Cheers to Hugh Jackman for being an affable classy host, who never forced the joke and kept everything moving at a very swift pace.
Jeers to the more intimate feel of the seating. The Oscars aren’t an intimate affair, they’re the biggest and most epic of the awards show and should feel as such.
Cheers to Steve Martin bringing some outstanding humor and killer comic timing to his presentation, reminding the Oscar producers that there’s a brilliant host still waiting in the wings at a moment’s notice.
Jeers to the set up of five presenters for the five nominees. The selection of the men and women behind the curtains seemed random, and some got the pleasure of being presented by their mentors, and others by actors of a younger generation. I like this idea in concept, but the execution was fairly weak. Why didn’t they have five directors come out?
Cheers to the tempo of the show during the technical categories. Funny presenters keep the show moving quickly, and the draggy pace of the major category presentations was made up for in these areas. The final runtime of the show felt pretty quick, and I think these sections were why.
Jeers to the Academy for being so predictable for costumes and rewarding the frilly corset period piece costumes again, without any thought to how costume aid the story. Kudos to the producers for having the guest explain why the suits in Revolutionary Road should even hold a candle next to The Duchess… but it’s a shame that a different film didn’t win.
Cheers to the Joaquin Phoenix parody. I seem to recall that every time Stiller presents throughout the years, I always end up laughing– usually even more than at his movies.
Jeers to the musical number. I know, this is surprising, since I’m such a musical theater guy. But it seems planted here from the Tonys, not for the Oscars. The Baz Luhrmann arrangement was confusing, and the exclamation “The musical is back!” is a lie to anyone who’s looked to Broadway for an original exciting new musical. Still, it was well-produced.
Cheers to the hero from Man On Wire for giving us our hilarious kooky acceptance speech moment. I couldn’t be more pleased that they won.
Jeers to the odd overlapping of the three songs. Having the two Indian numbers with John Legend awkwardly standing and singing in the middle made me wonder if Peter Gabriel was smugly grinning in the back. Also, why in the WORLD was Bruce Springsteen’s title track to The Wrestler not nominated?
Cheers to there being an upset tonight, when Waltz With Bashir and The Class both went down to the Japanese underdog in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Jeers to there being only one upset all evening.
Cheers to no Academy president speech!!
Jeers, and big-time jeers, to the moving camera during the memoriam montage, so that some people got zoomed up shots of their achievements, and other folks I had a legit time even reading their name on the screens. Keep it still and keep it classy.
Cheers to Sean Penn for giving a lot of time out of his speech to Mickey Rourke, who gave a phenomenal performance and should have won.
Jeers to Sean Penn for making the podium his soapbox– again– and winning in a category where he was the fifth best nominee.
Finally, cheers to me for only missing 7 predictions, two of which were in the smallest categories, and one of which was a homer pick/upset prayer anyhow. Hopefully I led y’all to a victory in your Oscar pool. I should’ve guessed that the Sound awards wouldn’t have both gone Wall-E’s way though… the Academy just hates rewarding animation. Sigh.
