As hard as it may be to believe today, at one time the Academy Awards were like the Super Bowl. The country stopped to watch. Ratings were astronomical. Most people attended Oscars parties. There were Oscar pools, which were easy to fill out because everyone saw every picture. We all knew the five songs under consideration because they were all hits on the radio. The actors and directors were Hollywood royalty (writers were Hollywood well-to-do’s).
The hosts were entertaining. Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, and Billy Crystal enhanced the ceremony with their irreverence and off-the-cuff quips.
There was a level of glamour. It was the ultimate “ball.”
You rooted for your favorite picture or actor (or you were one of ten people who rooted for writers). There was suspense. There was drama. There was cleavage.
And let’s be honest, a favorite thing to do at these in-home Oscar parties was to rip on everyone and everything. You made fun of the dresses, the foreign actors who were presenters but couldn't speak clear English, the pretentious speeches, Price-Waterhouse, the production numbers, etc.
Now of course you can’t do any of that. You can’t body shame, God forbid you make a joke at the expense of someone less white than Nicole Kidman. You’re a misogynist, a racist, a homophobe. Actually, you’re all of those things if you laugh at those jokes. So best to say nothing.
And what are you left with — a quiet room with people who have seen none or few of the movies, are unfamiliar with the actors and directors, and wonder why they’re there in the first place.
This year they’re streamlining the show, giving awards during commercials and just playing back highlights of winners’ speeches. All that has done has angered the community. For the last few years there’s been no host. This year there are three. I will say that this was cool — one of them was in my house recently. Wanda Sykes attended my daughter’s baby shower. Bob Hope never swung by my house.
Every year they try a new format. A new producer has “the answer.” And it never works. No one has seen the movies so no one cares, you can’t feel superior and make fun of anything, and let’s be frank — there have been a glut of award shows. Award shows aren’t special. They used to be. But not anymore. Alas, my Peoples’ Choice Award is no longer the standard of excellence.
Still, I’ll probably watch it… unless there’s a Spring Training game on. Forget Hollywood Royals, I wonder how the Kansas City Royals are doing.
69 comments :
You are forgetting the most important thing: Every host past Johnny Carson was called a disaster and then a few years later was called "The last great host".
You're singing to a deaf person here, Ken. My reaction to the Oscars has always been "They are?" followed by a shrug of indifference. Some mystery cabal selected ten or so "important" movies that I wouldn't see at gunpoint. Those ten movies then dominate every single category from "Best Picture" down to "Best Catering".
And the few times I went along to go along, even the diehard Oscar lovers who convinced me were pooping out at the three hour mark as the presentations went on and on and on...and on...
It's a rather amazing and refreshing feeling to find I'm now part of the majority!
Ken, I don't need to tell you the movie world in 2022 isn't what it was in 1932 or 1972, not when mass audiences don't go to theaters (lest we forget, that was also the case pre-Covid). Not when people have been trained like sheep to believe that only weekly box office = success, thereby denying nearly all pictures not based on comic-book characters from entering public debate. Not when ethnicity and political correctness in our society have been raised to an absurd degree; I'm a progressive, but I'll be damned if I have to capitalize "black" (or "white") as in skin color, whether the Ivy League power structure likes it or not. Asking the Academy Awards to thrive in today's environment is folly.
When I was in college, I took enough classes to learn about different eras in history. It became clear that the old sayings are right, nothing lasts forever, to everything there is a season, all we are is dust in the wind, yada yada yada. So maybe it's just time for the Oscars to become less relevant. They didn't start out as something meant to be taken seriously: it was a big party for stars, executives, and miscellaneous (writers, cinematographers, etc.) to take a break from work and hang out, acknowledging their hard work. The rest of the world didn't know or care. So maybe it's just shrinking back to a size that makes more sense now. I wish it weren't that way, but I'm afraid it might be.
Yes, the Oscars show sort of went the way of Miss America, and really, The World Series.
Ken, the Kansas City Royals are rebuilding this year, just like every year since they won the World Series in 2015. I'd give them a far better chance for success than the producers of the Oscars.
Billy Crystal won't host any more because he wasn't well received the last time. Last time he did a Sammy Davis Jr bit in full black face and didn't understand how cringe worthy that was.
