Another Academy Awards Season has come and gone. The awards were deflated per usual by the precursors and although we had promise of upsets, none truly materialized as either the expected winner or the expected runner-up triumphed in all the standard feature categories. Still, we can’t let the ceremony go by without sharing our thoughts, opinions, frustrations and suggestions.

The Pre-Show

Wesley Lovell: Ignoring the E! snore fest that started at 5 p.m. Central Time, the Oscars’ own pre-show was a little more impressive. Having people like Robin Roberts and Tim Gunn was certainly an improvement over the likes of Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic, but we still didn’t get a lot of in-depth conversation and mostly just a conflation of egos. They were apparently so energized over Justin Timberlake being there, that they briefly commented on how long it took Timberlake to work the red carpet. The revealing of online poll results felt ill-timed and somewhat desperate trying to make the Oscars itself more modern and hip without succeeding.

Peter J. Patrick: Both E! and the local ABC channel in San Francisco (feeding from its L.A. sister station) had shows leading up the official arrivals show on ABC, but I didn’t watch either. The official pre-show, which began at 4 P.M. PST and ran for 90 minutes, was the best of these I’ve seen in a long time, if ever. Interspersed with the obligatory arrivals were interviews from the green room which made it a little more interesting than usual. The boring “who are you wearing” questions were kept to a minimum and there was even a voter chosen segment on favorite winners’ speeches. No. 3 was Cuba Gooding’s seemingly endless “I love everybody” speech, of which I could have done with a little less. No. 2 was Tom Hanks’ poignant acceptance speech for Philadelphia, of which I could have used a little more. No. 1 was Roberto Benigni’s jumping on chairs, which seems less spontaneous and better choreographed with time, but still just as silly.

The Show

Wesley Lovell: In an effort to be younger and hipper, attempting to bring in the most cherished demographics, the Academy resorted to employing young actors who would be more recognizable to the right generation. Their selections were James Franco and Anne Hathaway. At least Hathaway has had a number of hits, Franco really hasn’t and just having them as hosts isn’t going to bring in a wider audience.

The show opened on a weak note, employing a countdown montage of the ten films nominated for Best Picture, backtracking on a claim made within the last month that montages were gone from the program. It segued into a pre-taped riff on the year in film with Franco and Hathaway inserted into several prominent films including Inception, The Fighter, True Grit, The King’s Speech and even Back to the Future. It was the first time I had fun in the evening. The next time wouldn’t come until much later when Hathaway sang a brief song lamenting the faux last-minute cancellation of Hugh Jackman who was supposed to sing and dance with her. After that, a few minor moments, nearly all featuring Hathaway, made for a rather dull and listless evening. Franco didn’t look much like he wanted to be there, sharing little chemistry with Hathaway outside of the intro. He even donned a dress at one point that made for an awkward, ill-advised moment of no humor. Most of the presenter banter felt canned and unexciting.

The exceptions were Robert Downey Jr & Jude Law who played rather well off one another and Helen Mirren staying classy against the classless co-presenter Russell Brand. Then there was the biggest surprise of the evening. Legend Kirk Douglas showed up to present the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Despite being 94 years old and having suffered a stroke nearly two decades ago, Douglas remains charming and acerbic, hitting first on Anne Hathaway and then teasing the nominees in the category by delay the big reveal. It was one of the few cherishable moments at the Oscars.

And producers really stuck their foot in it further by inviting former, beloved Oscar host Billy Crystal to do a mid-show monologue. Why bring in someone proven to be a popular past host when you don’t know for sure if yours are going to cut it. It invites instant comparisons. I’ve never been fond of Billy Crystal as host, but a lot of people are, so that segment went off well, though the projection of Bob Hope behind the podium for a couple of his classic jokes seemed a bit gauche for the festivities.

Regarding the In Memoriam segment, there are always people left off, so we shouldn’t be at all surprised at that. But, for those who were expecting the recently-departed Betty Garrett to be included, be it known that the Academy has to have a lead time in producing the clip segment and likely Betty missed the cut off by virtue of dying too close to the ceremony. As for the actual presentation, I think Celine Dion did quite well considering how much I wish the Academy wouldn’t schedule singers opposite the necrology, but that they kept the audience muted for the first time ever showed a great deal of class. Hearing the audience applaud louder for some and not for others was always a disheartening element of this segment. It was a nice, elegant touch, that would be better performed in the future against a soft, non-vocal accompaniment.

