Oscar show:Hard to argue with this
comment over at AMERICAblog:
Is it me, or is this the most boring Oscar and badly directed/produced show in recent memory? Geez, no wonder why I never watch this shit. Even Ellen is a total bore, IMHO.
Lee Gordon | 02.25.07
Man, it sure dragged. There seemed to be more coverage of scriptwriters and sound editors than before. Even the "recently departed" section lacked emotion.
Sure, Jennifer Hudson's win was a high point. And it was nice to see Alan Arkin get an award. But overall it was frustrating to watch. Normally they start out with a Best Supporting award, but this time it was handed out at the 52 minute mark.
Watching William Monahan get Best Adapted Screenplay was painful. I guess he really did take a fistfull of Valium, which he alluded to.
Will Smith introduced "A Montage by Michael Mann" which was supposed to be about America as seen in the movies, or something like that. Send it to the NSA for analysis, 'cause it seemed totally random. Why was Rutger Hauer's closing scene from "Blade Runner" where he talks about his experiences in
Off World Colonies included?
Something seemed off with the whole production. If pressed for a word, it could be described as "soulless". Perhaps we are seeing, in the attention to the "process" awards: art direction, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects,
animated feature film, and
animated short film, the dominance of computers as they increasingly play a role in film production (most notable with the "visual effects" category).
Or maybe it was just a crummy show, poorly written and produced.
For a dry
liveblogging review, check out the Guardian Unlimited. Or how about this
wrap-up review at OregonLive.com, entitled "Well, that was excruciating". Actually, the whole OregonLive.com
oscar post thread contains sharp and funny observations.
posted by Quiddity at 2/25/2007 09:54:00 PM
I never watch the Academy Awards but I would have had I known they were going to show Rutger Hauers final words in Blade Runner. Don't know why that bit bothered you, but I thought it was one of the best summations of the Human Condition in all of literature.
I watched via TiVo and was transferring it to videotape at the same time. So I skipped through the commercials, but did have to watch the show content (as it had to be played at real-time to the VCR). It was deadly slow for the first half. Then it got better, but was still way too boring. That also appears to be the general consensus out there.
I suppose it's just me (I'm a movie fan) but I liked this year's Oscars even though I thought 2006 was a pretty crappy year for movies. I would have cut about 1 minute of the Italian music guy and Ellen vacuuming and that's about it. I liked the tribute sections more than usual this year.
I liked most of it but the opening film segment was very poor, IMO. A film featuring a lot of people I don't recognise talking somewhat aimlessly and continuing for several minutes is a bad way to start as far as I'm concerned.
I did like the fact that the wingnuts must've been going nuts with the huge applause for the Democrats line and then Al Gore's appearances.
