I should have known that I would break my blogging silence because of the Oscars. Even though I didn't want to, I watched the ceremonies this year. I think I'll start with my solution to making the Oscars shorter:
First (and I think most obvious) lessen the amount of time the presenters take to walk to the podium! Either simply make the distance they have to traverse shorter, or have them ready to go by the time the previous segment is complete! I can't tell you how crazy bored I was hearing "Ladies and gentlemen, the webbed crusader and his leading lady Toby MacGuire and Kirsten Dunst" *Thunderous obligatory applause rings throughout the theater as these two presenters trudge the 3/4 of a mile from the very back of the stage, around the massive statue of the oscar, to the podium on the far end of the stage!* Give me a break! Who designed this? Richard Simmons? "Walk off that weight so you look four tenths of an ounce thinner when you present the award!" How about this: The announcer says, "Ladies and Gentlemen, two time Academy Award winner and five time Academy Award Nominee Tom Hanks and Kate Winslet." And Bang the camera cuts to the podium and ~shocker~ they are already there! That would easily cut a half hour from the show. There is no less than 30 minutes of walking during the Oscars.
Second: No one is allowed to thank anyone they aren't related to. Thank your wife, mother, kids, uncle who got you the gig, whatever. But if the person's name appears in the credits of your film, you cannot thank them. It is assumed that you are going to thank anyone who worked on your film from the Executive Producer to the Kraft Services Guy. From Key Grip to Best Boy to stand-in Gaffer. If you have something you actually want to say (like Al Gore, the director of West Bank Story, or Alan Arkin) say it, but don't waste our time thanking all of these people we've never heard of and don't care about. (With the following exceptions: Winners in a Best Actor category may thank the following people by title only: "Co-Stars," "Screen Writers," "Director," and (above all) "Editor" because, really, the editor makes or breaks your performance. Winners in a Writing category may thank the following: "People from whom they stole their movie idea," "Movies from which they stole their movie idea," "People who stole their movie idea and did it poorly making their movie idea look better." Everyone may thank the Academy.) The best way to merge into this is to allow "thank yous" to first names only for a year or two and then cutting them out completely. Besides if you thank people by first names (or nicknames) more people will think you are thanking them. "I'd like to thank Steven, Harrison, John, Leo, Bill, Sparky, Duke, Will, and MadDog (there's always a MadDog...) Then once the "thank yous" are removed... ahh... just think of it, the glorious Oscar night where people either had something meaningful to say (whether we agree with it or not (Michael Moore)) or they thank their family, the Academy and walk away! With the first suggestion combined with this one, we are looking at a 2 1/2 hour Oscar night!
Finally, stop playing all five nominated Original Songs. The five Original Scores don't get any stage time. You don't show the fifteen best shorts (live action, animated, and documentary). Why do you waste our time with four losing songs? That should be an added benefit to winning, you get your song played at the Oscars. That cuts out another twenty minutes.
So there you have it, I've cut the Oscars down to just over 2 hours (rather than just over 4) and what have we lost? Women attempting to walk in dresses that were never designed to allow it. An hour of meaningless name dropping and four songs we didn't want to hear anyway.
Now for further musings on the Oscars/Academy:
Jennifer Hudson won best supporting actress. Two years ago she was singing in her home town church choir. Why is it that I applaud the Academy for this gesture and it makes me sick at the same time? I'm amazed that the elitist Academy didn't shun her because she was a nobody and hasn't paid her dues. And yet I look at amazing actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman who only last year finally got his Oscar. Perhaps I'd prefer to have seen the nomination as the gesture of welcome to stardom and seen them hold off on the win for her. Or am I just jealous? Why couldn't I have gotten a break like that? Or any of my friends who are still starving their way through Hollywood/New York/Chicago? (Upon further review, there is an additional reason why Ms Hudson won last night. Her competition was two actress from the same movie who cancel each other out (This always occurs, if there is a category with two nominees from the same movie, they will never win (see Best Song: three Dreamgirls songs, none of which walked away with the Oscar) People who want to vote for that movie will inevitably split their votes between the nominees allowing a third party to win.) Her other competition was a nine year old girl (She can't win yet) and a woman who has won in the past. (Had Cate's performance been absolutely breathtaking, she'd have had a chance, but it wasn't an amazing role. (That's another challenge that the amazing actors face, people begin to expect the fantastic and you have to exceed their expectations to win (Perhaps this is why it took 6 nominations for Martin to win his Award))). So two opponents cancel each other, one's age basically disqualifies her, and a previous winner who didn't shock and awe. That only left Jennifer.
The Best Actor award is no longer about the best actor. It's about the best role and the best accent. Here's a rule that's only been broken twice: White guy + crazy/retarded character = Oscar. (Most recent time it was broken: Sean Penn in Sam I Am but remember, he isn't exactly Hollywood's sweetheart.) We can throw Biopic into that equation as a variable. Look at the people nominated this year: Whitaker (Biopic/accent/African), Gosling (accent/New York), DiCaprio (accent/South African (And a bad one at that. Had he been nominated for the movie he should have been nominated for (The Departed) he might have one, but he didn't have an accent in the Scorese's picture.)) Smith (Biopic/who is still trying to get the Oscar he earned with another Biopic: Ali) and O'Toole (The unofficial life time achievement Oscar (his 7th nod)). It used to be that the Best Actor was the person who best embodied whatever character he was given. (The last time I saw this time of nomination was Kevin Spacey in American Beauty) Now it's who happens to land the best role (other Biopic nods: Pheonix & Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Foxx (Ray Charles), Mirren (The Queen), etc). Look, if an actor lands an "Everyman" role and makes you believe he's that "Everyman" character, he should have a shot at the statue. Because this is no longer true, I want to see the screenwriters go up and accept the Best Actor Award because it's the characters they are writing that are winning the awards, not the people portraying them.
In case anyone was wondering, I got ten categories correct and was kicking myself for changing my selections from four others that actually did win. I correctly predicted:
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Original Score
Best Makeup
Best Documentary Feature
Best Documentary Short
Best Sound Editing
Best Visual Effects
and changed my answer from the winner to a loser in:
Best Costume Design
Best Supporting Actress
Best Original Song
Best Live Action Short Film
So there you have it. My thoughts on the 2007 Academy Awards. I'd like to thank my wife for putting up with my blogging, I'd like to thank my readers, I'd like to thank MadDog, and, oh, how could I forget ... It's just my opinion.
