Monthly Archives: February 2004

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Picture, Lord of the Rings. Eleven wins…and not one for acting.

Well, I hope you enjoyed Live Oscar Blogging of what turned out to be an infomercial for New Zealand. Thanks to all of you who filled my e-mailbox with running comments and questions, and thanks to my wonderful friend Carolyn for putting up with me neglecting her for so much of the evening as I moved my typing fingers faster than Ann Miller tap-dancing on hot coals. And I'd like to thank my agent and thank the Academy and…

Good night, everybody!

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — I always wince when people try to "explain" an Oscar with one simple reason. No one knows how the Academy votes. We don't even know if a given winner made it by one vote or if it was unanimous. Somehow though, you hear these pat rationales that presume everyone who voted had the same thing on their mind…and that it wasn't a matter of voting for what they thought was the best work. Going into this ceremony, we heard that Sean Penn would win because he had a body of fine work behind him so it was "his turn." We also heard that Bill Murray would win because Penn's politics or personal style had alienated some voters. Those are wonderful theories and of course, no one can ever prove them right or wrong. But isn't it possible that the guy who won just had more voters who thought he gave the best performance? And it could have been only one more than the second-place finisher.

Best Actor, Sean Penn. Okay, I'll be fifteen out of nineteen. I predicted Murray almost as a whim. And I can't help remember years ago when I heard an NBC exec saying how foolish it was to put the guy on Saturday Night Live because he had such bad skin, and you can't be a TV star (never mind, a movie star) with bad skin.

Penn's line about "no WMDs" seemed a bit gratuitous but he otherwise gave a good speech if only because it didn't sound written and wasn't a list of agents and lawyers.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — They must be giving up and going to bed all across the Eastern time zone and again, I don't think there was much the producers could have done. It's not their fault that the winners aren't huge shocks and no one's bursting into tears. Those are the moments we remember from the Oscars, like Halle Berry getting hysterical or Roman Polanski defying all odds. We haven't had a one of those.

Best Actress, Charlize Theron. Oh, well. At least no one knows the next one…

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Adapted Screenplay, Lord of the Rings. I missed this one but I think most did.

Best Original Screenplay, Lost in Translation.

The telecast is feeling very long and I suspect that despite what I think is a fine hosting job, the reviews of this Oscar show are going to be pretty negative. It isn't that there's anything wrong with the broadcast besides its length, and I certainly can't imagine what they might have cut to gain much time. But there's a certain lack of energy this evening…no real emotional moments, no real surprises. I haven't seen one thing Leno can do a joke about tomorrow night apart from the usual ones about "Is it over yet?" and watching the child stars go through puberty.

They're just presenting Best Director. Looks like they decided to hold Best Actor for next-to-last, figuring that was the big suspense.

And Best Director is Peter Jackson. See? No surprises.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Foreign Film, The Barbarian Invasions. Funny line: "We're so thankful that Lord of the Rings did not qualify in this category." I'm ten for thirteen.

Best Cinematography, Master and Commander. And having had the wisdom to not predict this one, I'm still ten for thirteen. At this rate, it looks like I also made a good prediction setting the TiVo for an extra hour. We have at least six major awards to go.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Nice number from The Triplets of Belleville but it looked like all or some of the track was prerecorded and the folks on stage were just miming.

Before it, the number from A Mighty Wind didn't sound too good. And since the movie wasn't a blockbuster, I wonder how many people knew who the performers really were and/or that it was a spoof.

As several e-mails are noting, the odd framing of the clips is apparently due to someone being more interested in making it look right for the HDTV transmission than for the normal sets being watched by 99% of us.

Funny bit by Jack Black and Will Ferrell, singing the unknown lyrics to the song they play when a winner has gone on too long.

Best Song, "Into the West" from The Lord of the Rings. Several of you have e-mailed to ask if this movie has lost one of the awards for which it's been nominated. I don't think so. If Peter Jackson doesn't win for Best Director, it can only mean that Katherine Harris is working for Price-Waterhouse. We're nine for twelve here.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Editing, Lord of the Rings. I didn't predict in this category. Actually, I was originally just going to put Lord of the Rings down for all the ones I wound up not predicting. If I had, I'd now have called twelve out of fifteen.

