Academy Awards Review

The last two years have been the only two years that I can remember watching the Oscars from beginning to end, and both times, the lingering feeling for me has been that moviegoers and stars alike have gotten much less of a show than they deserve.  Perhaps I'm just late to the party, and the Oscars have never been scintillating television, but for all the hype, the Academy Awards have failed to deliver, and it's maddening for a couple of  reasons.

First, the choice of host.   I'm pretty outspoken in my dislike for Seth MacFarlane, and I was baffled by his selection, but I think it was an effort to make the Awards more fresh than the Billy Crystal experience and to get light years away from Anne Hathaway and James Franco.  MacFarlane's resume, though, is less than impressive (he has three Fox shows that at worst can run towards the very tasteless and at best mildly amusing, and one mega-popular movie that was essentially a big screen Family Guy episode), and he pretty much stuck with his humor and schtick (there were a couple of song and dance routines that can be found on Family Guy).  Was he the worst host ever (as his opening bit had him fearing he might be?)  No, but the Oscar basement goes pretty low, given the Franco/Hathaway performance and David Letterman's "Uma/Oprah" year.  The show directors didn't do MacFarlane any favors by making him read the "coming up" segments, either.

Some of the production decisions were also to blame for the extremely tedious ceremony that clocked in over three and a half hours.  Music in film was a big focus, but did we need performances from Chicago and Dreamgirls in addition to Les Miserables?  The Les Miserables performance was one high noteof the ceremony, as it was an impressive sight to see the entire cast (even Russell Crowe) singing live, but the Chicago and Dreamgirls performances felt unnecessary.  The best song performances also ruin the flow of an already choppy program; I would eliminate those and let snippets play while the nominees for that category are being announced.  And when music in film is a big focus, is it really a great idea to banish the orchestra to another building?

I felt from the start that the stars and movies weren't really being honored last night.  You don't honor these stars by subjecting them to the antics of a snarky host who seemed to be shooting himself in the foot all night (really, a John Wilkes Booth joke?  A segment called "We Saw Your Boobs", which Captain Kirk told MacFarlane would sink him as an Oscar host.  To me, the joke would have been more effective if Shatner had just described the bit instead of involving the actresses).   If you want to honor movies and moviegoers, hire a host (or even a committee of hosts, like they did back in the day) whose name brings honor to the ceremony.  If you want to honor movies and moviegoers, give the presenters some material instead of having the Avengers bicker or Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy do incomprehensible impressions.

It's never going to be an easy task to make the Academy Awards a brisk affair.  It's not the Golden Globes, all breezy and spontaneous. These are prestigious awards, so hopefully next year the ceremony will feel like the honor that's it's hyped to be.