Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

The Oscar telecast is over, which means it’s time for people to remark freely on all things Hurt Locker and Avatar for the next few minutes, and hopefully a Basterd or two will appear.….

Got that out of your system? Good. As your Sgt., I feel it is my duty to brief you on the telecast. There’s so much to discuss, but I’ll break my report into two sections: 1) The Awards — the worthy and the shocking; 2) The production — the useless and the touching. Sometimes, they blend.

AWARDS:

(By the way, I turned out to be spot-on with my predictions, even with Cinematography(Avatar?) )

• HURT LOCKER MADNESS: Not a lot of surprises in the main categories. The Hurt Locker picked up SIX awards out of nine nominations, a strong haul for a film that barely made it into 600 theaters in America and was made for 1/250th (give or take) the budget of Avatar. Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Film Editing. I don’t have a problem with most of these awards, but the editing of the intertwined storytelling in District 9 should have emerged victorious, and Inglourious Basterds showcased better writing than any film in recent memory. The Hurt Locker had the momentum of winning nearly every major award this season, and the “David” angle in the “David vs. Goliath” scenario that Avatar created. Happy or not, like it or not, The Hurt Locker is the victor. (Screenplay?!)

(*Note: I’ve gone on and read some other pundits and reporters write-ups who say that Hurt Locker will be forgotten ten, twenty years from now, but that Avatar will be the one film remembered. To them I say…okay. When Annie Hall beat Star Wars in the 70s, people were saying the same thing; when Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption, people, again, were saying the same thing. And look how well the “losers” have withstood the test of time. But we’re not talking about twenty years from now, we’re talking about NOW — or, to be more specific, last year.*)

On to other awards and items of interest…

All acting awards were predictable and mostly worthy. Kudos to Sandra Bullock, who won for a mediocre role in a less than mediocre movie, but who gains “classy points” because she picked up her Razzy Award the night before the Oscars (the Golden Razzies, for those uninitiated, are handed out every year for the “worst in film.”) It’s her sense of humor…that’s why they like her.

Fisher Stevens has an Oscar. Let that marinate.

Fisher’s Oscar: 20 years in the making.

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire surprisingly beat Up in the Air for longest unnecessary title Best Screenplay. Also defeated:  District 9. I like how Geoffrey Fletcher’s reaction was honest-to-God shock. That’s how you accept an award.

Someone needs to explain, and I mean right now, how Avatar wins for Best Cinematography.…I’ll wait.

It’s a shame that District 9’s visual effects achievements got overshadowed by Avatar, but what can you do?

THE PRODUCTION:

• Hosts: Twice the hosts, twice the fun. You’re producing the Oscars, you decide to have TWO hosts this year: Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. What do you do? Give them a semi-comical monologue and then pull out the magician’s hat and make them disappear for the rest of the show. Seriously, were it not for an occasional quip by Martin when introducing a presenter, I wouldn’t have known the show had a host this year, let alone two of them.

(Watch their monologue here.)

Angle’s Angle: More screen time for any host, one or two!

• CONSTANT CONTACT: Meryl Streep and George Clooney were the two major cutaways all evening, a fact recognized by Clooney when he waved the camera away at one point.

Angle’s Angle: I appreciate the cutaway to an audience member as much as the next person, but give us some variety, give us some change. I don’t want to see Clooney wave us away, but I also don’t want to watch him watching the show for three hours.

• JOHN HUGHES TRIBUTE: The class of the simple introduction by Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick became lopsided and dull when, after the montage of Hughes’ classic scenes, members of the Brat Pack appeared on stage to say one thing each…and then walk away awkwardly like high school kids at a dance.

Angle’s Angle: Bring out the Pack first, then the clip reel. Move it right along.

• VISUALS: Best Cinematography Award is presented…without images or clips of the nominees. Best Actor/Actress awards are presented as follows: a brief montage of all nominees’ performances, five other actors talk up each nominee for not only acting well but being great people, then the presenter comes out, the presenter lists the nominees, the winner comes up and gives a speech which absolutely obliterates the :45 second rule. Total time to present Best Actress: ten minutes. Total for Best Actor: ten minutes. Total time wasted: eight minutes.

Angle’s Angle: SHOW A PIECE OF THE FILM’S NOMINATED. In an awards show dedicated to the visual medium, WHERE WERE THE VISUALS?? The chat-party that was featured last night did many things, all of them negative: Wasted time, deflated the energy in the latter half of an already body-less show, disrespected actors in the supporting categories by not giving them the same treatment earlier, and disrespected the audience at home who tuned in to WATCH a show, not listen to people TALK about how great things were last year. Also disrespected Cinematographers, who GIVE US THE IMAGES that later become iconic.

• BEST SONG: Perhaps one of the wisest decisions in this year’s Oscarcast, the show did away with live performances for each nominated song, instead crumbling the category into a simple presentation, featuring a ten-second clip of each song in the context of the movies they were in.

Angle’s Angle: Good choice.

• BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Nothing tops the appearance of Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman at the Academy Awards in 2001, playing themes from all nominees. Lasted five minutes, and was very moving. This year, as in a few years past, we got to sit through dancers interpreting all of the scores, no doubt from the mind of choreographer and co-producer of this year’s telecast Adam Shankman. Dances were okay, the music was moving.

Angle’s Angle: Shorten the dancing, lengthen the clips and celebrate the music. Itzhak returned four years ago for a solo run at this idea, but it wasn’t the same without Yo-Yo.…

That’s all for this year’s Oscar Telecast! Despite my disagreements with the way the producers produced, and the way the awards are awarded…I will still tune in next year, and the year after that, and I’ll continue to watch the films, the winners and the “happy just to be nominated.” Because that’s a Sgt.‘s duty.

Permission to speak freely in the comments below: Granted.

Sgt. Angle