But for every positive element of the show, there were several terrible ones and a few frustrating ones. One of these latter was a brief tribute to music at the movies, which consisted of a too-brief compilation of four scores, two of which were written by John Williams. It made for a most infuriating snippet when so many great scores weren’t highlighted and, with a composer legend like John Barry leading off the necrology, it’s further insulting not to highlight his undeniable contribution to movie music.

The last segment that deserves mention is probably the most frustrating and jaw-droppingly awful: the auto-tune montage. Complaining that there weren’t many musicals this past year, they used Auto Tune on several major motion pictures including Harry Potter and Twilight to try and convince us there was music. While they were trying to poke fun at all the auto-tuning that was conducted and complained about in the last year, yet the entire conceit failed miserably. It wasn’t very clever, it was aurally annoying and it was further proof that the show’s producers lied about montages being dropped from the festivities. Next time, just bring back Chuck Workman and let him do his magic.

For a show that ran just barely over 3 hours, which should make ABC happy, the show felt like it dragged on for six. Aside from the noticeable lack of surprises, the precursors-ruin-it-all standard, the show felt like a lumbering hulk that could have used a few zany one-liners from Ricky Gervais to pump things up.

Peter J. Patrick: Gone are the days when we watch the show for surprises. The glamorous gowns have all been seen on the red carpet and nobody except maybe the fabulous Helena Bonham Carter risks looking like a fool anymore, and Helena, after the tongue lashing she got for wearing two different colored shoes at the Globes, is now dressing as dignified as anyone. Rarely are there any surprise appearances any more, either. The blogosphere informs us well ahead of time if someone like Olivia de Havilland or Luise Rainer are in town. This year’s surprise appearance of Kirk Douglas was easier to keep because he lives in L.A. and there were no out-of-the-ordinary reported sightings.

The show opened with hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway inserting themselves into clips from the nominated films a la Billy Crystal in the 90s. It was nicely done, even if Alec Baldwin’s hammy appearance threatened to overwhelm it.

Franco was his usual laid back self, which to me was refreshing. Hathaway, quite possibly the loveliest actress of her generation, was genuinely sweet. If neither one presented me with a laugh-out-loud moment, neither did they make me grown. Hathaway’s rebuke of Hugh Jackman to the tune of Les Miserables’ “On My Own” was a bit pointless, but not a bad diversion. Franco in drag as Marilyn Monroe was not startling because it wasn’t something you wouldn’t expect the actor to do.

The first presentation by Tom Hanks of the art direction and cinematography awards was a bit of a gaffe. He came out to a shot of Gone With the Wind, the first film to win for art direction and cinematography and then go on to win Best Picture, and segued into a shot of Titanic, the last film to win those two categories and go on to win Best Picture. He announced that three of this year’s nominees for Best Art Direction were also Best Picture nominees. He then announced the winner as Alice in Wonderland, which was not a Best Picture nominee. He then announced Inception, which was a Best Picture nominee but with little chance of winning, as the recipient of the Best Cinematography award. The whole premise was blown.

Other presenters fared better. The one who seemed to please the audience most was the previously mentioned 94-year-old Kirk Douglas who walked slow, spoke slow and dragged out the announcement of the Best Supporting Actress winner as long as he could. Melissa Leo, doing her “who? me? schtick” one more time, gave an acceptance speech that was either the high or low of the evening depending on your perspective. I thought it was the low point. For someone who has won practically every precursor and was the odds-on favorite to win, she should have had prepared a speech and not been so excited as to use the f-word in flagrant violation of FCC rules, which appeared to me to be extremely calculated. It was if she did it to ensure that she would be the talk of the town and thus extend her fifteen minutes of fame to twenty.

Other acceptance speeches were much more dignified and sincere in appearance. Natalie Portman, who has given some lame speeches in her previous wins, appeared to be genuinely moved and humbled. Even the urbane Colin Firth appeared on the verge of tears, preventing his wry humor from being particularly funny.

I liked that there was no applause during the In Memoriam segment. I liked that the honorary awards winners, feted in a separate ceremony, were brought on stage to take their bows, rather than being reduced to waving from their seats in the audiences as was the case last year.

I liked that they dropped the coy retro “and the winner is…” from last year and went back to the more politically correct “and the Oscar goes to…” The point was driven home by Steven Spielberg who introduced the Best Picture nominees by saying that one will join such previous winners as On the Waterfront and Midnight Cowboy among others while the other nine will join The Gapes of Wrath and Citizen Kane among others.