I was a regular Oscars viewer from 1997 to 2006. Yes, I stayed on even when Michael Moore gave his Bush-scolding speech in 2003 and Sean Penn's politics led him to win over Bill Murray in 2004. I lost my mind over the second one and had to be scolded by my parents, just like two months ago when Patrick Mahomes said "at the end of the day" in his interview after winning his AFC Divisional Playoff game. The last Academy Awards telecast I watched from start to finish was 2012 because Billy Crystal was hosting. In the years since, I've read recaps or seen clips, but haven't watched.
I watched other award shows, too, until they were tarnished by politics and rendered unwatchable for right-of-center viewers. I foolishly tried to watch the ESPYs the year Peyton Manning hosted, but quit midway through; not because of him. As far as the Grammys are concerned, the awards for genres I'm interested in aren't part of the telecast. So, I'll find out about Jeff Lorber or Pat Metheny's win the next day.
"This year they're streamlining the show" -- at first I read that as "streaming the show." The Oscars have moved online? Well, why not? That's where most of the movies are. The Oscars must be a low-rated public service by ABC, like the Tonys on CBS.
Where's the punter who always posts that we need more award shows ? If I missed it, I app-pollo-logize in advance.
I used to love the Oscars. I didn’t mind that I’d not had the chance to see many of the nominated films. Then the nominee count was increased. (Is best picture nominee list now ten?) With the requirement of seeing clips from all of them, all the other interesting awards seemed to be pushed out. I just got bored and will skim the winners list next week sometime.
I am not sure that political correctness is the problem with the humor so much as, yes, you can't insult the movie community (I seem to recall Chris Rock, one of the funnier people on the planet, running into issues with that). But I think they were a lot less self-important when Hope, Carson, and Crystal were doing it, though even they didn't cross certain lines.
My thoughts, too. Well said.
You would think an obvious host would be Oscar the Grouch. Not just for the name. His garbage can would be representative of the show's decline over the past decade or more. Maybe provide him with a "second banana" co-host puppet, Oscar the Academy Award. The Grouch could bounce insults off him.
It could work.
One reason the Academy Awards aren't what they once were is the Academy itself.
At the time of the height of popularity-culture, I lived in Rochester, New York. The biggest party in town was at a restaurant on the outskirts of downtown called Oscars. All year, there were photos of past winners on the walls, and statue replicas abounding, but on Oscar Night, they went all out. There were theme desserts and film critics from the local media and maybe even a red carpet. Then the Academy burst in with their lawyers and shut it all down. Oscars became Ozzies and before long Dead, the party couldn't use any Unofficial Unlicensed Merch, and the winner was.... nobody.
I wager ABC could double its primetime Oscar audience by dumping the six hours of pre-awards and post-awards fluff in which the actual award-giving means nothing.
@Cory
The funny thing about Johnny hosting was that he only did it five times: 78 through 83 (but not 82). Bob Hope hosted 19 times while Billy Crystal hosted 9 times.
Also showing how memory is a funny thing: the first time Johnny hosted was the 1978 ceremony where The Deer Hunter won Best Picture. This aired on April 9, 1979. Now, The Tonight Show aired that night on NBC and since Johnny was busy, his guest host was David Letterman. According to Letterman this was his first time as guest host but according to IMDb he had guest hosted for Johnny twice before.
Here's a list of all the nominated movies for this year:
"Belfast"
"CODA"
"Don't Look Up"
"Drive My Car"
"Dune"
"King Richard"
"Licorice Pizza"
"Nightmare Alley"
"The Power of the Dog"
"West Side Story"
Of all the ones listed, I saw exactly ZERO. Why? They either played for half an eye-blink at theaters near me or they didn't play at all. Or they bombed so bad, they shuffled them off to their smallest cinema and showed it once a day. Theaters near me have reduced their showtimes, where they used to have late shows that started 9-9:30 the latest now start at 7-7:30. Guess what? I'm either working or have other things going on at that time. The theaters I manage in the summer....not one of these would play because they're not the type of movies my theater goers want to see. I either wait for them to come out on DVD and I sure as hell am not streaming them for what the streaming services charge as it would be considered an "extra" and they'd tell me to bend over and grab my ankles. [Friend has Disney+ and about lost his mind when they told him he'd have to pay $30 extra for whatever animated piece of crap they decided to stream instead of releasing it to theaters last year]
As far as the Oscars go, I used to watch them religiously. Over the years I've watched less and less, switching back and forth between them and what ever else is on. This is the first year where I might skip them completely.
