2/23/09

Let me start by saying that if not distracted by my gut feeling that Viola Davis would stage a Supporting Actress upset, I'd have had all 9 categories I guessed at correct in my Oscar predictions.  Still, 8-for-9's not bad, the best since I started the site 3 years ago.  But I can't say I was happy to see those winners in most cases.  Only the utterly inevitable (and richly deserved) triumph of the late Heath Ledger as Best Supporting Actor was what I'd really hoped to see.

But more on the winners later becuase what I really want to talk about is the show.  Producers Bill Condon and Lawrence Mark did their best to reinvent the familiar format, and there were precious few crash and burn moments.  The decision to melt all three nominated songs into a medley that ended with them all being performed at once and an endless, lethally old-fashioned musical number including host Hugh Jackman, Beyonce Knowles and stars of High School Musical and Mamma Mia! were probably the only two sequences that had me looking for shelter under my couch.  Those montages of "the year in..." different movie genres weren't nearly as effective as they could have been, although the cute Pineapple Express-themed comedy film served the far nobler purpose of segueing Janusz Kaminski into his position as the first Cinematographer ever to help present an Oscar.

And there were some good changes.  I liked the clustering of technical awards into groups, cutting down on the painful presenter banter (really only Jennifer Aniston and Jack Black were DOA up there:  man, he REALLY hated the Teleprompter, didn't he?  And, yeah, I could have done without Bill Maher taking a moment from presenting Best Documentary Feature to point out that there is no God) and opening up an evening when no winner was visibly played off the stage.  Speaking of the stage, it was wonderful, from the glittering arch of lights surrounding it to the new, more homey-looking seats that created an atmosphere in the audience as close to a dry Golden Globes as the Oscars are ever likely to come.  And the new format for the acting awards was nifty, with five past winners each giving a little speech about one of the nominees (although I do wish award show presenters would retire the phrase "You reminded us..." and stop insisting that every character, no matter how dark or misguided, is somehow inspirational).  I liked having Queen Latifah sing over the "In Memorium" montage, both because it set an appropriately bittersweet mood and because it helped to drown out the "dead guy popularity contest" clapping that's marred that part of the show for years.  There were some good presenters, highlighted by Ben Stiller's crazy Joaquin Phoenix impression and not just the witty banter between Tina Fey and Steve Martin, but the nifty format in which they presented the screenplay awards.  And I really liked new host Hugh Jackman, effortlessly charming and funny.  Can't think of the last time I said this about an Oscar host, but we really saw too little of him.  Of course, a big reason for that was...

...because the opening musical number set an impossibly high standard of sheer awesomeness.  Try as I might, I've been unable to find credits for who wrote what I'm dubbing "Recession Oscar Song", but the goofy, prop-filled number did about five laps around even the best of the Billy Crystal "It's a Beautiful Night for Oscar" performances that inspired it.  Pick your moment:  riding around on his homemade Batcycle asking "how can a billion dollars be unsophisticated?"  Sitting at a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire podium made of pizza boxes (remember, the whole number had to be on the cheap because of the recession).  Getting down on one knee to promise Kate Winslet he'd "swim through a sea of human excrement."  The Frost/Nixon duet with Anne Hathaway, who did a great job of first pretending to be an unwilling participant selected out of the audience before slowly getting into her role as the sexiest Richard Nixon ever.  The Operation-like synopsis of The Curious Case of Benjmain Button, complete with moving baby arms.  The Starlight Express-style nonsense intended to pay tribute to The Reader because, like everyone else, he hadn't seen it.  And ladies and gentlemen, your Craig's List Dancers!  And to close, climbing the ropes in a beautiful nod to the end of The Wrestler while belting out this wonderful finish:

"I am Hugh Jackman!
And I've waited so long
And no recession 
Can stop my confession
Or silence my song!
These are the Oscars!
And this is my dream!
I am a Slumdog!
I am a Wrestler!
I'll rent The Reader!
I'm... Wolverine!"

Guess no nomination for him next year, either!  But seriously, how has this man never been cast in a movie musical?  If you haven't seen it, get yourself to YouTube.  Now.

Oh, yeah, there were winners? Slumdog Millionaire surprised no one by owning the night with 8 awards, highlighted by those ten minutes when the show belonged to composer A.R. Rachman.  Alas, as much as I'd dreamed of the acting awards going to the four people I felt had given the year's best performances, only one did and he wasn't there to accept:  Heath Ledger's family was both moving and appropriately up-tempo, reminding us that the late actor knew very well how good his performance was and how much it was going to shake people up.  But the Doubt actresses both came up short:  nice acceptance speeches by Penelope Cruz and Kate Winslet for roles in movies I didn't see.  I'm glad Kate's father whistled, if for no other reason so I could see that really wild hat he wore.  And you know I was all in on Mickey Rourke, but instead the award went to Sean Penn for his outstanding work in Milk.  Not outstanding enough that I wasn't rooting against him, mind you, but I was amused by an accepatance speech designed to piss off the conservatives who've made a cottage industry of hating him.  But the best Milk speech of the night belonged to screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who passed along moving, Harvey Milk-like words of encouragement to gays watching at home.  But for sheer unexpected coolness, none of that could trump Man on Wire subject Philippe Petit's amazing feat of balancing the Oscar on his chin, or Animated Short director Kunio Kato closing his Haiku acceptance speech ("Thank you, my pencil / Thank you, Academy.  Thank / You, animation") with a little "Domo Oregoto, Mr. Roboto."  Now, that's style!

Now let's just hope next year... ah, who am I kidding, I'll just hope that next year they let Jackman host again.  Maybe the new Academy President, whomever he or she may be, will institute a new category for Best Popular Movie and I can get back into really caring who wins these things.