Oscars 2011

[Paul MacLean]

Personally I was thrilled to see The King's Speech take home the lion's share of awards (and nearly as pleased Inception won almost nothing).

Anne Hathaway and what's-his-name weren't exactly the greatest hosts. In fact the only funny jokes were the ones in the archival clips of Bob Hope.

Glad to see Randy Newman honored. Not that I am super fan of his song, but I thought he deserved recognition for considerably impressive body of film music over the years.

Nice to see Kirk Douglas is still lucid, though I half-expected him break the Oscar and half and say "Take that back to your senate!"

I was also struck by "In Memoriam" segment -- I hadn't realized we'd lost so many considerable artists over the past year. And nice to see John Barry acknowledged (though I could have done without Celine Dion).

[AndyDursin]

Weird show. I liked Anne Hathaway's enthusiasm but James Franco seemed totally ill at ease with a program that was pretty tepid for the most part.

A few thoughts and lowlights -

-Melissa Leo's embarrassing F-bomb during her Supporting Actress speech.

-Christian Bale forgetting his wife's name during his Supporting Actor speech and giving a plug to the boxer's website (lol)

-Randy Newman somehow winning original song -- for a song nobody can remember from Toy Story 3. I'm all for a lifetime achievement gig but that song was such an afterthought. The tune from Tangled was at least pleasant and would've given Menken the most Oscars of all-time I believe.

-Disappointed they reduced the Thalberg/lifetime achievement stuff to a montage -- yet they keep the documentary/short subject awards intact...should be the other way around.

-I agree with Paul, the obituaries segment was well handled and better than it's been in some time.

-Kirk Douglas....I'm sorry, I'm thrilled he's still with it at his age and after his stroke, but that whole bit with him up there giving out the Supporting Actress award was utterly embarrassing.

-Happy for Natalie Portman. But I got the sense nobody really was that excited for her...or for The Kings Speech. Applause was kind of tepid on all the winners, probably echoing the year it was.

The best thing? Show was over in 3:10.

And Marisa Tomei looked great giving out the technical awards, lol.

[AndyDursin]

If you missed it, Nikki Finke's "live snarking blog" covers it all pretty entertainingly...even though she was banned from an actual press credential after she "spoiled" the show's contents after getting a press leak.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/02/nikkis- ... -snarking/

[John Johnson]

Best moment for me? Billy Crystal coming on stage and saying "...now, where was I?" LOL

[AndyDursin]

I wasn't paying attention to the entire memorial segment, but Nikki Finke claims John Barry wasn't acknowledged -- along with the following...

So who was this year's Brad Renfro, Farrah Fawcett, and Bea Arthur? Forgotten dead Hollywood types included John Barry, the film composer of many Bond soundtracks who won 5 Academy Awards for work including Born Free, The Lion In Winter, Out of Africa, Dances With Wolves. Oscar-nominated Don Peterman, Director of Photography for Splash, Cocoon, Flashdance, Star Trek IV, Point Break, Get Shorty, Men In Black, and many others. Marty Baum, the longtime CAA motion picture talent agent. Eric Rohmer, the arthouse French filmmaker and screenwriter who was one of the key figures of the post-war New Wave cinema movement and who made 24 films. Corey Haim, the teen film actor who died last March at age 38. Maria Schneider, from 1972's Last Tango In Paris who died of cancer this month. Monica Johnson, co-writer of the Albert Brooks films Real Life, Modern Romance, Lost in America, The Muse, and Mother. Lisa Blount, who not only was an Academy nominee for An Officer And Gentleman but also a winner as producer of the Best Short Film in 2002.

[Paul MacLean]

Douglas has obviously had cosmetic surgery (though I don't see the point at his age). He looked like Keir Dullea's age make-up in 2010!

Also...not to get "political", but why is one president invited to appear in the "favorite movie song" montage, but not another?

And yes, I know the real reasons. I guess the entertainment industry will never wake-up to the fact that showing political favoritism only alienates a large portion of their audience (whichever side they take).

