I admit, I didn't see the Parasite train coming when it barreled through the 2020 Oscars ceremony last Sunday night. Parasite won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature. It became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture. As a result, I finished a mediocre 4 for 8 in my Oscar picks. I expected to bat .1000, but that will have to be next year. Here are the highlights and mostly lowlights of the event.
* For the second year in a row, there was no host, although Chris Rock and Steve Martin delivered a hit-and-miss monologue following the opening number by Janelle Monae. Last year's show clocked in at about three hours, ten minutes. This year, the show ran twenty minutes longer, for reasons I will specify shortly. The telecast was sluggish, with Parasite's upset wins providing some late spark.
I would not recommend hiring a host next year. When you have a host, you have to give the host something to do, and that adds to a longer show time and forgettable bits.
* The opening number by Janelle Monae was odd. There is no doubting Monae's talent, but this showcase was just...off.
* Why do we have Beanie Feldstein and George McKay introducing other presenters? Beanie Feldstein introduced Mindy Kaling. Is Mindy Kaling that much higher up on the food chain than Beanie Feldstein?
* Why, oh why, did they forsake the individual clips of acting nominees for a montage of their performances? Bring back the clips next year! Don't fix what isn't broken.
* Enough with the banter between presenters. The faux embarrassment and outrage performed by Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph (presumably over Greta Gerwig's defeat in the Adapted Screenplay category) went on forever, and soon the crowd was bestowing mercy laughs on the unfortunate presenters.
* Turns out Luke Perry and a couple other notables were omitted from the In Memoriam segment; an annual tradition these days. Luke Perry was featured in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, which was only nominated for Best Picture and eight other Oscars THIS YEAR. In the internet age, there is no excuse to leave anyone off this list. I'm sure I will repeat myself next year to no avail. On a positive note, Billie Eilish gave us a soulful rendition of Yesterday.
* No surprises in the acting categories and these awards were more or less deserved.
* Was it me, or could I barely hear Randy Newman and Elton John singing because the accompanying music was that much louder?
* A mid-show hip hop recap? Did we need that? At least there was no full show recap at the end.
* A needless montage of famous songs from movies concludes with a surprise performance from Eminem of "Lose Yourself", which won him the Oscar...in 2003. Eminem did not appear on the telecast to perform the song or accept his Oscar in person. Why did he finally decide to perform it seventeen years later? Your guess is as good as mine.
* 1917 won the Director's Guild award for Sam Mendes and the Producer's Guild award for Best Feature film, but came up empty-handed on both. The movie at least won three Oscars, all in technical categories, while Martin Scorsese's The Irishman came up 0 for 10.
* Bong Joon Ho, through an interpreter, gave a gracious Best Director speech honoring heroes Martin Scorsese (who received an impromptu standing ovation) and Quentin Tarantino. Ho is surely a student of film in the way Scorsese and Tarantino famously are.
The two steps forward taken last year has resulted in three steps backward this year. Maybe the Oscar telecast is simply meant to be a slog we must endure as movie fans. I watch every year, even though I know the show quality will be substandard, because that is what I do.
*
No comments:
Post a Comment