Remember when David Letterman was roasted for "Uma, Oprah, Oprah, Uma"?
The Oscars have been failing for years. I know some want to blame "politics" (meaning what, exactly?), but I think that's bogus. People claim, "Oh, you can't funny anymore", but John Mullaney, Jim Gaffigan, Taylor Tomlinson, and Ali Wong seem to be doing okay. Maybe all comedian/hosts have a sell-by date, or maybe people just realized that Bruce Vilanch was never really that funny.
The Oacars were huge when there were three networks, the industry was smaller, and they were the only game in town. That ain't coming back, and neither are the Oscars.
Nicely phrased.
I'd also like to suggest that the Oscars have become too "perfect" for the most part. I cannot recall a dress of any note since 2001. All the women wearing the same two or three colors and the same four or five dresses. And it's not so much that political correctness for bids are making snarky comments about the appearance of the participants is that they've all become so polished.
The speeches, too, have become more like press releases than genuine emotional responses. Maybe I'm hallucinating but I don't recall any events during the show to compare to Benigni's path to the stage in 1999 since then. And the occasional colorful moment anymore has been provided by people from the other side of the camera, people the average moviegoers don't even know exist.
And by the way I lied; I am a robot.
As a true-blue cinema fan, as well as probably one of Ken's only readers on the lower end of that fabled 18-45 demo, I LOVE the Oscars unabashedly and unironically. I've watched for almost 20 years, and for the last 14 have spent every bit of my few extra dollars to see every single nominee before the show, in addition to running a massive nerdy set of spreadsheets predicting the winners using statistics (which I started at 14 to make back those few extra dollars via bets with my uncles. Shh, don't tell Mom.) When the show is good, I watch. When the show is awful, like last year's Covid-induced train station fiasco, I watch. When the winners are my preference, I gloat. When they are not, I sulk, but still watch next year. I've always thought people who have a chip on their shoulder about them are the reason we can't have nice things in this damn wonderful country.
The Oscars are FUN, the ultimate showbiz moment out of the real world. They are the one place where a mass global audience is exposed to, and asked to consider excellence in, the thing I love. Like America, they frequently stumble in their quest for excellence, but at least they try, and without them God knows how anything good would get recognized in the current big-buck-grubbing industry. "I haven't heard of any of the movies." Well, gee genius, that's kind of the point. It's a bunch of people who work in and love cinema saying, "Hey, did you miss any of these? Give 'em a chance!"
For the first - and I hope to God-or-lack-thereof only - time, I will NOT be watching this year. My Mom will not be watching for the first time in 40-something years. My Grandma will not be watching for the first time since they were broadcast at all. I will never watch when they do not air ALL the categories LIVE. It like going to the world series without the third baseman and center fielder, and giving their spots to the Backstreet Boys, because hey, people know them, right? It's disrespectful and demeaning not just to the people who do the work, but to the viewers who actually care about the thing you are broadcasting. Speaking of that, everything from the World Series to the Super Bowl is experiencing lower ratings - broadcast is dead, and it ain't gonna be resuscitated by the people who killed it: a bunch of suits at ABC with no respect for creativity, craftsmanship, or a viewership that appreciates it, and no understanding that the "entertainmetn" portions of the evening are the things we tolerate, not tune in for. We nerds get so little in this anti-intellectual world that is FOR us. Stop trying to "fix" the unfixable, stop trying to attract people who have never and will never care for you, and leave the Tinseltown Christmas to those who love it.
Wanda Sykes might save it but she's stuck with Amy Schumer. Nobody I know has been to the movies since Covid.
Ken, I remember reading that you used to do a newsletter about the Oscars that was passed around to friends. I don’t know if anyone who reads this blog have seen any of them. I know that the references would be dated, but do you think that we could see one or two of them?
Lots of bitterness in here. And lots of deleted comments.
Also, when you start reading statements that trumpet,"Well said," you know you're attracting a right wing audience. It's their mantra.