I even liked the use of Colin Firth’s voice-over speech over the clips of the other Best Picture nominees. I thought it was a nice gamble. If the film won, which it did, it would have been a nice tribute. If it lost, it would have been an ironic touch.

I hadn’t seen the fifth grade kids from Staten Island’s P.S. 22 on You Tube, so I had no idea what the fuss was all about, but I thought they must be really special to be given the opportunity to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at the show’s close. What a disappointment! I’ve heard fifth grade kids sing better. A lot better. They were cute, but that was about it.

The Winners

Peter J. Patrick: There were no real surprises, certainly not in the top eight categories.

I had been hoping for Best Picture and Director wins for The Social Network, but given the Producers Guild and Directors Guild awards for The King’s Speech, those choices could hardly be called upsets. Indeed at this point a win for critics’ favorite The Social Network would have been the upset.

I have followed the careers of Colin Firth and Christian Bale for many years and was extremely happy for both of them to finally receive the recognition they have this year. I’ve always liked Natalie Portman, and thought she deserved to be nominated for her performance in a film I didn’t much like, but was hoping for an Annette Bening win. Portman, however, was the front-runner so I wasn’t at all surprised or particularly disappointed.

Going into awards season I was happy for Melissa Leo, an actress who I thought was quite good in The Fighter, although I thought her co-star and fellow nominee, Amy Adams, was better. I also though Helena Bonham-Carter, who is at least thirteen years overdue for an Oscar, was better, but my two favorite performances in this category were not nominated, so I didn’t really care who won. For the record, those two favorites were Vanessa Redgrave more or less playing an idealized version of herself in Letters to Juliet and Kristin Scott Thomas as John Lennon’s aunt and surrogate mother in Nowhere Boy.

Over the course of the season, however, I became increasingly dismayed of Ms. Leo and her dumb and dumber acceptance speeches, not to mention her ridiculous “look at me” trade paper ads. I wasn’t upset by her win, but I wasn’t thrilled by it either.

I had heard so many negative things about Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland that it’s the one nominee I’ve avoided seeing. Now that it’s won two Oscars I probably should check it out. It does feature two of my favorite actresses – Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter.

Wesley Lovell:

Art Direction

Tom Hanks presented the first award of the evening to Tim Burton loyalists who won for Alice in Wonderland, a washed-out fantasy world that is almost indistinctive from every other Burton film ever made. Thankfully, the backdrop of the set, a giant blazing Atlanta culminating in a classic still image from Gone With the Wind, showed us what true originality in production design should look like. The tree being enlarged to all three “prosceniums” was a startling effect. And while a few of the set designs they used throughout the night were clunkers (Shrek’s Far Far Away anyone?), it was a surprisingly effective use of style and function, especially when paired with physical set pieces to create an ambiance. It’s an effect that might work well in the future, but not necessarily as a regular feature.

Cinematography

Hanks also presented Best Cinematography to the first of my runner-up picks of the night: Inception. The American Society of Cinematographers called this one, so there wasn’t much surprise to me.

Supporting Actress

Despite taking out her own adds to promote her work in The Fighter, Melissa Leo still managed to eke out a victory, likely encouraging other actors and actresses to do their own campaigning, which may lead to a slew of tasteless adds in the years to come. Regardless, the presentation of this award was the most entertaining of the night and, although some of her speech sounded a bit manufactured, Leo still felt authentic and while the Oscars do deserve a little more class, the phrase “it looked so fucking easy” doesn’t bother me in general, though her sentiment about Kate Winslet making it look that way was probably not the most observant.

Animated Short Film

Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis presented both animated awards. I very much liked The Lost Thing, though I really wish Pixar’s great Day & Night had won. The problem here does seem to be that Pixar can’t catch a break. For the Birds was its last winner in this category and they’ve had plenty of wonderful nominees since.

Animated Feature

Nothing unexpected here, the Best Picture nominee in the bunch took the prize.

Adapted Screenplay

Another pair of presenters presenting a pair of awards. Other than their shared appearance in No Country for Old Men, the pairing of Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin didn’t work too well. Their banter felt forced and they had little chemistry together. And worst of all, a factual error crept into this year’s broadcast when they referenced the writing awards at the first Academy Awards and said that these two awards had been around since the beginning. This simply was not the case, but telecast writers seem to have a blind spot for actual research. Aaron Sorkin delivered one of the best speech lines of the night with his “Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award, I’m going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.” It’s a cute little quip that’s obviously an inside joke, but it showed a personal side to Sorkin that a lot of the high level winners didn’t show.

