Quick thoughts about last night’s Oscars telecast:
I’m pretty sure this was the first major awards show (i.e. excluding the AVN ceremonies) to include not one but two shout-outs to sex workers — from “Anora” star Mikey Madison (who won Best Actress) and Sean Baker (who won for directing, editing, and writing the movie). In related news, there’s been a price hike for lap dances at strip clubs in Los Angeles.
By the way, I hated Baker’s earlier movie “The Florida Project” so much it made my Worst Movies Of 2017 list (read my review here).
I’m not sure why this Oscars show included a tribute to James Bond movies since it already did one three years ago — especially in the same week that longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson just gave up the rights to future Bond movies to Amazon.
That being said, who thought starting the tribute off with a dance number was a good idea? Did I miss a scene where Bond went undercover at the Moulin Rouge? The rule should be that dance numbers may only be performed to honor movies that have actual dance sequences.
For the first time in a long time, the In Memoriam segment looked good because — unlike Oscarcasts of the last dozen years or more — there was no singer performing a sad song and getting in the way of the images of the people being honored.
Speaking of In Memoriam, it was a great choice to have that sequence preceded by a tribute to Gene Hackman by his two-time co-star Morgan Freeman, including a montage of some of his roles. Considering we only found out about Hackman’s mysterious death three days ago, that was a nice last-minute addition.
On the other hand, while it was appropriate to have Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey honoring their late friend Quincy Jones, it was a mistake to follow it with Queen Latifah singing “Ease On Down The Road” from “The Wiz.” Why? Because although Jones composed songs for 44 movies, “The Wiz” wasn’t one of them. That was the work of Charlie Smalls, who created all the music and lyrics for the original Broadway musical.
I never complain about the length of the Oscarcast, because it is what it is, a live TV event, which — like NFL games — is about the only kind of thing that draws a sizable simultaneous audience, with lots of valuable commercial time along the way. Too bad that the Hulu simulcast crashed and burned, though.
Still, I laughed out loud when the broadcast’s sound person turned the mic off for one of the winners for Best Sound because his two colleagues had already gone on too long. But then Best Actor winner Adrien Brody was allowed to ramble on for six minutes, an absolute abuse of the privilege of an acceptance speech. I suppose we shouldn’t expect brevity from the star of “The Brutalist,” which has a runtime longer than many Netflix series.
With the exception of his completely unnecessary song and dance number, “I Won’t Waste Time,” Conan O’Brien did a very good job as host, with some clever comments along the way and just the right attitude about the proceedings. The highlight was his commercial for “CinemaStreams”…