Now that some of the blinding rage has subsided (some, not all), I realized I made a big, embarrassing mistake in my post of outrage: Million Dollar Baby didn't lose a script Oscar to Lord of the Rings, it lost a script Oscar to Sideways, which is fine and as it should be. Mystic River lost to Lord of the Rings, but we'll let that go...
Since the world hasn't actually ended I'll go ahead and mention a few things I liked about this year's Oscars:
1) Reese Witherspoon's speech (and George Clooney's wasn't so bad either)
2) The honorary Oscar segment, with a fantastic presentation by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin and a rather inspiring speech from Robert Altman
3) The mock political attack ads for the Best Actress and Best Sound Editing categories; cheeky, brilliant
4) Jon Stewart's presence throughout the show; his opening monologue was weak (and I did miss Chris Rock) but Stewart improved as the show went on, which was vital for a ceremony short on surprises or otherwise riveting moments; that said I have a feeling it'll be back to Crystal or Martin next year, one of them will probably be willing to give it another go
And I think that's about it. Not a really great production (literally, what was up with all the sound flubs?), but even if it had been a great show the ending would've ruined everything.
Kenneth Turan has his say on Oscar's folly, it's a great read.
4 comments:
We should pull a Rex Reed and spread a rumor that Jack Nicholson read the wrong name.
Or, we should start an investigation into the Academy's voting/tabulating procedures. Beyond the obvious reek of "Crash, Best Picture of 2005," something about this whole debacle smells EXTREMELY fishy to me.
I'm serious.
I loved Reese Witherspoon's speech!
I seriously did think that Jack was joking at first. I'm sure a lot of people did. But unfortunately that just doesn't happen and as much as I believe that Marisa Tomei really did win, I'm forced to believe that the Worst Best Picture Ever didn't come about because of a goof by the accountants or a joke by the presenter.
It was just a lot of really, really dumb voters.
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