The 2024 Academy Awards Ceremony (ABC-TV- 3/10/24)
Let's get right to it......at 3 & 1/2 hours, the show still managed to be entertaining, sometimes honestly heartfelt, sometimes genuinely funny.....and surprisingly well paced (all things considered.....)
Big advantage for it.....2023 served up the mighty powerhouse duo of Barbenheimer......not one, but two actual movies that everybody coughed up the ticket money to watch on theater big screens......
Just look how far we've come since the Steven Soderbergh-directed trainwreck-in-a-train-station 2020 Oscarcast.....as we all hid indoors from COVID, we watched awards handed out to a sorry line-up of movies either nobody ever heard of or nobody ever wanted to see.anyway....
What a joy to indulge in a night of old faashioned glitz and glamour and see who'd go home winners amid a very competitive slate of films....
Overall, 90 percent of it was just fine with BQ.....with only one or two glaring exceptions......
And now......in no order whatsoever, the highs, the lows and the in-betweens......
The Big Wins.....Cillian Murphy? We're okay with it, though we leaned toward Giamatti.
Emma Stone? YES! A surprise, worthy upset and fitting end to the ridiculous idea of Lily Gladstone's nomination (which was never anything but a supporting role shoved into the wrong category and only competently acted at best.....) Put simply, judging on wokeness lost, judging on merit won. A massive win for Emma, not so much for her dress designer......
Robert Downey Jr.? Expected and worthy. Da'Vine Joy Randolph? Ditto.
Godzilla Minus One for Best Special Effects! YES! But the Godzy gang should've remembered to bring an interpreter along with their toy action figures.......
Oppenheimer, Poor Things, American Fiction....well deserved awards for everything they were able to win....
Killers Of The Flower Moon, Maestro....Sayonara, suckers! Dear Marty S.: the next time a streaming service floods you with a 200 million dollar budget, remember to re-read the textbooks on film editing. And remember that nobody likes sitting through a 3 & 1/2 hour movie centered around DiCaprio playing a Useful Idiot who should've been relegated to a minor, supporting character in the script. Did you even read the book?
As for you, Bradley Cooper, everybody's exhausted already from your blatant, obvious pursuit of Oscars. Your ill-judged Leonard Bernstein was nothing but preening performance art that stood apart from the rest of the movie. ("Look at me! Look at me! I look and sound like Lenny! Where's my Oscar?") Go away for a while and calm the hell down......stop panting for the statuettes and maybe one day you'll unexpectantly earn one.....
Funny stuff.....Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling's Barbenheimmer rivalry.....John Cena naked.....John Mulaney's riff on "Field Of Dreams", the "Twins" reunion of Ah-nuld and DeVito, with the ex-"Batman" villains eyeballing their caped nemesis Michael Keaton....Ryan Gosling, Slash and Busby Berkley chorus line bringing down the house with "I'm Just Ken".....and Jimmy Kimmel's last minute response to the Tangerine Toddler's mean tweet....("Isn't it past your jail-time?") Priceless......
Favorite awkward moment......Academy president Janet Yang starts her uninteresting blathering in the narrow corridor used by Oscar winners after their speeches....Billie Eilish and others try a sideways shuffle to politely get past her......hilarious....
Last....(and most certainly least....)...the dead on arrival "In Memoriam" segment...... the one and only part of the Oscars that you can depend on year after year....depend on the Academy to find new creative ways to disrespect those who passed and do a piss poor job at it as they piss on the memories of beloved folk who've left us....
Even by the low bar the Academy sets every year for the death parade, this year they scraped bottom right down to the floor of the abyss......not only zipping past the dead at 90 miles an hour but shooting the whole thing as if viewed from the last row in the upper balcony....once again, as always, holding up a huge middle finger to those in their industry no longer with us.
You'd think this segment couldn't get any worse, but don't underestimate the Academy's sheer stubborn stupidity..... we can only shudder at what they'll come up with next year.......
See you all at the movies.....at tomorrow on the blog!
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