Per usual, the Academy Award had little accolades for genre, though Industrial Light & Magic Rango took advantage of the Pixar-free spread to take the Oscar for Animated Feature.
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo – one of the few lead nominees that had any (tentative) connection to genre – swept the technical awards, with Oscars for Cinematography, Art Direction (beating Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part 2,) Sound editing (over Potter and Transformers 3,) Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects (over Potter, Transformers, Real Steel and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.)
Harry Potter also lost out in Makeup, to The Iron Lady. One bright spot: The Muppets took Original Song.
As for the show itself…. It seemed like they just gave up on the younger demographic entirely. The whole show had a tone of ‘Remember how great movies used to be? Before blockbusters and computers? When we, the voting members of the Academy, were young?’ (Nothing, perhaps, says this better than The Artist wins: Old stuff and Hollywood self-absorption.) Billy Crystal may be ‘classic’ but about halfway through his painful song melody I was checked out of his performance and wishing for someone new. (Tom Hanks? Everyone loves Tom Hanks. And he doesn’t sing!) Or just bring back Jon Stewart, who made the montages actually fun. (Also, blackface? How far we’ve come, America.) Hell, let the Muppets host the whole damn thing. Last year may have been a disaster but is the answer really to pretend that anyone who’s clocked less than half a century cares? The Oscars have never been known for being populist, but this year the gap was especially glaring.
I’m glad the Oscars haven’t gone the Grammy route of rewarding their industry’s biggest moneymakers (no offense to Adele, but that path would lead to Oscar nominations for Twilight) but just… Mix it up a little, will ya?
The Artists was incredible and totally deserved its award.
I only saw one of the Best Picture nominees (The Help, which was only really good for the performances) so I can’t really say. Maybe it was the best, I don’t know. And I’m not really making a judgment about the winners. (I can’t.) I just wish they had a more varied spread of nominees and had it in them to reward more than the same film over and over again.
Hugh Jackman was great a few years ago, they should’ve brought him back. (I guess he had a job?) And yeah, this was a pretty boring show. A shame.
I loved the decoration, though. Great overall design. And yes, I’m a sucker for old movies. :-) The numerous Star Wars bits were great as well. And Meryl Streep’s acceptance speech was very classy and impressive.
Other than that I agree with you: Lackluster’s the word. The whole thing seemed to be lacking both solemnity and gaiety.
I was a bit bummed with Billy Crystal’s opening. (I haven’t seen the rest of the show.) He was brilliant before and could make me giggle madly.
As for the awards themselves? Yeah. I hope no one really is shocked by how they go. Oscar is very traditional.
Still, I thought The Artist was brilliant. But having seen none of the others, I am not in a position to judge whether or not it deserved it.
I’m just glad my man Woody Allen won best original screenplay. Love that man.