentous events in the recent past, while Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Help, War Horse and The Tree of Life look back increasingly further.
Most of the wins were predictable. Hugo racked up a large number of technical wins, including Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects. It was good in all of these areas, but wasn't the best in any of them. Meanwhile, The Artist took home five larger prizes, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Score and Best Costume Design. It was expected that one of these two would take Best Editing, but instead that went to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a movie which wasn't nominated in any other category). I really like both Hugo and The Artist, so I don't exactly begrudge them their success, but a good deal of superior work was overlooked in most categories in order for these two charming flicks to earn their pile of Oscars. Screenplay awards went to The Descendants and Midnight in Paris, because the Academy wanted to recognize both of those movies in some way without giving them the biggest prizes: the former because it was so good, and the latter because it was Woody Allen's most popular film to date. As usual, Allen didn't attend the ceremony, as he was undoubtedly busy playing jazz or working on yet another screenplay.
I was happy to see Rango win Best Animated Film. It's a deserving winner, even if the overall category was a disaster this year. Similarly, I was happy to see Bret McKenzie's "Man or Muppet" win best song, as it was possibly the best movie song of the year despite landing in a category which was handled horribly this year (the only other nominee was the middling "Real in Rio" from Rio). Octavia Spencer was given an Oscar for her colorful supporting turn in The Help, though Viola Davis gave that film's finest performance (alas, Ms. Davis was robbed by Meryl Streep, who acknowledged that most of America was probably groaning in dismay as they watched her accept yet another award). Christopher Plummer gave the evening's loveliest speech, and examined his Oscar with affection: "You're only two years older than me. Where have you been all my life?"
Overall, it was a rather unmemorable evening. There were no significant upsets aside from Streep, few truly inspiring victories, few painfully bad moments (save for Cirque du Soleil and whatever that was Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. did) and fewer moments of legitimate hilarity (save for the aforementioned Christopher Guest short and Chris Rock's pointed, entertaining routine on racial typecasting in animation and the challenges of doing voice work). 2011 offered a lot of great stuff, but this year's Oscars offered very few indications of that. For a show all about celebrating the greatness of Hollywood, it seemed awfully hesitant to boast about its latest achievements.
Back at ya later
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