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21 Thoughts on Last Night’s Oscar Ceremony

  • 19 for 24 – who beat me?
  • So after all of the hullaballo, AMERICAN HUSTLE goes home empty-handed. Who saw that coming?
  • It’s official – Hollywood has no idea how to turn this into an entertaining show
  • It’s also official – Oscar directors have no idea how to turn out a half decent montage.
  • Dear Lupita – Will you marry us? signed – Everybody.
  • I can’t be the only one who loved the subtle, simple staging of “The Moon Song” can I?
  • Has Tumblr imploded yet in the wake of another DiCaprio denial?
  • Who the hell is Adele Dazim?
  • That image above? Very deliberately chosen. I wanted to forever cement a moment where the once standoffish Steve McQueen acted like a giddy schoolboy.
  • D’ya think I can get Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez to join me and the missus for dinner? (EGOT bitches!!)
  • I can honestly say that my hero is not “Me at 45”
  • Loved the catcalls for Ellen walking out in the white suit.
  • I can only guess that Idina Menzel’s monitor wasn’t working. I’ve never seen her that off-beat.
  • “I’ve never Tweeted before!” quote of the night
  • You had to love when presenters went a bit off-book – like Carrey chirping at Bruce Dern
  • OK, who stole Bill Murray’s comb?
  • “The wiseguys at Warner Brothers” runner-up quote of the night
  • As much as I adore it, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM is what happens when you tell people they don’t have to watch all of the documentaries to vote.
  • No seriously, who’s Adele Dazim?
  • Back to oddities in the show, as much as I love THE WIZARD OF OZ, it seems random to single it out for its 75th birthday. 1939 was one of the greatest (arguably the greatest) years in film history. Celebrating just one title feels like cherry-picking.
  • Finally, one has to wonder about those reports of Oscar voters skipping 12 YEARS A SLAVE because it was “too hard to watch”. Either that, or a lot of people voted for something they didn’t see.

18 Replies to “Odds and Sods: Wrapping Up the 86th Oscars”

  1. 19/21 is pretty good! I had 3 wrong: film editing, short film animated, and documentary.
    The ceremony, for me, it wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny, and was overlong and predictable, but watchable I guess. Had its moments, my favorite speech was Mcconaughey, he talks about what he cares about in life, which is good to see(even if you disagree with his ideas)
    Yep, The Moon Song was excellent, though I think the song of the night for me was Happy by Pharrell
    I heard they deliberately skipped celebrating 1939’s Gone With The Wind because of the racist undertones, and would have been inappropriate juxtapositioned with 12 Years A Slave. But yeah, 1939 is more than Wizard of Oz.

    1. The dumb thing is that I could have picked up at least two more categories if I’d reminded myself that foreign and docs were open to everyone this year, thus working in favour of the more populist (but not at all unworthy) 20 FEET and GREAT BEAUTY.

      I liked pieces of McConaughey’s speech – I realize now that it seems like I was poking fun. I really like the idea of “Something to look up to, something to look forward to, and something to chase”…just saying, I wouldn’t chase myself (I would chase MM though!)

      I might have to adopt that as a mantra of my own.

      I’m one of those who believes GONE’s romanticism of the era has made it age poorly, but still – if you’re going to celebrate 1939…why not go all-in and celebrate all of it? Spend less time on “heroes” and more time reminding people of NINOTCHKA, LOVE AFFAIR, and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON?

  2. I also got 19/24 and would have done better if I didn’t go off book with Broken Circle Breakdown and assuming that American Hustle would win something and at least get costumes. Not wise.

    I enjoyed the show overall. Despite the fact there her gags don’t always work, I like the dorky way that Ellen interacts with the crowd.

    I like montages, but why are the Oscar ones always so dull?

    1. Weirdest thing with the montages – I noticed that the ones they showed seemed strange in the way they were so slanted towards modern films. I mean, I’m fine with not seeing images of T.E. Lawrence for the twentieth year in a row…but there were films made before 2000 folks.

      Crazy thing about The Oscars, is that they seem so hellbent on looking to the past. If it were me, considering that the whole shindig is celebrating the year that was, I’d commission clips/music that serve as a time capsule for the year. Like what we see all over YouTube at year-end but on a grander scale.

