Watching The Academy Awards is always an odd experience for me. As a movie-lover, you’d think it’d be a great experience for me, but as an entertainment-lover, it’s three hours of boring, thirty minutes of good TV, and twenty minutes of great TV, and usually ten minutes of awkward moments and contrived speeches.
Jon Stewart did a good job. Probably the best job he could have, considering how out of his element he was. And really, I think that’s a big part of his appeal at that gig. He’s the New York guy, here to make fun of Hollywood and throw in a few political jabs for color. Except that, while on every other night I’m sure all those actors love The Daily Show, on Oscar night they’re all so self-obsessed, so full of themselves, that they’re too cautious and/or defensive to be able to laugh at themselves. This is why Billy Crystal and Steve Martin make great Oscar hosts: they’re showbiz, and Stewart is not. They know the Hollywood jokes and they know who to make fun of and how far to go. Stewart’s not a performer. His jokes are based around delivering a dose of the truth with an ample helping of ridicule, and most actor’s aren’t that good at taking it, no matter how spot-on the joke was.
The evening did, to me, come out a bit understated, in a large part because none of the movies up for the big awards were mega studio productions. It’s not like the same people aren’t there every year, but somehow not having powerhouse films on the docket seemed to diminish the usual pomp of the event. There weren’t any memorable standing ovation moments. No tear-filled emotional speeches from underdogs to make the Oscar highlight reels. Crash’s win is being called an “upset”, but no one was all that shocked.
As for why this year was different, I don’t really have any guesses. I’m pretty sure that the movies and the people who were up for the awards had something to do with it, but I’m not sure how or why that came to be.
My favorite moments of the night: Three 6 Mafia’s performance and win, Steve Carrell and Will Farrell’s presentation of the make-up award, the attack ad on the sound mixer, and Ben Stiller’s presentation of the special effects awards. I’m sure there were others, but that’s what sticks in my head right now. Edit: forgot the fake attack ads for actress and sound editing. Brilliant.