In a four-hour tribute to the glory and majesty of Hollywood, there are many things that can completely ruin a viewer's experience, and not seeing people get the awards they deserve is one of them. At the 79th annual Academy Awards, there were a few minor mistakes in the choice of winners (of course), but only one huge, glaring error.
As a host, Ellen DeGeneres was terrific. Her jokes were consistently funny, and her wide-eyed enthusiasm for the spectacle and the celebrities was fun and refreshing. She could be an all-time great host if she is allowed to return, in the vein of Bob Hope and Billy Crystal.
The little vignettes were also great. The dancers who formed human statues representing different movies were extremely impressive and exemplified a unique change of pace. Jack Black, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's song about how comedians can win Oscars was very funny, and it was nice to inject some underappreciated comedic talent into a ceremony that otherwise tends to over appreciate a lack of it.
The main story of this year's Oscars, though, was Jennifer Hudson. In less than two years, she went from American Idol wannabe to an Academy Award winner. In some ways, this demonstrates the effect that American Idol is having on the process of choosing winners: only complete, unabashed talent deserves recognition.
The first of two problems, though, came with the rest of the acting winners. The Academy Awards played it more predictably than the plot of "The Queen" (2006). Alan Arkin was positively fantastic in "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006), but it is all too clear that his award was a "please-don't-die-without-one" Oscar. Whitaker was also terrific in "Last King of Scotland" (2006), but he wasn't so much better than Ryan Gosling in "Half Nelson" (2006). The general public, though, seemed to think Whitaker was a clear choice, when really, he just got more publicity.
Best Actress winner Helen Mirren is definitely an extremely talented actor, but since when does one get an award for staring in one direction for a long time and looking vaguely troubled? In these areas, where there was real competition, the Oscars decided to continue with a long tradition of being entirely unsurprising (barring the 1973 ceremony's streaker, of course).
The elephant in the room, of course, is Scorsese's huge upset, with "The Departed" (2006) winning Best Director and Best Picture. Watching Scorsese stand on stage with Spielberg, Coppola and Lucas, one could only think: "Scorsese is the only man onstage to have made more than one good movie since the 1970s." It was, of course, a weird year for these categories, and there is a very specific reason why "The Departed" won.
Here lies the principal problem with the Oscars this year, the thing that ruined the ceremony. Every year, the Best Picture winner is a film that moves us and gives us a new perspective on who we are. Even when, in retrospect, that movie turns out not to be that great, ? la "Dances with Wolves" (1990) and "Titanic" (1997), it is still understood why that movie won: it was almost always an ambitious epic that we believe will stand the test of time. Luckily, not many of these movies come out each year.
This year, that movie was "Children of Men" (2006), a deserving movie that was so poorly publicized it could not even get nominated for Best Director and Best Picture. This is a huge issue. As Scorsese has proven time and time again, losing nominees can still withstand the test of time; movies that fail to be nominated rarely do. In a desperate effort to find a movie like "Children of Men," the Academy clung to "Babel" (2006), an average attempt at dealing with paranoia and isolation in an increasingly global world. Had the Academy replaced "Babel" with "Children of Men" for Best Picture and "United 93" (2006) director Paul Greengrass with Alfonso Cuar??n for Best Director, it would have certainly been another "poor Marty" year.
Luckily, despite some disappointments, the innovative dancers' semi-disturbing-yet-entertaining tricks and Ellen DeGeneres' velvet-clad quips made the evening a memorable one, marking the end of an interesting, yet laudable cinematic year.
