Last night, millions of people around the world gathered in front of
their TVs to watch Hollywood’s biggest, grandest pizza party awards ceremony. Hosted for the second time by Ellen DeGeneres, the three-and-a-half
hour long fête of
movies and the people who make them saw talent recognized, asses kissed, egos
inflated, and history
made.
Yet, as fantastic as the slate of nominees was and as glamorous as everyone
present looked, it was a night that became less devoted to celebrating, or even
acknowledging, films from the past year and more interested in taking the world’s
most popular selfie (see pic above). The Oscars turned into a giant slumber
party, one the rest of us ugly mortals – and even most of the people in the
actual auditorium – didn't seem invited to.
It’s an unpopular opinion, particularly
for a woman, but I generally liked Seth MacFarlane’s hosting job last year.
Sure, he was on the crass side and had several questionable jokes that didn't
land, but he seemed interested in trying to put on a show, and I thought it was
a mostly entertaining night that breezed by with relative ease. At the very
least, he got people talking, a rarity in our social media-saturated age of
short attention spans. Apparently, the Academy didn’t approve of the controversy
(some of which consisted of actually
worthwhile
discussions),
because they selected Ellen, who’s the definition of likable but bland, as a
follow-up. While she provided one or two good yuks,
Ellen seemed oddly ill-prepared and lifeless. She was often absent from the
stage whenever the show returned from the commercial breaks that interrupted it
every five minutes and spent most of the time when she was around making
halfhearted comments about costume changes and rubbing elbows with a select
handful of celebs seated in the front rows. Offering pizza to starving A-listers and (successfully)
trying to break the Twitter record for most retweeted tweet are all well
and good for one-off bits, but when you stretch it out over three hours instead
of moving on to more engaging and inclusive material, it becomes lazy,
self-indulgent, and worst of all, mind-numbingly dull.
Though, as its emcee, she’s
responsible for making the event flow as well as possible, Ellen was hardly
alone in making the Oscar ceremony even more tedious than usual. The proceedings
reeked of sloppiness (not to be mistaken for spontaneity) and dutiful apathy,
from the mismatched, monotone-voiced presenters who read off a poorly-paced
teleprompter like they were delivering eulogies and the weirdly subdued musical
performances to the pointless montages and winners’ speeches that rarely went
beyond rote lists of thank you’s. Still, the evening was not entirely without
its idiosyncrasies. John Travolta flubbed “Let It Go” performer and Broadway
superstar Idina Menzel’s name, spawning many sniggering memes that make the
Internet look even more like a collective asshole than usual once you realize
the mistake was clearly a result
of his dyslexia. Singer Darlene Love belted
out a tune unprompted, a recurring
theme at this year’s awards shows, when 20 Feet from Stardom, the flick about
her and the other unheralded backup singers behind some of the late 20th
century’s most iconic music, won Best Documentary Feature. I think I understand
what he was going for, but Best Lead Actor winner Matthew McConaughey
unintentionally drifted into Rust Cohle territory with a rambling,
Southern-fried speech that came off as a tad egocentric.
Masterful
It didn’t help that not a single
name read off one of those gold envelopes came as a surprise. As expected, Gravity pulled off a near-sweep of the
technical categories, pocketing everything from Best Editing to both sound
awards, and the acting winners matched up four-for-four with the Indie Spirit
Awards (a
first) and early precursors like the Screen Actors Guild awards. Frozen ran away with the two categories
it was up for, Best Animated Feature and Best Song, while the Academy
demonstrated they still erroneously believe more is better by giving both Best
Costume Design and Best Production Design to Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. That gaudy abomination
managed to nab more trophies than Best Picture nominees Her, American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street, Captain Phillips, Nebraska, and Philomena
combined, all of which went home empty-handed except for a lone yet much-deserved
Best Original Screenplay win for Her writer
Spike Jonze. Sorry, you seem like a perfectly decent person, Catherine Martin,
but if you could kindly hand over your statues to their rightful owners (a.k.a.
American Hustle for Costumes and
either Her or 12 Years a Slave for Production Design), it would be much
appreciated.
Still, aside from the Gatsby wins, it’s hard for me to
complain about any of the results, as predictable as they were. While I would
likely pick different personal favorites for many categories, it’s a testament
to how great this crop of nominees, and the movie year as a whole, were that
pretty much every single winner felt utterly worthy, and yet so many people and
films seem to have been unfairly left out. David O. Russell followed up his Silver Linings Playbook’s near-shutout
last year, when Jennifer Lawrence constituted that film’s sole victory, with a
real and even bigger 0-fer, as American
Hustle lost all 10 of the awards for which it was nominated. As harsh as
the collective loss seems, it might be a blessing in disguise, particularly in
the major categories, freeing it – along with Gravity – from the potential burden of being The One That Beat 12 Years a Slave. My fellow blogger
WordMaster has
already discussed how we feel that wickedly inventive, humane American Hustle is better than the
dismissive backlash it has received, and perhaps it’ll be appreciated for what
it is in time, once it’s removed from the hyperbolic, distorting glare of
awards season.
When you get down to it, the
dominance of Gravity and 12 Years a Slave represents the Oscars
at their best. One dazzled audiences with its mix of grand ambition and
emotion, delivering the kind of awe-inspiring, innovative spectacle that
demands to be seen on the big screen, while the other served as a reminder of the
cultural power wielded by movies, the way they can give a voice to the people
and stories all-too-often forgotten by society. Moreover, as different as they
are and beyond their technical achievements or historical significance, both
films are simply bold, memorable, poignant works of art, ones that Hollywood
should strive to make more of and that justify the existence of the Academy
Awards in the first place. The ceremony as a whole may have been sedate and
smug, a tone set before it began by a lame
bit of “comedy” by Jimmy Kimmel during the red carpet where he attempted to
shame ordinary people for making fun of dolled-up, wealthy celebrities, but
that doesn’t take away from the awesomeness of watching Gravity’s Alfonso Cuarón become the first Latino
(and only the second person of color) to
ever win Best Director. It doesn’t erase the smile that crept across my
face upon seeing Steve McQueen literally jump for joy after 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture, the
only time a movie with a solo black protagonist has gotten that honor.
If you ever doubt that the Oscars have meaning, however small and trivial
that meaning seems compared to everything else that goes on in the world, then
just watch Best Supporting Actress winner Lupita
Nyong’o’s acceptance speech, easily the best of the night, followed by the
always lovely Cate Blanchett’s, and possibly the only thing I will remember
from this ceremony by next week. After bursting into both laughter and tears
upon hearing her name, one of the evening’s few open displays of emotion, the 12 Years a Slave actress gracefully
ascended the stage and, as she’s done all season long, delivered a knockout,
eloquently thanking the cast and crew of the film as well as family, friends
and teachers while also acknowledging that her success came as a result of the
real-life Patsey’s pain and telling “every little child that, no matter where
you’re from, your dreams are valid.” It was a much-needed moment of
graciousness, humility, and heartfelt ecstasy, one that I imagine will be
replayed for years to come in Oscar highlight reels. A young, previously unknown
black woman winning for her first film role, she’s the kind of person we love
to see win these awards but also the kind of person who almost never breaks out
in a business that still overwhelmingly favors well-off, white men. It’s
impossible not to be happy to see her revel in the spotlight and get a chance
at a potentially amazing career. So, here’s to you, Lupita. You make this whole
silly circus just a little less silly.
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