Was there a better moment this entire awards season than when Lupita Nyong’o passionately took the stage to accept her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress? I don’t think so. The 12 Years A Slave stunner, looking gorgeous in her light blue gown, capped off a remarkable debut awards tour with a much-deserved win (the fact Nyong’o is such a radiant ball of joy makes her soul-shattering agony in 12 Years all the more worthy of the prize) and a truly impeccable speech, dedicated to all the dreamers out there striving to make their goals valid. An Academy Award for your first film performance out of college aint too shabby. Nyong’o was just one of many winners who delivered unusually tasteful speeches, along with Jared Leto’s heartfelt tribute to his mother and Matthew McConaughey’s existential rambling about the three things he needs most in life. Is it just me or does everything McConaughey says have this seductively pensive quality to it? Maybe I’m watching too much True Detective. Along with a handful of great speeches, the biggest surprise of the night was the fact that not a single winner was cut off early from his/her speech by the orchestra, who, if I may say so myself, absolutely killed it with their intermission musical choices that incorporated some of the best film scores of all time, from Forrest Gump to E.T., Marry Poppins, and more.
Overall, the 86th Annual Academy Awards was its typical over-long, over-stuffed, and occasionally humorous affair. Host Ellen DeGeneres more or less met our conservative expectations. Listen, she was never going to be as witty as Crystal or Goldberg or as edgy as last year’s Seth MacFarlane, so give her some credit for providing some razor sharp one-liners to Liza Minnelli and a brilliant monologue ending bit about the two possible outcomes for the evening: 1) 12 Years A Slave wins Best Picture, or 2) [The Academy members] are all racist. That was an unexpected DeGeneres zinger that left me in stiches. While she may have spent a bit too much time leisurely walking up-and-down the aisles, the pizza bit and record-breaking-selfie were quite funny. More so than DeGeneres, audience members like Leo DiCaprio, Kevin Spacey, and Brad Pitt all deserve big kudos for gamely playing along. Oh, and major, major props to Nyong’o, Meryl Streep, and Amy Adams for boogying out of their seats to dance with Pharrell during his infectious performance of Best Original Song nominee “Happy”. Aside from Nyong’o winning Supporting Actress, the “Happy” dance was the night’s most joyous moment.
The only real problem was producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who should not be asked back for a third year since they clearly do not understand what the Oscars are all about. For starters, they love musical moments way too much. The “In Memoriam” section was painfully heartfelt this year (RIP Ebert, Hoffman, O’Toole), but did Bette Midler really have to come out after the montage to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” and stall the entire ceremony? Why would the producers not just have her sing during the montage? And though I see the appeal in honoring the 75th anniversary of The Wizard Of Oz (even though it was just one of many movies that contributed to the 1939 Golden Year), what kind of tribute is having Pink sing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” while images from Oz play on the screen in the background? That has to be the laziest, most uninspired tribute I’ve ever seen. How can an Oz tribute not be playful and imaginary? Do Zadan and Meron even get what makes Oz such a timeless treasure? It doesn’t seem so.
But the night’s biggest travesty, without a doubt, was Zadan and Meron’s decision to have an Oscar Theme of “Movie Heroes”. First off, the only pay off to that “theme” was a handful of eye-rolling montages that, as film critic/historian David Poland pointed out on Twitter, barely included a single black and white film, even though they are the movies that take up half of the Academy’s prestigious history. Every time a presenter walked on stage and it was obvious a “Hero Montage” was coming, I rolled my eyes and checked my phone. Second off, why wouldn’t the theme be “Celebrating The Nominated Movies”? This was the most incredible year of cinema in my 21 years, and it truly baffles me that the producers spent more time showing random hero clips than they did actually celebrating the extraordinary films nominated.
I appreciated that each nominated actor got a clip shown (usually the presenter just rattles off the names before announcing the winners, and any chance to see Amy Adams utter the great Hustle line, “You’re nothing to me until you’re everything”, is a huge win), but why didn’t each Best Picture nominee get its own three minute reel of best moments and cast-and-crew commentary? The presentation of the Best Picture nominees were clumped together in three separate groups of three and it all just felt like such a cold shoulder to the films we were actually supposed to be honoring. Before the show, ABC’s Red Carpet Special had a couple of “Fashion in Film” clips where Diane Von Furstenberg talked about the high-glam style of American Hustle and Suzy Benzinger talked about the handbag-of-armor in Blue Jasmine. These clips were absolutely fascinating and hugely rewarding for fans of Hustle and Jasmine, so why not put them in the actual show before the Best Costume Design category? It’s like Zadan and Meron did everything in their power not to honor this year’s nominees and for that the 86th Annual Academy Awards suffered greatly.
Thank god for John Travolta, though, who came out late in the night when the ceremony was beginning to get tedious to present the Best Original Song performance of Frozen’s “Let It Go”. In what could have only been a wacko combination of one-too-many-drinks and one-too-many-pills, Travolta absolutely butchered performer Idina Menzel’s name, calling the Broadway star “Adele Dazeem” in the most viral, gut busting moment of the night. Wait, what? Adele Dazeem? How did he possibly get Dazeem from Menzel? John Travolta, thank you for that inspired moment of lunacy, it really won the night.
Ultimately, the Academy saved its own ass, spreading the wealth amongst a truly talented crop of nominees. Gravity took home a whopping 7 nominees, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron, while Dallas Buyers Club took home 3, Her earned Spike Jonze his first Oscar, and the vitality of 12 Years A Slave prevailed in the Best Picture category. As for me, I had my best Oscar year ever – of the 21 categories I was able to predict, I got every single one right. I’m not one to boast, but in a baseball family like mine, this is the only time I’ve ever batted 1,000 so bask in the moment I will.
Host: B
Ceremony: C
Winners: A
Overall Grade: B
Now, let the 2014-15 Oscar race begin (luckily, it starts this Friday with Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel).
Oh, and can Leonardo DiCaprio and Amy Adams star in a socially relevant drama together? These legends need an Oscar stat!
What did you think of the big show?
Article by Zack Sharf
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