The segment from Costumes to Counting Crows was a bit dull, no? Except for the inspired trip to the Magic Johnson Theater to talk to African-American movie-goers. It wasn’t scientific to ask folks who obviously see a lot of films and who cited movies like
Alien vs. Predator,
Chronicles of Riddick (a Dame Judi Dench fan?), and
White Chicks as their recent favorites if they’d seen the nominated movies (I notice he didn’t ask about
Ray, for example), but it was definitely interesting. It was also one of the most incisive swipes at the relevance of the cinematic MSM that I can recall, especially at the Oscars.
Scarlett Johansson, who I really admire as an actress, seemed incredibly awkward both in the weirdly deserted box (later filled with statue-clutching geeks) and in the 10-second film clips from the scientific and technical award ceremony.
Pierce Brosnan did well with Edna Mole (even though she outshone him by several lumens), but his coughing over the nomination tape was distracting. I realize he wants the exposure, but perhaps he really should’ve called in sick.
I loved Chris Rock’s line about Tim Robbins “boring us to death with his politics” when he’s not knocking us out with his acting—good juxtaposition of compliment and burn.
Cate Blanchett was fantabulous, though the line about hoping her son will marry Martin Scorsese’s daughter was a little odd (not to mention heterosexist).
In the weird “let’s try something different each time” method of handing out the “minor” awards (which is exactly why I don’t like it—we all know there are six Oscars that really matter, two or three more that matter quite a bit, and then a whole bunch that we all forget about right after the telecast, but it feels rude to acknowledge it), my favorite so far was the editing award. When announcing the nominees, they didn’t show the people in their seats, but rather in photographs (the first time all night that I’ve really felt like I knew for sure what the nominees looked like), but then the winner got to take the walk of fame and make a speech from the stage. The winner was Scorsese’s longtime editor, who also won for
Raging Bull, and he seemed genuinely moved by her dedication to him.
Counting Crows’ version of the second Best Song nominee confirms my view that the acoustics of the Kodak Theater must be bad. I don’t care for the group (though I did once go to the theater with the lead singer—we didn’t go together, you understand, but we both went to the same performance of
Assassins at Studio 54), but, like Beyonce, the guy is a talented and creative singer, and he sounded suspiciously off-key.
Labels: 2005, live blogging, movies, oscars, television