I love the ceremony. Not to ridicule people, but to appreciate film. I turned 60 today, so I've been watching for at least 50 years. Do I care for most of the current winners? Not particularly.
I will be watching tomorrow. All of it. I've worked in the industry for 35 years, and I have no desire to trash it.
OK, I will not be specific, but I spent the day watching an online fundraiser for the Ukraine war. A bunch of celebrities. I have NEVER seen so much ass-kissing. About three hours in, I was just feeling anger. YOU PRECIOUS PEOPLE. Yes, jerks, the war is about YOU.
THIS is why there is a disconnect in the US.
This IS related to the Oscars, because we are going to witness a TON of self-loving SHIT today. I welcome political comments, but PLEASE, do NOT make it about YOU.
Just support Ukraine. And shut the fuck up.
Here is the main problem with the Oscars. They are out of touch with the consumer. "Spiderman Close to Home" was the top movie of the year and it should be up for a boatload of awards including all the top acting categories, Best Director, and Best Picture.
I notice that they want to streamline the ceremony so it doesn't last 5 hours. For example, Best picture should be only five nominated films. Cut out some of the comedy bits. For example, we don't need to see Ellen vacuuming or Jimmy Kimmel going to a next door theater to greet movie goers, and we most certainly don't need to see poorly written skits. Instead, what should happen is that the Academy insists on limited commercials for their show. There are 23 awards to be handed out. Seven can be done the first hour complete with host's monologue with nine the 2nd hour and seven the third hour with time for the in memoriam segment.
Finally, leave the politics at home. Don't be like George Clooney at the 2006 Oscars and take credit for the entire civil rights movement and then have this happen:
https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/pxg0qb/south-park-the-perfect-storm-of-self-satisfaction
Every year TCM shows "31 Days of Oscar". And every year I avoid TCM during this period like the plague. Movies up for awards or (heaven forbid) movies that win Academy awards are 95 times out of 100 boring as hell.
This even goes back to the first Oscars. It's well known that the silent film Wings won the very first best picture Oscar. Now I like silent movies and I love Clara Bow. And I will admit that the aerial camera work for the 1920s was superb. But the movie was a yawn fest. And the ninety or so years since haven't produced anything worth watching in my book.
I stopped watching around 20 years ago and have no desire to begin watching again.
Like everything else, over the years the Oscars and the industry have lost their minds. How sad is it I look forward to only one thing every year now: To see who got snubbed during the "In Memoriam segment. And I'll be able to google that Monday morning, and then go to YouTube and re-watch "TCM Remembers" from December.
And while I'm at, "hey you kids, get off my lawn!".
I only watch 'The Razzies'.
I've seen all those movies......
I actually saw THREE of the Best Pic movies in the cinema! (Belfast, Licorice Pizza, West Side Story). Whatever else is "wrong" with the Oscars, one is that, even before COVID, with all the streaming services, there were films that NEVER played in upstate NY theaters. Maybe in NYC and LA.
And I did see CODA and Drive My Car online. But THAT'S not The Movies, that's glorified TV.
That said, check out The Queen Of Basketball, one of the doc shorts here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPFkcoTfr7g
@Leighton:
Just an FYI, all those deleted comments weren't a crop of reactionary responses that needed to be pruned. One person made a very personal mean spirited comment about one of the people involved in the Oscars, and all those deleted comments were other people saying that the original poster's comment was very uncharacteristic for this blog's comment section. The original comment was removed, which made all the responses pointless. I suspect that's why they're gone too.
To JessyS: You don't get it. As I stated earlier, box office and artistic quality aren't one and the same. The latest in the "Spider-Man" series made loads of money with the teenage popcorn crowd, but it's no "Citizen Kane" (or the 1959 "Ben-Hur").
Blame it on the passage of time and changes in technology. I'm not in the desired demographic- haven't been for some time now. I've no interest in movies about comic book characters whose adventures I read about over a half-century ago. Plus the movie industry as a distinct entity has disappeared- it's now a small part of a congealed glop called Entertainment. Jeff Bezos owns MGM. Warner Brothers is run by the CEO of the Discovery Channel.
