By the time ABC’s telecast of the Academy Awards ended Sunday night I found myself thinking not about Jon Stewart‘s relative success or failure as host, but about the show’s merit as Hollywood’s premiere event and television’s top entertainment attraction.
These are the Academy Awards, right? Not the Academy Clip Show. You wouldn’t know it Sunday as actors, writers and others were hurried off the stage moments after they stepped up, presumably to make time for yet another clip job. Indeed, there were so many clips in so many montages and special features that they seemed to become the center of the show. Unfortunately, with the exception of the very funny “gay cowboys” montage and the annual tribute to the recently departed, the clips collectively came off as filler, crammed into the proceedings at the expense of other significant elements, like the acceptance speeches.
And by the way, when did acceptance speeches become an enemy of the people? I don’t mean long-winded thank-you speeches from sound editors and film designers and people who make short films nobody has ever seen who gobble up lots of time early in the ceremony. Nobody wants those. I mean funny, touching, memorable speeches from actors and actresses, directors and producers who have worked at their crafts for their entire lives and are finally given a moment in the spotlight by their peers. Surely, if one is fortunate enough to receive such an opportunity, it is a basic fundamental human response to acknowledge one’s appreciation for the people who made it happen, including colleagues, family, friends and everyone involved in the creation of the property that resulted in the honor being bestowed. What’s wrong with that?
As a ceremony and a celebration and as a television presentation, the Academy Awards should be all about the presenters, the nominees and the recipients of the night’s top honors. That’s what people tune in to watch, isn’t it? They certainly don’t tune in for clip montages and bad musical performances, both in generous if unwelcome supply. If people don’t want to see the nominated performers, and if they have no interest in the films up for honors, chances are they aren’t going to be watching in the first place. Whatever happened to giving the people what they want? From where I sat, the dignified acceptance speeches by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon, George Clooney, Rachel Weisz, Ang Lee and Paul Haggis made for satisfying television, despite that ill-advised decision to have the orchestra begin playing the all-too-familiar “get off the stage” music under their comments from the moment they began to speak. (Whose boneheaded idea was that?)
Similarly, the routines by several presenters–Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Ben Stiller and especially Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep–were among the highlights of the night. So was the arrival on stage of Jack Nicholson at the end to present the Best Picture award. The creative drive of the Oscar production should always be focused in that directio—on making the presentations funny, or touching, or dramatic, or memorable in some other fashion.
It seems the meat of the Oscar production is increasingly crammed into the wee bits of time left over after everything else gets its play, and as a result the show is dying. The poor Oscars need time to breathe and do what they should be doing best. That doesn’t mean they should be allowed to run longer. Rather, they need to be reconfigured. Clip montages should be largely eliminated. (One, plus the memoriam, ought to be adequate.) Certain categories (such as those relating to sound effects, special effects, production design and traditional short filmmaking) should be moved to the technical awards ceremony (or doled out ahead of the telecast). And while it would be nice to think that the top talents in Hollywood could somehow come together to stage one decent musical production number each year, it is probably time to once and for all eliminate music from the show. That includes the now-certifiably inane category of Best Song and with it, the time consuming performances of its nominees.
Stewart said it best, after rappers Three 6 Mafia accepted their Oscar for It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp: “For those at home keeping score, Martin Scorsese, zero, Three 6 Mafia, one.”
Once the painful eliminations are over, the Academy should then consider adding a new category or two that might resonate with viewers and the creative community alike, such as one for Best Performance by an Ensemble. (Hey, it’s a big deal at the SAGs.)
As for Stewart, much discussed the day after the show, as are all Oscar hosts, he wasn’t bad. But he didn’t hit it out of the park, either. He was clearly playing to the television audience, rather than the power-people in the seats before him, who seemed unimpressed with his material, except for his very funny joke about Vice President Dick Cheney shooting Bjork. Stewart was contagiously stiff at the start, but host and audience alike loosened up as the night progressed. Still, the likelihood of a return engagement is iffy.
What Oscar really needs is a sparkling master showperson who knows how to take command, not a laid-back smart guy with a wry sense of humor. It wouldn’t hurt if said person’s movie credentials amounted to something more than “the fourth male lead from Death to Smoochy,” as Stewart described himself. So who might host next year’s affair? If Billy Crystal, Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg aren’t interested in the gig, I nominate Hugh Jackman. The man who is Wolverine has big-budget movie cred and can sing and dance with the best of them. Further, he has proven as the main attraction of the last three Tony Award shows to be a charismatic and engaging host.
If Jackman‘s busy next year, how about bringing back the comedy duo of Tomlin and Streep?