Original Screenplay

Becoming the oldest winner in the category, David Seidler gave a nice little speech for his win. And had his film been eligible for the Writers Guild Award, the guild comparison round-up would have been even more impressive for the night.

Foreign Language Film

Brand towered over his co-presenter Helen Mirren and delivered an awkward presentation that Mirren tried desperately to save with her own personal aura of class. Sadly, it didn’t work. In a Better World, Denmark’s entry to this year’s Oscars, took home the prize. I haven’t seen it, so I couldn’t say how I felt about this, but for once the Golden Globes got a prediction right in this category.

Supporting Actor

After having Kirk Douglas present Best Supporting Actress, having Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon present this award in Mo’Nique’s noticeable and unnecessary absence, felt like a letdown. I don’t remember much of what she said, so put her in the category of “instantly forgettable” and let’s move on. Bale’s win was one of the night’s foregone conclusions despite last minute rumblings that already-Oscared Geoffrey Rush would ride a non-materialized King’s Speech sweep to the award. Bale’s speech was mostly forgettable and quite similar to most of his prior speeches, so I didn’t give it much attention.

Original Score

Together again, Australia castmates Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman presented an award to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I didn’t pay much attention to this speech. It was my second favorite score of the year behind the unforgettable Inception.

Sound Mixing & Sound Editing

The oddest pairing of the night (at least Brand and Mirren will be appearing in a film together soon), Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson presented the two sound awards, both going to Inception. Both well deserved, especially the Sound Mixing award. I don’t remember any of the acceptors.

Makeup

Only seven presenters got to go it alone and only two of them presented two awards. Cate Blanchett gave the award for Best Makeup to The Wolfman after calling the clip “gross”. This was about the time that my hosting service crashed and I was panicking about that, so I didn’t get a lot of attention paid to the show or the speeches.

Costume Design

Blanchett then returned and offered up Alice in Wonderland’s second undeserved award of the night. I was still not paying attention at this point.

Documentary Short Subject

Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams, another unusual presenter pairing, presented the remaining two short film prizes. The first for Documentary Short Subject went to the hope-drenched doc Strangers No More. I haven’t seen any of these, so I had no real comment on the quality of the winners.

Live Action Short Film

The same goes for this second Gyllenhaal/Adams-presented category. Though, God of Love looked a tad cheesy and the recipient Luke Matheny was in dire need of a haircut.

Documentary Feature

The always self-important Oprah Winfrey presented the night’s major documentary award to Inside Job about the malfeasance that led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. While I wasn’t bothered by her presentation of the category, she didn’t really strike me as personable as she can be. Charles Ferguson delivered another one of the strongest lines of the night: “I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail and that’s wrong.” A true statement that pretty much highlights one of the major reasons this documentary won.

Visual Effects

Sherlock Holmes co-stars Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, after a well timed verbal joust, presented Visual Effects to Inception. It was another well deserved trophy, but yielded another mostly forgettable speech.

Film Editing

Downey and Law continued their presentation with the Film Editing award to The Social Network, bringing the film’s total to its final of three. I once again couldn’t recall what Angus Wall or Kirk Baxter said, but that’s not surprising since I tend to mentally tune out during acceptance speeches.

Original Song

Jennifer Hudson, after introducing the final two Original Song nominees of the night, gave the award to Randy Newman, his second Oscar for an unimpressive Pixar theme song. As for the song presentations…Florence Welch was a little off, the song from Tangled sounded interchangable with every other Disney theme nominated. The same can be said for Newman’s ditty from Toy Story 3 and Paltrow seemed too ill-at-ease to be singing before the Oscar crowd.

Director

In a great disservice to Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy decided that the actress who would introduce her to the stage, Hilary Swank, should stick around to help her present. None of her male Best Director-winning counterparts ever had to have an escort, why should she? I may not love Hurt Locker like many and don’t feel Bigelow deserved her Oscar for directing, but even I found the decision to give her a chaperon shameful. Tom Hooper’s name being called out validated two important statistics….never underestimate the foresight of the DGA and never predict a split for splits are seldom the ones you expect.

