Five people are listed as producers of Nomadland. I thought there was a rule limiting that to three.
Well that was a weird ceremony, and I’m not even talking about changes because of COVID.
Talking about someone’s first job instead of showing a clip from their film? Speeding through In Memoriam so fast half the names weren’t even readable? Putting Best Actor & Actress after Picture? I laughed so hard when Hopkins won because it was clear the producers assumed Chadwick would win and changed the order to have the finale be a tribute speech for him, and their plan failed spectacularly, especially with Hopkins not even being there and giving a speech.
Though I guess that does show that no one but the accountants really do know the winners til they’re announced.
(I 100% love that Hopkins won btw, I thought he gave the best performance of the year and one of the top of his whole career!)
That ending was the worst Oscar farce ever, and yes I am including when LaLa Land was announced as Best Picture over Moonlight.
Also I think this clearly shows that a Host-less Oscars is a really bad idea. I usually like award shows and this was just… dull.
I thought Nomadland was good but not great, and would have greatly preferred Judas and the Black Messiah win Best Picture.
I think the only thing I liked was the music and Glenn Close
It exceeded my expectations and was light years better than any other COVID era award show.
All the changes they made because of COVID worked great. Even with people sitting farther apart it felt like a more intimate affair. It still was classy and professional, and was leagues better than the glitchy Zoom calls of people in t-shirts that we had for the Emmys and Golden Globes.
But all their other creative decisions, yikes.
Have only watched Mank, Chicago 7 and Soul among the nominated films. I am glad Soul won for score in addition to animated feature; it has some lovely music some of which I still play occasionally.
I love the The Father and thought Hopkins performance was amazing, an all-time great performance and he deserved the Oscar.
I am surprised to hear they did best picture before the acting roles. I guess Chadwick Boseman might have been the reason, but they did not change the order when Heath Ledger actually won it posthumously and the vibe that year was that he definitely would win it.
Except Heath Ledger won for best supporting actor, and it would be really weird to present that last. Don’t they actually lead with the announcements of the best supporting actor/actress?
I’m glad My Octopus Teacher won Best Documentary. It was a beautifully-shot and oddly touching nature film.
Yeah there was a while where they would always start the awards with either Supporting Actor or Actress.
Anthony Hopkins posted a very nice acceptance speech on his Instagram this morning:
https://www.instagram.com/p/COHpbqpHcqY/
They really need to slow down the “Bring Out Your Dead” segment. For many of the departed you were made to choose between reading the name and looking at the face.
mmm
One comment I read elsewhere said that the In Memoriam segment was like watching the credits scroll after a movie on FX.
We now know one good reason why Best Picture should go last: because it’s guaranteed that the winner will be in the audience.
It feels like they cut out my favorite parts: host monologue, film clips, sound clips, montage segments. They cut out the parts that are hit-or-miss: song performances, scripted presenter banter. They kept a “fun” audience participation segment that seldom works but was saved by Glenn Close. And they allowed thank-you speeches to run without play-off music…so it still ran over 3 hours.
I had never heard that version of the song they played during the In Memoriam segment but it seems like they picked it and then realized how many names they needed to squeeze in, and had to run them too fast. Though I liked it, the music itself (the guitar accompaniment) seemed a little frantic for the use case.
I found digesting the list was made harder by not having the names in the same places - first you had to find it on screen, and then read the name and what they did, and by then it was on to the next one.
I find the way they sort the dead by name recognition a little distasteful. Dozens of the people in that clip had a bigger impact on the motion picture arts than Sean Connery or Chadwick Boseman who were placed last and had more screen time than the rest.
I was actually starting to get dizzy reading it. It was like, lower left-upper right-lower left-upper right, etc. with only a second to read. That was really terrible.
Either that, or somehow someone felt that on this year it would look bad to linger on those who died from among this privileged trade.
The Wikipedia article has a list of those honored during the In Memoriam segment.
And by the way, at least we were spared the lack of applause for some, with others getting enthusiastic applause.
Lowest ratings ever
The prestigious awards show drew an average of 9.8 million viewers for ABC on Sunday, according to early Nielsen numbers. That’s 58% below the ratings from last year’s show, the previous lowest-rated Oscars, [which brought in 23.6 million viewers]
(https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/media/oscars-ratings/index.html)
Obviously that 2020 was a lost year for film is the standout reason for 2021 sinking the awards to a new low. But that the 2020 Oscars itself saw an 20 million drop from 2014.
I don’t think the Oscars as we know it will ever hit those heights of 30 million+ again. For a number of reasons. People have more choice compared to the old days through streaming and other services. People aren’t tuning into long broadcasts when the clips get shared online for free. Some people have abandoned the film industry for going too political in their messaging (bit stupid since Marlon Brando refusing to accept his award in protest to the film’s industry treatment of Native Americans was almost half a century ago in the so-called glory days of the Oscars). But most importantly star power is gone. The internet killed that off. The older generations if they had instagram and twitter would have lost their mystique but lucky for them there was no internet so the illusion of glamour was maintained.
That also brings up the question of whether the people whom the awards are for will soon no longer care if they win or not. If people no longer watch the ceremony and being nominated or winning one doesn’t give much a boost to one’s career, what’s the point of showing up?