    2. The superheroes montage was really strange; it had like five clips from Man of Steel plus The Amazing Spider-Man and other recent movies. It had very few that weren’t from the past decade. It also pretty much had no women. Yikes.

      I’d love the idea of a montage of some of 2013’s great moments. Something like David Erblich did with his top 25, but without the rankings. They could use to spotlight movies that weren’t nominated but made an impact like Short Term 12, Stoker, Spring Breakers, The Way Way Back, etc. They could even include a lot of movies that made money. It seems like a no brainer to me and actually makes sense.

  3. I was stunned by 20 FEET FROM STARDOM winning too. SHOCKED. It’s a lovely movie, but anyone who’s seen THE ACT OF KILLING knows how profoundly brilliant it was. I have a feeling people didn’t watch them all… or they didn’t “get” it.

    As much as I love THE LADY IN NUMBER 6, too, that movie didn’t deserve the win either. It was a beautiful story about a beautiful woman, but it had some seams showing in terms of the way it was made. Sloppy filmmaking and title sequences. Lack of skill. KARAMA HAS NO WALLS, on the other hand, is a film I won’t soon forget and I hope people will watch despite the fact that it went home empty handed. It’s just…. harrowing.

    Also, HELIUM. HELIUM is brilliant. People need to see HELIUM. HELIUM for president.

    Basically, everyone needs to watch the shorts.

    The end.

    1. I’m dead certain that people didn’t watch them all – same with foreign. It’s a pity too since in years past there were rules in those categories that in order to vote in them you HAD to watch them all. I already wish they’d go back to that rule, and I say that as someone who enjoyed both 20 FEET and THE GREAT BEAUTY.

      Next year, I’ll put more of a full-court press on seeing the shorts. Especially since lately I’ve had so many of the major nominees watched by nomination morning.

  4. I also got 19/24, which is one of my better years (I usually average around 13 or 14).

    I’m not at all bothered by 20 FEET FROM STARDOM winning Best Documentary and I in fact predicted such. While ACT OF KILLING may be the “better” film, it is not a film that everyone is going to like. In fact, I’ve come across people who HATED the film.

    1. While ACT OF KILLING may be the “better” film, it is not a film that everyone is going to like.

      Read that back to yourself and tell me if it makes sense to you…

    3. Sorry – no sale.

      Putting aside the campaigning games and politics that go hand-in-hand with The Oscars anyway, if a group is going to assign “winners” to something as subjective as film, then they owe it to themselves to be honest. It is, officially, “an award of merit”…not a “fell-good warm fuzzy”.

      Any voter who said “This is better, but I like this more” is getting it wrong.

    4. The sad truth of it all is that the Oscars has always been a popularity contest and the documentary category has always been one of the biggest examples of that (how else can you explain March of the Penguins winning in 2005?)

      Even though it’s a highly acclaimed film, The Act of Killing only made $484,221 at the box office. 20 Feet from Stardom on the other hand made $4,881,474.

      Which one do you suppose the Oscar voters would’ve been more familiar with?

  5. I got 18/21. I did pretty good. I’m upset that The Act of Killing didn’t win Best Doc. I also lost out on Editing and Production Design. Oh well.

    Still, I thought the event was pretty damn good. I want Ellen to host again and this time, get a buffet table for people to eat pizza.

  6. I didn’t predict all. I ain’t wise enough yet but I got all except foreign right. So, that’s very happy me but very predictable show. I said in my post, most unpredictable thing on the show was Ellen bringing in Pizza. So… and overlong. How many montages do they need?

    Loved Lupita Nyong’o and MConaughey’s speeches though!

  7. Just chiming in to say that Leo losing did implode Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, probably MySpace, Friendster, Bebo…basically, every corner of the internet. And even though I was president of the prayer circle for Leo, I was so annoyed by it all. I wish my post on why Leo doesn’t have an Oscar could be put into one simple sentence that would basically say “calm the eff down, people”.

    Otherwise, my favourite parts were Cate Blanchett being a lady hero, Lupita Nyong’o being a lady hero, Steve McQueen jumping around and Daniel Day-Lewis gracing us with his God-like presence.

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