So Sunday afternoon I went to the Oscars. It was my fifth year in a row of attending the ceremony, and something that I’ve started to take for granted, admittedly. This was the first time I went to the show strictly in the capacity of a fan, which did make for a different experience.
Here are the highs and lows from Oscar night. Let’s start with the highs…
THE SHOW
I thought the show was awesome. Many of the decisions that were made, I had initially been skeptical of, but I think everything that was done during the show was first rate. Hugh Jackman was awesome, and the production value of the show and on the stage was incredible. It really paid to get someone who had stage experience, both Jackman and the producers, and most of the changes that they made were terrific.
Jackman specifically deserves a ton of credit. Getting an “A-list” actor to host the show was a great move, and with the new seating arrangement, it really put him front and center in front of his colleagues, the actors and other celebrities that were seated literally feet away from him. You could tell they were rooting for him, and the standing ovation after his opening number was a testament to that. Jackman even added the nice touch of coming out during commercial breaks and interacting with the audience, telling a witty antidote about his father wearing a tuxedo years back when Hugh performed at Carnegie Hall even though it wasn’t a black tie event, and taking the time to point out his father was again in the crowd. He even brought out a tray for his wife, who slid a note to him backstage about how well he was doing, and that she was hungry. So Jackman offered cookies to everyone in the front section of the house, and while no actor or actress took him up on the offer, some guy was filling his hands with cookies a mere seconds before the show came back from commercial.
After watching some of the presentation after getting home, I was disappointed that the viewers couldn’t see how really great a lot of the stage movements looked. The props and the big performance numbers were pretty incredible, and while that Broadway aspect of it all isn’t really my thing, it was a great show and performance, and made the 3+ hours enjoyable. For the very first time, I never wandered from my seat for the entire show, deciding to stay in my balcony seats that were just a row or two away from the little kids from Slumdog Millionaire instead of trolling the lobby bar and people watching.
It was fitting that while I was leaving and crowded into an elevator much too full, a man offered to all of us that this was “far and away the best Oscars he had seen.” As we spilled out on the first floor, waiting to enter the elevator was Gil Cates, the man who had produced many of the past shows, and who was directly responsible for last year’s atrocious bomb. I really wished he’d have been able to hear the conversation he just missed.
It is hardly shocking that when you hire two producers who have a background in creating movies that incorporate film and Broadway that you’ll get a show that’s enjoyable with high production value. It’s also too bad that it took until AMPAS hit rock bottom to realize that they should get someone who hasn’t already worked on the show a dozen times to breathe some fresh air into the production. But, better late than never, and what did we really expect from leadership that has proven it has absolutely no clue?
THE BAD
Logistically, this was one of the worst experiences I’ve had at the Oscars. While road closures are known weeks in advance, and maps provided with your tickets, traffic wasn’t the problem. But once you got onto the roads that were closed specifically for people attending, most of the gridlock started. I waited amongst a horde of attendees on Hollywood Boulevard for 45 minutes waiting to get into one of three lanes that swept the bottom of your car and checked your trunk. It’s amazing that people made it into their seats on time, because I passed through the barricade at 3:45 and didn’t make it to the red carpet until after 4:30.
Once you arrive at the Oscars, everyone with a ticket enters through an arrivals tent, before proceeding onto the red carpet. The red carpet was a disaster, with traffic clogged to a stop from people pinning themselves up against the rope and stanchions that separate the normal guests from the celebrities walking the press line. This was a circus, and while their had to be hundreds of security guards and production crew members trying to move people along, the carpet might have been the 405 at rush hour. Still, I was pinned up with Jeffrey Katzenberg and his wife as we tried to waddle our way through the outside of traffic, and I bumped into Diane Lane and Josh Brolin as they retreated from the press line. I also watched Anne Hathaway pose for about a thousand photographers, who screamed for her to go through a series of choreographed poses that bordered on ridiculous, yet somehow when you see them online they seem to look normal.
OVERALL
It was a great show put on by a production team that fulfilled its obligation to Oscar and the Academy. Yet for all the greatness that sat inside the room, it’s always frustrating to know the people who are behind the decisions, and how much better it could all be if they were merely competent. Sure, Oscar has a YouTube channel, but wouldn’t you think to update it more than twice, and only a week before the show? Sure, AMPAS has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a new website that features things like videos, but wouldn’t you think that you’d find a way to integrate them with your YouTube page? I could go on and on, and I will one day, but for now, it’s a hearty congratulations to the team behind the show.
It was the best I’ve seen…
(Now if we could only get the bar back to being open…)
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