I remember people always complained about the telecast- it ran too long- the jokes weren't funny- the speeches boring. And there were complaints when Johnny Carson hosted- he wasn't a movie figure, he was just a TV personality! But as Ken said, we had seen the movies, had a rooting interest in who won (I remember my parents happiness when Art Carney won Best Actor). We saw Big Hollywood Stars. And of course, it was the only program worth watching that night.
You'll see my previous "why" post, but I also have an observation about the "who." There's a common conception (mis- or not) that there hasn't been a "good host" since Carson, who, as somebody above pointed out, only did it a handful of times compared to Bob Hope.
I've always considered David Letterman to have been Johnny's natural successor in late night, and I think there are only two words that kept him from becoming his successor on this event's night:
"Uma? Oprah!"
We were watching. We were puzzled. We watched the frowns in the front-row faces and read the Bomb Reports over the next days and weeks. He took his lumps and never returned, and I figured it was just one of those Dave Being Too Dave moments....
until a few months ago.
There, in the marvelous memoir by Mel Brooks, is the story behind the "Uma Oprah" moment. His beloved wife Anne Bancroft was given a prime time special on NBC in the early 1970s, where she adapted a 1962 New Yorker piece about the singer Yma Sumac into a five-minute riff including her, Abba Eban, Oona Chaplin and other oddly named people being randomly introduced to each other. Dave clearly knew the bit- Yma Sumac's last televised performance was on his NBC show in 1987- but just as clearly nobody else did.
I don't know if Ken allows links or embeds, but give "Anne Bancroft Yma Sumac" to a browser and it should pop right up. If only Oprah or Uma had been two rows back, we might have had a generational host....
@ JessyS:
The Oscars aren't supposed to be "in touch with the consumer". Lots of things that are immensely popular with the consumer are, in fact, really awful. Popularity doesn't equal quality. It doesn't matter if it's Kim Kardashian, or McDonalds food, or the Twilight series, or cigarettes, or superhero movies. Now, if the Oscars had a category for "biggest return on investment", then something like "Spiderman Far From Home" would deservedly win hands down. And while it might have a less than stellar success rate, I think the intention behind selecting a film for a "Best Picture" award is that the film have something more to it than cardboard characters punching out evil villians while playing out storylines that were culled from comic books written 40-50 years ago with the deliberate intent to appeal to early teenage boys. A superhero movie can be a good superhero movie, but that alone doesn't make it a great movie. The rules that the writers have to follow when creating a big superhero explosion-o-rama franchise film are set up NOT to create any sort of lasting art; they're set up to keep the franchise moving forward and generating revenue. Those aren't bad goals in and of themselves; making money is awesome, and there's a place in the world for that sort of entertainment. But the goals of someone making yet another installment in a superhero franchise are not and never will be the same as the goals of someone like the Coen brothers when they're making a movie. Which is why Coen Brothers movies win Oscars and Marvel Studios make oligarch style money; popularity is usually way more profitable than art.
The Oscars are failing because the whole traditional concept of "cinema" as we "40 and above" crowd know it is failing.
Yes the Oscars are dreary, but I'm glad Wanda Sykes is one of the hosts. Not just because she's likeable but because a Black lesbian will upset the Fox News crowd. Pissing off racist, homophobic Trumptards is always fun.
I'll save you the trouble and remove this comment myself, gaylord.
A few comments
1) Oscar parties - I have never known that to actually be a thing, only a thing that is mentioned. Before reading about the party in Rochester above, I thought it was probably only a thing in NY/LA. For one thing, it's a work night, and in eastern time, you aren't getting home until midnight. It was hard enough to stay awake until the end, let alone drive home after.
2) Rooting interest - I agree that box office does not equal quality, however ... You need to at least have heard of the movies, maybe thought about seeing them. That doesn't happen (for me) anymore. I don't watch ads on TV, and I don't go to the movies often enough to have seen trailers. I don't even know half of the "stars" anymore. I used to see at least 40 movies a year at one point in the movies. For reasons that have been discussed multiple times here and everywhere, I just don't go to the movies much at all anymore, and not since Covid.
3) Watching award shows at all - without rooting interest, the other reason to watch is the entertainment of the show itself. That can be from monologue, skits, presenters, winners, fashion, mistakes in any of these, etc. IF there is something interesting, it will be online afterwards and easier to watch.
