In an opinion that I'm sure will shock no one, I thought it was one of the most inept and pointless spectacles I've ever witnessed, and will, hopefully, kill the Oscarcast for the future.
There was almost nothing to recommend it. The format was dull, the speeches too long, and -- even moreso than usual -- had no reason to exist. While I certainly don't want the return of the Billy Crystal years, with lousy renditions of mediocre songs, forced banter, and skits, I also don't want a spectacle that has all the panache and verve of a presidential funeral. Probably the most baffling part of the whole farrago was the music quiz, which would have been bad enough in any telecast, but really entered sore thumb territory because of its timing (2:40 into an interminable broadcast), and the decision to suddenly decide to do written material (And then it was -that-?). Obviously, fate -- and the voters -- didn't play along with the intended finale, but there should have been a contingency plan. If Hopkins's presence was verboten because -- like any sensible octogenarian, he didn't want to sit in a London theatre in the middle of the night on the off chance he might win -- then there should have been a Plan B that went beyond Phoenix's more-baffled-by-life-than-usual signoff. (One of the many, many things that prove the ineptitude of the Oscars -- other than, yet again, choosing a mediocre-at-best film as the "best" -- is that Phoenix has one.) While I did like the set design and attempt to keep things intimate, the processed video (described by Harry Shearer as looking like VHS) was pointless and ruined most of the effects. I'm trying to somehow end this on a positive note, but I'll be damned if I can think of anything in the whole twelve hours of the telecast that worked. --Dave Sikula On Sunday, April 25, 2021 at 9:10:30 PM UTC-7 PGage wrote: > I thought they did a great job on this show. Union Station is a great > space (nice to have Harrison Ford reference Blade Runner there), and would > be great to retain some sense of the grouped tables even when they return > to the big auditorium, which is a call back to the Oscar origins. > > Mostly though, I loved that they did not place such a hard limit on the > speeches. They saved time with shorter walk ups to the podiums, and moving > the songs to the pre-show, and not having any opening monologue or > production number (besides that long walking shot), bit still went over > about 17 min, but for me very worth it. A number of the speeches were > heartfelt and interesting, and the very first one would have no doubt been > interrupted by playoff music just as the guy started talking about his dead > daughter. > > Even the cheesy “game show” had a pretty good pay off with Glen Close (I > saw on the after show that they did set that up with her in advance, but > did not expect her to actually do the dance). > > Nice to see our friend Jon Batiste get his Oscar moment, and he briefly > shared the stage with QuestLove. > > I saw on Twitter a lot of complaining about a seemingly rushed In > Memoriam, and especially the decision to move Best Picture ahead of Best > Actress and Actor. It did kind of seem like they were anticipating closing > on an emotional note of Chadwick Bozeman winning posthumously, instead > ending with a bit of an anticlimax. > > Still, overall I thought it was a good show, with mostly great nominated > films and performances, even if it will inevitably be the lowest rated > Oscars in history. > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/23c91d78-37c8-460a-b179-e962b654148fn%40googlegroups.com.
