Hello to all my movie loving friends and anyone else who takes the time to read this! In the greater scheme of things, this is a small matter. However, even with a reported audience of one billion viewers worldwide, the Oscars show last Sunday was arguably the worst in memory. With Hollywoods talent for transforming and creating worlds with style, excitement, and stirring words, this was a pathetic, humorless, colorless, jumble. To begin with, Ellen Degeneres, who I consider to be a pretty funny, talented presence, was nearly totally flat as a comedian and host. Her really snarky comments about Liza Minelli, who once was a great talent, now reduced to a ghost of her former self, was really inappropriate even given todays wider standards for acceptability of public utterances. Resorting to a three-part shtick about ordering pizza, handing out the pizza, and collecting money for the pizza, was the clearest demonstration that this show was devoid of entertainment content. In my opinion she was so unfunny that in my comedy metric she has now slipped to a position slightly lower than that held for more than twenty years by David Letterman. The core production content of the show was strangely non-existent save for the performances by Bette Midler (great) and Pink (also great). What has happened to the Oscars production number? The repeat producers of this show demonstrated not a clue as to Hollywoods ability for expression and pageant. Fortunately, the awardees gave generally articulate and highly thoughtful acceptance speeches, and offered some pretty nice shout-outs, except perhaps for Cate Blanchetts swipe at Gravity...but then again, she merely expressed what I believe about that movie...excellent special effects, overwrought acting, little of consequence worth remembering. Now for the presenters. What does it look like when thirty or forty experienced actors step to the podium without any idea of what should be said, without any warmth or humor attached to their flat and often imprecise readings of the films, actors and production professionals? Answer: The 2014 Academy Award show. Who left the teleprompter at home, along with all the necessary scripts? Have that person(s) launched into deep space immediately, if not sooner. Thankfully, you can always count on Harrison Ford to show up and inject a moment of inebriated silence in memory of this dead on arrival show. I am tempted to think that next year I will record it all, and fast forward through the program in order to stop and watch the commercials. It would be a better use of my time. But dont get me wrong, I love Hollywood and the Oscars. What would I have had to say on the subject - as above - if it had been a first class evening of entertainment? Hal Kaufman
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 18:49:35 +0000
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