[AndyDursin]

Yeah Kirk has very obviously had recent cosmetic surgery at that!

And yes, I know the real reasons. I guess the entertainment industry will never wake-up to the fact that showing political favoritism only alienates a large portion of their audience (whichever side they take).

I couldn't help but note the futile attempts by some award winners to acknowledge their "Union Crew" several times...really didn't come off if they were trying to make a point last night.

[Paul MacLean]

I wasn't paying attention to the entire memorial segment, but Nikki Finke claims John Barry wasn't acknowledged --

Barry was the first one to appear in the montage. They used a couple of clips of his appearance in Deadfall.



One thing that did disappoint me is that they lowered the audience mics so we couldn't hear the applause during the montage. (Perhaps Celine Dion insisted on this?)

Personally I wish they could have used one of Barry's pieces for the memoriam -- in fact he wrote a gorgeous arrangement of "Smile" for the finale of Chaplin (which was much better Celine's version!).

[Eric W.]

Personally I wish they could have used one of Barry's pieces for the memoriam -- in fact he wrote a gorgeous arrangement of "Smile" for the finale of Chaplin (which was much better Celine's version!).

Absolutely! That's a FANTASTIC piece of music.

As usual, I'm glad I didn't blow a perfectly good evening last night.

[Paul MacLean]

As far as "Best Score", I though Joan Hue (over on the FSM board) summed it up perfectly...

I liked hearing William Ross conduct some MEMORABLE Oscar scores before the award. He played E.T., Star Wars, Lawrence Of Arabia, and Tonight from West Side Story. They are all memorable and instantly recognizable. ......and then a score with about 4 notes won.

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/p ... &archive=0

[AndyDursin]

I liked hearing William Ross conduct some MEMORABLE Oscar scores before the award. He played E.T., Star Wars, Lawrence Of Arabia, and Tonight from West Side Story. They are all memorable and instantly recognizable. ......and then a score with about 4 notes won.

Yeah, that's pretty much all of movie music now...the Oscars almost always select some oddball for Best Score, but now we're at that point where 4 notes is all it takes to write a movie score all the time, across every film.

To be honest, I would've voted for THE SOCIAL NETWORK out of that group. No offense to Zimmer or Desplat (or Powell) but that "sound design" score worked very well in the movie. It's not great music, I wouldn't listen to it on its own, but it gave the movie a lot more than, say, Zimmer's typical recycled riffs did for a movie like INCEPTION.

[AndyDursin]

Barry was the first one to appear in the montage. They used a couple of clips of his appearance in Deadfall.

Nice. I see she re-edited her post so someone else must've told her.

[Jedbu]

-Franco- Hathaway-

-I am surprised that one of the Supporting Actress nominees didn't scream out to Douglas "Enough, already!"

-Was so thrilled when they brought out the Governor's Award recipients and seeing someone I call a friend get the applause of the crowd-Kevin Brownlow.

-I'm sorry, but if that noodling on the piano from THE SOCIAL NETWORK is what passes for a score now, the world as we know it is coming to an end. I admire the film but almost everything about it left me cold, including the score.

-Interesting that there were hardly any standing ovations for the winners last night.

-As much as I really don't care for Celine Dion, I will give her credit for a rendition of "Smile" that did not suffer under her usual vocal pyrotechnics.

-All in all, rather boring and predictable, although I am glad that Wally Pfister and Randy Newman won-the latter has another 2-3 of these to win to make up for being skipped over. Now if we could just do the same for Danny Elfman...

[AndyDursin]

-Interesting that there were hardly any standing ovations for the winners last night.

I noticed that too. By the time the King's Speech entourage had made its way on stage there wasn't any applause. Same for most of the other winners all night.

I also think adding 5 more Best Picture nominees did absolutely nothing for the Oscars itself. If it was meant to be more "inclusive" of movies like INCEPTION, it didn't help the ratings, which were down from a year ago.