Actress

Having done away with the five-person personal tributes, the Academy decided to keep the concept, but have the presenter read off the teleprompter to extol the virtues of the nominees. It didn’t work. The original presentation of these tributes two years ago was significantly better executed, though I like the idea a little that it’s followed by a clip. Jeff Bridges did his best to make each introduction sound authentic, but the words just didn’t flow at times. And since this was the only category I was really worried about, I was very excited when Natalie Portman managed to triumph over the overrated Annette Bening. And for those who thought Bening could triumph, remember this statistic. In 84 Best Actress winners, only one has been in her ’50s when she won. That should have told you right there that Bening wasn’t likely to win. She still has 10 years to disprove that statistic, but a lot will depend on her next Oscar nomination and against whom she’s competing.

Actor

Sandra Bullock was a little more conversational with her introductions and praise of the Best Actor nominees, though the presentation format still felt a bit forced. The inevitable happened and Colin Firth picked up the prize. Too many have said this was a make up for his losing the award for A Single Man last year and since there was no way that Jeff Bridges was going to lose and by the simple fact that Firth was excellent in The King’s Speech, calling this a make up prize is entirely inappropriate. Firth, however, started off his speech much more eloquently than at past ceremonies, but he quickly returned to the slower, more funereal style. It wasn’t a bad speech, but it wasn’t terribly good either.

Picture

And the final award of the evening was presented by a jovial Steven Spielberg who got off one of the most telling statements of the night. First, he listed off films whose company the winner would be joining and then, probably suspecting the inevitable and not having much faith in the likely winner, commented about what films the losers would be joining. And comparing the two lists, the list of losers sounded like a more exciting group. When he opened the envelope and the PGA winner The King’s Speech was announced, the audience as a whole continued their trend of staying seated for the competitive winners. I can’t even remember the last time at least one winner didn’t receive a standing O. Either producers asked the audience not to or people really weren’t that ebullient about the choices. The speech was mostly forgettable, just like the film, so there’s not much more I can say about it.

After Best Picture, the audience at home and in the theater were expected to stay seated for the poorly-timed insert of the PS22 Children’s Choir performing the well known Oscar winner “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. As they performed, the night’s Oscar winners came out from back stage to join the kids physically and, in a few cases, lyrically. The performance wasn’t any more spectacular than any other kids’ choir I’ve ever heard, so the fact that these tots were viral YouTube video celebrities spoke very loudly to the Academy’s desire to try and bring a younger and broader audience to the Oscars. The problem is, the show’s pacing, the tired, formulaic presentation format and unexceptional hosts may have pushed future viewers away instead of keeping them around.

That’s everything. I’m sure there are some gripes I’ve forgotten, but probably not many. While I wouldn’t classify this as the worst production in Oscar history, it was certainly the least polished and most in need of outside influence. Hopefully, the Academy will learn something from all this. And, if they are really wanting to draw in an audience, don’t leave the only audience-voted items in the pre-show. Bring them into the ceremony itself. Have people vote on several of the major Oscar categories for their choice for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, etc. And, if you really want to appeal to audiences of other popular shows, how about pre-integrating into other programs. Have a special prize on American Idol be a live performance at the Oscars. Or maybe have an Oscar-themed Amazing Race season where they visit various places that have won Oscars for Best Picture, then announce the winners live on the Oscarcast. Or perhaps even have something like Project Runway design an entire season or, at least episode, where the winner gets to design and appear with the gown live on the Oscars. There are always more inventive and evocative ways to integrate the Oscars, the year’s second most watched live broadcast, into the public consciousness. But might returning to the glory days of glitz, glamor and prestige might be a better decision?

Our Predictions Results

As a whole we did really well, having one contributor predict the correct winner in 22 categories or at least the runner-up in all 24.
Wesley Lovell: 17 Official, 5 Runners-Up; Total: 22 / 24
Missed Entirely: Documentary Short Subject, Live Action Short Film
Wes Huizar: 17 Official, 4 Runners-Up; Total: 21 / 24
Missed Entirely: Art Direction, Documentary Feature, Animated Short Film
Tripp Burton: 15 Official, 5 Runners-Up; Total: 20 / 24
Missed Entirely: Art Direction, Costume Design, Documentary Short Subject, Live Action Short Film
Peter J. Patrick: 12 Official, 7 Runners-Up; Total: 19 / 24
Missed Entirely: Supporting Actress, Original Song, Art Direction, Costume Design, Animated Short Film