Times change, tastes change. What was big, important, profitable, etc. becomes ho-hum. Sometimes self inflicted, sometimes because society or technology change.
Once, every town had multiple live theaters. Those are mostly gone, or have evolved into community theaters. Once vaudeville came to those. Once there were multiple circuses coming to every fairground every year. Once there were drive-in theaters. Once there were radio dramas and shows. Once there were variety programs on TV. Once there were awards shows.
It really wasn't that long ago that award shows were still a big deal. That is why MTV started their own award show. That is why the ESPY's exist. That is where there was award show overload, making them less special.
Even the NFL is going to find that out. Much has been made of their ratings going down because of wokeness. I think their ratings are going down because of the lack of specialness. The football junkie is going to watch no matter what, and subscribe to NFL network to see everything. The rest of us know that for half the year, there is a live NFL game on almost half the days. And if anything really special happens, it will be online.
Never have so many been so furious and continued to perpetuate so many stereotypes over so little (the Oscars) LOL. "All best picture winners are boring!! Nobody under 40 cares!! Celebrities are just the worst!!!". No wonder my healthcare premiums are so expensive: people are enraging themselves into strokes and hypertension.
I've seen three Oscar nominated movies this year, which is three more than I've usually seen. I don't care about seeing depressing art flicks that aren't much of anywhere. I don't CARE about Power of the Dog or finding out more about Power of the Dog. The name alone makes me think "depressing shit, nope." "Licorice Pizza" also sounds stupid.
I concur that when most of the nominees are movies that most people have not seen, probably can't see, are depressing, and most people don't care about them, THAT is why nobody cares who wins.
Ever since the pandemic forced studios to put movies on streaming services I found myself watching more nominated films at home, at least compared to the past. Even the two or three I've seen is more than I could claim in 2016 or '17. I really enjoyed King Richard and Don't Look Up, although I don't see either winning Best Picture.
As for the show itself, I find it to be more of the same: a bunch of A-listers each other on the back for three hours. And because people complain about how stuffy the show is, I expect jokes that try too hard to be quirky. BTW, you could probably fit in a few more presentations if the crowd didn't feel the need to give everything a standing ovation.
Gaylord? Did we just time jump back to the mid 80s?
Love this blog. It's funnier than 95 percent of Oscar hosts.
Anne Bancroft paid for acting school in the 50s by giving English lessons to Yma Sumac. "The Yma Dream" is on YouTube with Anne and Lee J. Cobb as her psychiatrist listening to the dream.
I kind of love that David Letterman thought audiences would get the Uma/Oprah joke. I remember watching that bit and it was funny just because it was so absurd. And a refreshing, nutty way to open the Oscars telecast with all its pent-up expectations and glamour.
Yma Sumac was famous worldwide in the 50s and 60s but had a huge revival in the 80s, which is when I discovered her. Played her recordings endlessly living in my gritty East Village apartment. Bo Mambo forever. Interesting Timeline of her career on yma.sumac.org.
I'm not so much into the Oscars but I'm excited to watch Wanda Sykes. I'm a Be Me may have dated a bit but I don't care, it's one of the funniest comedy specials ever. She was so great with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in New Adventures of Old Christine.
@whynot:
I don't see any fury in the responses. I see a lot of people engaging in what used to be called "discussion". If I was looking for a furious response, I'd probably be looking for the one that used, I dunno, let's say multiple exclamation points after each hyperbolic sentence. Or maybe someone who uses the insult of "gaylord".
Interest in the Oscars has fallen off a cliff. There's most definitely a reason for that. What I see in here are a lot of speculations to explain that occurrence that do have merit. There's no stereotype at play to speculate that technology has shoved the cinema viewing experience down the path of obsolescence, or that the demographics for Oscar viewing have changed radically, or even that movies that are designed to be Oscar contenders don't necessarily have popular appeal and might bore the hell out of a lot of people who are looking for a different viewing experience. Finding the ceremony itself to be a bloated, overblown, self congratulatory affair with bad writing and hamfisted skits is also a valid criticism. I don't see any rage in any of those responses; just people offering their opinions on a blog posting specifically about declining interest in the Oscars, in a blog comment section that's specifically there for people to offer opinions about the Oscars.
