A bunch of thoughts on the Oscars (at least, the part I saw)

My god, the Oscars is a bizarre show. The awards are so politicized and as a result arbitrary in regards to actual quality that it baffles me why people still watch this for who's actually going to win. Hell, it baffles me why people watch this at all, but whatever. Here are some thoughts on the Oscars, at least the part I could sit through.

Nice overall set design and lights. It actually did feel elegant and old-fashioned, but with a trace of modernity. However, what was up with the "set" that Daniel Craig and someone else whom I've forgot presented on for art direction? Now that was just tacky.

It's astonishing how much the academy ignores animated/comic book/fantasy films. Iron Man being snubbed doesn't surprise me somehow, even though I loved the film not just because of its comic book nature, but because it was a damn good film. But Wall-E not winning anything of a technical nature, including sound design? As my friend Jeni pointed out, the entire first half of Wall-E, arguably its best part and one of the best sequences in the history of animation and maybe even film, was virtually all sound! Return of the King in 2003 was clearly an enormous fluke and not a trendsetter.

Hugh Jackman seemed impossible to dislike, but not exciting; a very safe choice, which translates to boooooring to me. Also, what was up with the musical numbers, Hugh? Now Will Smith, who I doubt would ever do a schmaltzy Broadway dance sequence, would seem to me to be a perfect host for this; he's very funny and at times edgy, extremely likeable, and is an enormously successful movie star. I would guess he has turned them down, but why? Not something he wants on his resume for some reason? I don't blame him.

I love the idea of five former winners presenting the acting Oscar nominees. This along with the idea of giving the speechmakers as much time backstage as they want to record a full acceptance speech where they thank everyone they can think of instead of taking up everyone's time onstage are the two best ideas the Academy has had in ages.

What was up with the Best Song medley? I can see why Peter Gabriel boycotted it. It was impossibly lame; it had the effect of trivializing all three songs by mushing them together while still feeling like it ran too long. Also, the guy who won both Best Score and Best Song for Slumdog Millionaire has to have set some kind of record for shortest time to becoming a multiple Oscar winner. This is like the complaints people have regarding how many medals get handed out at Olympic swimming; when you hand out too many awards all at once, it kinda seems to trivialize them a bit.

The Man on Wire guy gave one of my all time favorite acceptance speeches. Humor, magic tricks, and balancing the Oscar on your chin, all in about a minute and a half. If more acceptance speeches were like his, I'd watch the Oscars much more.

I do not understand how Milk has won at multiple award shows for Best Original Screenplay. Sure, parts of the script were very good, even though a lot of it was the acting, especially Penn and Brolin (Brolin in particular took a decently written character and made him exceptional). But any script that repeats the same phrase five or six times during a film, and even pointlessly reshows an early sequence of the film with said phrase in it at the end of the film, doesn't strike me as being well written throughout.

I could say more, but I think this is enough. I'm very curious as to what the ratings are going to be for this year's Oscars. I can't imagine they'll be very high. Slumdog Millionaire doesn't strike me as being a big enough film to care enough about to watch sweep the Oscars (though I'm very happy for Danny Boyle, whom I've always liked). Of course, it's way bigger than No Country For Old Men. We shall see.