So, three days later and a bucketload of articles read, I am now pretty confident to voice my opinion on how I thought the 2011 Oscars went. I haven't been watching them for too long, I think the first one I watched all the way through was in 2006, when Scorsese (finally) was awarded with the Best Director and Picture Oscar. So I obviously haven't seen the show in its prime, where Billy Crystal and Jon Stewart were reigning as hosts. However, I can confidently begin my post with this; the 2011 Oscars were definitely the most entertaining of the shows I have seen.
Overall, during the a little over three hour show (I hate how some people are saying it ran four hours, three and a quarter at most) I was genuinely amused by the hosting and presenting. We will get to the hosting in a bit, but of the presenters you would expect it from, I was entertained. Robert Downey Jr. continues his reign as the most charming current actor in the the business, and his bit with Jude Law was dynamite. Tom Hanks was professional as always, and the Best Actor shtick was amazing. Being told how awesome you are by the Dude and Sandra Bullock would be a dream come true for me. And don't get me started about Kirk Douglass. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have him present must have been crazy, but it was by far the most entertaining part of the night.
In addition to the presenting, the video bits were also very amusing. Trying to bring in a more younger demographic, the Oscars had an autotune the movies video, which was funny but a little over the top, and the backdrop was really cool looking when they used it to show off movies and effects. When the orchestra came out and played the iconic theme songs to movies I was in awe. In my opinion trying to get younger viewers is not a good idea, the Oscars isn't supposed to be about viewers, its supposed to be about awarding great works of art. However the show was nice and I overall enjoyed every bit.
Now onto what everyone is talking about; the hosting. I'm going to get the easy part out of the way; Anne Hathaway was bubbly and funny and hard working the entire time. She also looked stunning in all of the many dresses she changed into during the show. Side note, I'm really looking forward to her as Catwoman. Now for James Franco. I have read many articles both defending Franco and criticizing him, however during the show I wasn't totally hating his performance. Mostly because he definitely was high the entire time, and I dig that. People are toting his hosting as the worst of all time, and questioning what he was thinking being distant and overall uninterested. Now I've heard some crazy reasons why he decided to do it this way, but I think he was just nervous and overall just not a good host. He is an actor; you can't expect him to be good at all performances. In addition, he is a young, up and coming talent who is in awe being in the same room as such legends as Colin Firth and Hugh Jackman. He's not going to pull a Ricky Gervais or Billy Crystal (who's segment was hilarious) and poke fun at Hollywood. Leave the kid alone; he wasn't the best but his performance could have been worse.
So in conclusion I was entertained by the show in general. The awards, however, were not to my liking. In a system where "Alice and Wonderland" and "Wolfman" can take home not one but multiple awards, and "True Grit" and "The Kids are Alright" take home none, you know there is something wrong. In addition to that, they were just so predictable. Don't get me wrong, the only award I cared about, Christian Bale for Supporting Actor, got me excited. But the big ones were uneventful. The only real qualm I had was Best Director, where the likes of Darren Aronofsky and David Fincher are beat by the relatively unknown Tom Hoover is ridiculous. Yea, I understand "The King's Speech" was good, but give it Best Picture and give the Directing to someone who deserves it. But everything else I could have picked without knowing anything about the nominees. Best Picture was expanded to ten nominees to make it more interesting, but really it was just a battle between "The Social Network" and "The King's Speech". They really need to put that back to five. "Inception" took home the big visual awards, writing for the top two Best Picture nominees, even the shorts were predictable. Come on Academy, we all wanted to see Banksy come up on stage for the award.
There are my two big thoughts on how this year's Oscar's went. I am hoping I have more of an interest in next year's awards, even though I don't know of a lot of my favorite actors or directors coming out with any films as of yet, but I really want to be impressed with the actual awards. That's what it's about, isn't it? We don't need to get all flashy and stupid to draw in a demographic who frankly shouldn't be watching the show anyway. The Oscar's aren't going to be cancelled because of low viewers. The show was entertaining, let's make the awards the same way. If you want more people to watch, how about you work on the thousands of movie buffs who don't watch the show for the reasons I have listed here? I will continue to watch the Oscars, because they are the biggest event for movies of the year, but those are the people you want to be luring in, not some stupid teenager who doesn't know the difference between Robert de Niro and Channing Tatum.