What's endlessly perplexing to me is why people who don't give a shit about the particular topic of a blog entry will waste their time to write a comment, not about the topic itself, but about how ridiculous it is to discuss the topic at all. That sort of response seems more rage-driven than anything else in here.
The Oscars. A who's who of who cares.
I tried to watch and the show just repelled me (and I've seen most of them since the 1970s). Turned it off after 15 minutes. AMPAS is flailing.
I turn on this thing for a minute and they're wasting time having BTS hype some Disney crap. Yet they can't spend 8 minutes handing out all these other "unimportant" (sic) awards live on the air?
Pathetic.
Made it 10:30. Going to bed. Amy S. wasn't as bad as I thought she would be. Wanda Sykes is always funny. They should never go political. I haven't been to the movies since Covid 3 years ago so I have no idea. Everybody seems to like that Dog movie.
The comments are getting ridiculous. It was actually a great show, and those of you who stomped off, missed THE Oscar moment.
And just when I about called it a night it got crazy.
Somebody made a *joke* about your famous spouse?! At the Oscars!!?? That *never* happens! Hit him! Hit him!
In the opening number next year they're going to have Rob Lowe bite off somebody's ear lobe.
*************
I didn't even watch. Didn't care. I saw two of the nominated movies, so I'm very glad that
A. Kenneth Branagh won for Best Screenplay. "Belfast" was great.
B. "Being the Ricardos," being a well constructed piece of shit, didn't win anything.
Otherwise? Not worth my time.
Didn't watch this year because (a) I didn't care about any of the films, (b) I don't care about one-sided political comments coming into my living during an awards show and (c) in all honesty, the only thing I at all cared about this year was the "In Memoriam" segment. And I know that's going to be posted on YouTube to watch in just 3 minutes' time later.
I had forgotten what I did during the Oscars. Now I remember. I watched Transplant. It was on at 10:00. After that I peeked in for a tiny bit.
Transplant was good but I was a little distracted and I'm going to have to watch this episode again.
All in all I'm in favor of Transplant. I also thought it was interesting that they decided to run it against the Oscars. Last year it was in the middle of the week sometime. This year it's on Sunday nights at 10:00. The second week it was on, I forgot it was on. That's not good. But now I have a handle on the timeslot. The app that tells me which of my network TV shows are on tonight doesn't cover this one since it only announces first time airings, and this show runs first in Canada, on a different night of the week. Maybe the fact that it's still showing up at all means that there are more episodes this season? I would think they would be done by now.
This year on broadcast prime time network television, there are seven medical dramas. I'm watching all of them.
Sorry but that whole thing between Will Smith and Chris Rock reeks of a publicity stunt. It was probably an idea cooked up by producer Will Packer to make his Oscars memorable.
Well, that escalated quickly.
I saw this online, and thought it funny: For his lawsuit, Chris Rock has 2,000 witnesses. 1,000 in the building, and 1,000 people watching on TV.
60 Minutes always airs a repeat against the Oscars. I am not sure why they don't reconsider this decision since 60 Mins still does well in the ratings and the Oscars do not.
Besides it's baffling title, and it being a tad overlong, I very much loved "Licorice Pizza." It was one of the best movies I saw last year that I actually loved. It had humor, drama, angst and just the right amount of quirkiness. The only big point it was trying to make was that the first person in that you have romantic feelings for can be an extremely confusing time in your life. And I'm sorry but I don't but so-called 'creepy' age difference a problem either. I don't recall anything in the picture to prove that point. Plus...Tom Waits!!!
I admired "Belfast" and it was very moving at times, but I didn't love it.
I agree with another critic who summed up this year's telecast as an idea to turn the Oscar in to an early 90s version of the MTV Movie Awards that failed big time. I didn't watch the whole thing (never do) and thankfully missed the ugly Will Smith incident. No worry: it will likely be a meme or a gif for several years to come.
“Most people” have never been to an Oscars party, now or back in the day. Maybe in Hollywood, but not around here, that’s for sure. I cared a little then, mostly because it was a Major Television Event in the 3-network days, but it’s been a long time since any awards show has had a lot of appeal.
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