Crystal says, "Do you know that people are now moving to New Zealand just to be thanked?" He's doing a good job keeping it moving. I like him better than any other host since Johnny Carson.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Harold Wheeler is the conductor? Then what was that shot of Marc Shaiman earlier? Oh, I get it: He was Billy Crystal's conductor. Okay, they didn't make that clear.

Best Score, Lord of the Rings. Evanier is nine for eleven. I'll probably lose another one on Best Song but I took a hopeful guess because I know and like Michael McKean.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Rick Scheckman, who knows his stuff in this department, has been e-mailing me to note that the clips being shown are often misframed such that the actors and/or film titles are off the screen. He's right. That last shot of Donald O'Connor in the "In Memoriam" package gave as much attention to Francis the Talking Mule as to Donald. He also notes that the Bringing Up Baby clip in the Hepburn spot was mostly her stunt double.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Documentary Short, The Chernobyl Heart. Great, memorable speech. I'm seven for nine.

Best Documentary Feature, The Fog of War. Great line: "I'd like to thank the Academy for finally recognizing my films." That's the kind of thing people think but it's nice to hear someone with the guts to say it aloud. But then he has to thank Robert McNamara…"if he hadn't done it, there wouldn't have been a film." Yeah, and if he hadn't done some other things, a lot of people wouldn't have died in Vietnam.

The tribute to Katharine Hepburn a few minutes ago was nice. This one to Gregory Peck was nice. But is anyone else a little uncomfy with the Academy deciding that certain actors get singled out and others get lumped into a quick montage? And of course, someone also decides that certain folks are omitted altogether because there isn't time. I guess it has to be this way but we don't have to pretend it's all copacetic.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Another clip from a nominated picture. Great time to go to the bathroom.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — As I write this, my mailbox is crammed with comments. Here are three picked almost at random. Chuck Sigars writes…

Every one of these seems special at the moment…but I swear Blake Edwards' acceptance speech was the best I've ever heard. 81 years old and 90 seconds, and at the beginning I would have sworn it was going to be 8 minutes of embarrassment.

Chad Riden writes…

Boy, I wish somebody would thank the Academy. They're always the unsung heroes of the Oscars.

Go to your room, Chad. And someone named Rick writes about the Bob Hope montage…

I thought it was eerie to have a clip of him in the audience and standing and waving. It makes it look as if he is still alive and thanking them now.

Hadn't thought of that but you're right. I guess I was just pleased they didn't do the obvious, which was a montage of silent clips scored with "Thanks for the Memories."

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Make-Up, Lord of the Rings. Best Sound Mixing, Lord of the Rings. Best Sound Editing, Master and Commander. I didn't predict in these categories so I'm still six for eight.

The broadcast seems to have scaled back on the fancy computer graphics as winners walk to the stage, but I think I'd still rather see winners walk to the stage. I believe the thinking was that there weren't enough recognizable stars in the audience and that even a lot of them were out in the lobby shmoozing for much of the telecast. So if the director kept showing the house, you'd wind up seeing a lot of seat fillers and wondering where Clint Eastwood had gone. Okay, fine. But a six second clip from the movie just takes us away from the sense of the ceremony and usually isn't on-screen long enough to register.

Oh, well. At least we didn't have an animated presenter this year. I'm sure it always seems like a good idea but it never works that well.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Chuck Kallenbach just e-mailed me to ask, "Okay, who is the man in the wheelchair? Is this some guy who had his leg broken by Jim Carrey?" No, that was just that awkward, meaningless shot I just mentioned. It confused me, too.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Special Award to Blake Edwards. Oh, right: That explains what Julie Andrews is doing there. Odd that they didn't bring in Steve Martin to present, seeing as how he's about to take over the role of Clouseau.

Funny sight gag with Edwards in the wheelchair. And it explains why we had that awkward, meaningless shot of him earlier in the chair.

Is it my imagination or does the audience sound cool, like they're not laughing enough? It may not sound that way at the Kodak but it sounds that way on my set…like the place is not properly miked. Then again, Jim Carrey had a few seconds there of that "I'm bombing" look so maybe it's just not as funny as it all ought to be.