The Academy Awards have a somewhat unspoken responsibility to justify their existence as a television program. Critics’ circles in major cities across the country simply announce their awards in private ceremonies, and other groups that give out awards do so in press releases, but for the Academy to take up five hours of television time every year with a giant promotional ceremony for their industry requires that they provide some kind of entertainment to make the loss in revenue for films and other television networks worth the sacrifice. And despite many widely popular films and the presence of high profile nominees, this year’s ceremony was about the worst of the past decade.
Let’s get the awards part of the show out of the way as quickly as possible. The King’s Speech won Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Original Screenplay, but tied with Inception, which picked up awards in technical categories, for four awards. David Fincher’s The Social Network finished with three awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin and Best Original Score for Nine Inch Nails musician Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. From the award perspective, there were no surprises in any of the major categories, which in itself was a disappointment from a viewer’s perspective. Generally, I am of the opinion that if a film can’t win more than five awards, there are two possible ways to look at the year in film: either there were multiple strong films that split the major awards, or there was no film strong enough to win the amount of awards that would justify a Best Picture victory. Regardless of whether or not The King’s Speech was a worthy recipient, the tepid and laborious ceremony definitely made the year look bad.
As a television program, the Oscars have been searching for a way to rebrand themselves as youthful entertainment that can draw in younger viewers while still maintaining an air of respectability to older viewers. The set employed large video screens, catch-phrase and buzzword heavy scripting for the presenters, and in contrast to last year’s duo of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, the latter of whom was delightful in the video montage that opened the show, the Oscars made the obvious attempt to skew younger with new hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway.
The debut hosting team took very divergent approaches to their duties, with Hathaway going gung-ho and chucking every ounce of energy in her person into the performance, singing a brief musical number lampooning Hugh Jackman, seated in the front row and subjected to a great deal of mockery throughout the night, and changing clothes at almost every commercial break. Franco on the other hand, was unexpected and surprising, but almost completely drab every time he was on stage. The worst offender was his “nerds” joke, when he himself is a published short story author and PhD candidate in addition to his acting credits.
There were few strange bright spots. Tom Hooper, director of The King’s Speech, and David Siedler, writer of the same film, told stories wonderfully heartfelt and comical stories of how their film cam to fruition, while Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law were quite entertaining in their bit before giving out an award, proving once again that Downey Jr. would be a fine choice for hosting if only the writers would let him break loose and relax from the usual tension of hosting duties. For my money, the best bit that went on so long it looked like a scene from The Office was Kirk Douglas, who at age 95 while presenting Best Supporting Actress noted the prominent audience members laughing at him, and hitting on Anne Hathaway. But these small laughs can’t compare with the laundry list of jokes that didn’t land, presenters who had no chemistry or material to work with. Justin Timberlake lamely claimed to be Banksy, Sandra Bullock reminded everyone of how every single award was invalidated by the fact that she owns one of the golden statues, and by the end of the night Melissa Leo’s early f-bomb during the first hour of the show wasn’t the lowlight, it was just the first of many misfires and mishaps the audience had to endure.
When compared with the Golden Globes, which frequently nominates laughable candidates for star power or publicity, the Oscars are ideally supposed to honor the best in film. Many critics hate awards season, while some hate list-making altogether. In my opinion, the Oscars award films that combine critical-acclaim, box office dollars, and well-publicized campaigns by studios and distributors. This isn’t always fair, but at least it’s somewhat more transparent and we can see what’s going on. What it does not explain, however, is how the gaudy Tim Burton re-imagined pseudo-sequel Alice In Wonderland took home two awards. When Ricky Gervais noted that The Tourist was nominated at the Golden Globes, everyone knew it had no chance to win, but somehow the one slipped by on the film industry’s biggest stage.
Deadline.com’s Nikki Finke leaked the Oscarcast schedule a few days before the ceremony, so none of the “surprises” really came across the way they were intended, from Hathaway’s ill-advised carousel of wardrobe changes to the appearance of Billy Crystal midway through the broadcast for absolutely no reason other than to deliver a strangely funny and semi-vulgar story about Bob Hope. That one really did seal it, as Crystal coming onstage to riff for a few minutes meant that not only were the Oscars trying to highlight a time when the films nominated were canonical and more important to culture at large, but when the telecast itself had a host who people would tune in to see. Ricky Gervais provided that for the Golden Globes in January, a host who could shock and demanded the attention of an audience with his biting humor, which made for better television. This year’s Academy Awards could not provide the same level of entertainment value, which will, once again, undoubtedly lead the Academy to attempt a grand shakeup of the proceedings next year that will, once again, inevitably fail to connect with audiences.