They should do more than just get Ricky. They should turn it into a dinner, give everyone free drinks, and let the part go nuts.
Worst Oscars in a long time. Boring as hell.
Something that the producers needs to realize is that one of the reasons the Oscars are what they are is that “Hollywood Glitz” vibe. Pandering to the youth demographic just makes the show awful - they need to seduce the youth demographic into the Hollywood glamour. Best songs from the movies - Eminem and that Crash song? The first and second mentioned? Really?
I say, bring back the film clip packages and the awkward banter and the Thalberg award and Debbie Williams and her 100 person dance pieces! That’s The Oscars - not this lame, boring crap.
FWIW - I’m 34 years old, not some dinosaur. The Oscars have a role in American pop culture, and this isn’t it.
Does anyone know how it is that the King’s speech was nominated for “original” screenplay? In the director’s acceptance speech he stated that it was a play that his mother said he should make into a movie. Doesn’t this mean that it was adapted for the screen? What am I missing?
Does anyone else feel that the PS22 chorus ending was lip-synced?
The audio sounded a little too perfect for a bunch of kids that just ran into place and had a lot of other sound/distractions going on around them.
I’m sure the recording is them recorded, mixed, and perfected under ideal studio conditions but I do know if I buy that what I was hearing was live.
I don’t believe the play was ever produced.
Nitpick: the second song was from Hustle and Flow, (“It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” – whose win prompted Jon Stewart’s great line: “For those of you keeping score: 3 6 Mafia, one; Martin Scorsese, 0”) which, if you haven’t seen it, is a fantastic movie.
That being said, I somewhat agree with your larger point, that the Oscars should stay true to its traditions.
WORD! You said it better than I could. This show was so boring and lame. That forced ‘banter’ in the beginning was like extra-bad SNL fail. Anne is getting extra extra props only because James F. pooped out early. The “youth demographic” doesn’t have a clue as to how to put on an entertaining cheesefest. They aren’t even watching on an old fashioned TV, They’re all sitting around staring into cell phones and getting updates on twitter as to what movies are coming out on top. So let them do that, and the PTB go back to getting a (hopefully) witty host and interpretive dance numbers for nominated songs, with boy dancers jete-ing across the stage. The disembodied head of Bob Hope was the funniest thing last night! Blah! Fail.
But I did like looking at the getups. Mila Kunis’ lavender gown was the singularly most beautiful dress I have ever seen on any red carpet, she looked spectacular.
The King’s Speech was a damn good film. It was funny and dramatic.
It looked like that to me as well.
But by that rationale, we shouldn’t give Oscars to any historical films.
Also, I actually did think it was fairly timely. It took place pre WWII, yes, but the whole idea of the media becoming introduced on the political scene was a big theme of the film. And that’s something pretty timely, as the line between acing/the media and politics is blurring more and more.
The screenwriter basically just changed his own unproduced play into a screenplay.
Whoops - you’re right! My bad. I’ve seen neither movie, but I’m sure they’re fine, and I remember that song as being very good, actually. And the moment when the 3-6 Mafia took the stage - that was fantastic television!
That’s the issue - if they want to be relevant, they need to do it Oscar style, not by shoehorning in references to how “hip” they are! They’re not “hip” - they’re the Oscars! 
Yes! Thank you- I thought I was the only one. It was too perfect; the kids were singing too… animatedly to have it sound that good. It was a strange addition to the ceremony in the first place.
And just to add: great job Anne, but James? Why’d you agree to do the gig if you were just going to squint and smirk the whole time? Way to phone it in, douchey.
That’s an interesting point - although the movie doesn’t address the “blurring” at all. It’s an old fashioned costume drama. It looked very good and most of the actors were very good, and it’s based on a true, inspiring story. It plays fast and loose with history, but I can overlook that. But the story was a cliche, and the ways it used cliche to make the story more “relatable” were grating and didn’t ring true: the highly trailer-able line about Albert doctors being idiots, Logue calling the future sovereign “Bertie,” the cursing. That stuff just did not ring true and it was not true, and since the speech therapy part of the story was real, it was kind of aggravating they could not find a less trite way of dealing with those points. The truth, I guess, is that it would have undermined the friendship-across-classes theme (what I’ve been calling The Lion and The Mouse part of the story). None of which is to say it was a bad movie. It wasn’t and maybe that’s getting lost in the eye-rolling. But I saw five of the Best Picture nominees, and I’d put The King’s Speech far behind The Social Network, and also behind True Grit and maybe Inception.
All that being said… Anne Hathaway was good and she’s fun to watch, “woo!” aside. James Franco wasn’t into it. My girlfriend thought maybe he didn’t like working with Hathaway, but I think this job was just not for him. The best parts of the show were Kirk Douglas rambling on and Melissa Leo cursing. Those were two of the few human moments in there. The comedy was not funny. I enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.'s bit about being busted in a hotel with a woman in a superhero costume, but I always enjoy him, and I have a feeling he has real stories that are funnier than that one. It was good to see Batman win an Oscar (where’s the lifetime award for Adam West?) and Aaron Sorkin absolutely deserved his writing award. It felt weird to watch Trent Rezor put on a suit and accept an Oscar, but I thought that one was also deserved.
I guess I have to get annoyed about something else: I wish Halle Berry’s tribute to Lena Horne had included some specifics on what Lena Horne did and what she went through, which, according to the presentation, was pioneering. The speech for Berry could not have been more generic, and I learned nothing about Lena Horne. Wikipedia offers this:
That sounds like a fascinating, principled person. Normally I would just say it’s too bad they wrote a generic speech about her, but the thing that annoys me is that even knowing nothing about Lena Horne, I knew why they wrote a generic speech (aside from not wanting to spend too much time): if you tell these stories, you have to own up to the fact that Hollywood used to be very racist, just like the rest of society. At Oscar time, the movie industry is happy to take credit for helping society overcome prejudices and such (which it can do, in its own way) but doesn’t mention the prejudices in its own past. Speaking of which, they made a big deal out of a woman winning Best Director last year, and this year no women were up for the award. Has anyone started a pool on how many years it will be until another women is nominated? :smack:
I don’t think it was the main point of the film, but I do think in places it addresses it. When King George V wants Albert to speak without stuttering, right before that he says something about how they’ve been reduced to actors. And some of Churchill’s comments about also fearing the “apparatus.” They could have gone further, admittedly, but I do think it introduces that idea.
I must say this was the first Oscars in a long time where I had little rooting interest in anny of the movies. I mean I think they were all good, but none of them made me vigorously want it to win, or any performance to win. My only disappointm,ent might be that True Grit didn’t win annything.
I also think the Inception score should have won. But TSN was fine also, so, there you go.
This makes me wish they’d developed that idea a bit further, because you’re right that the monarchy went through some major changes during that period. I am not sure if Christopher Hitchens’ articles about the movie came up during any of the King’s Speech threads (or earlier in this one), but he points out that some very interesting stuff was omitted from the movie, sometimes in favor of stuff that was less interesting. Of course the main point is that they revised history in a way that makes the royal family look much better.
I also remember thinking how surreal it was that in places, Albert walks around without anyone knowing who he is. And then I couldn’t help comparing that to how much in the public Prince William and Prince Harry have been. I’ll have to read that Christopher Hitchens article when I get a chance–sounds very interesting.
That was another point I had trouble swallowing.
Here’s the original article (which I read right before I saw the movie), and here’s Hitchens’ reply to some points the filmmakers raised in response to his article.
Note to nominees: Have some remarks prepared, even if it’s just a list of people you need to thank. You’ve had weeks to get ready. You were nominated; that means you can win, so get your shit together.