March 3, 2014 The 2014 Academy Awards
Yes, it’s supposed to be a Music Monday, I know, but the Oscars! Come on! If it helps any, I’ll talk a little about the music in the show. okay?
First off, I think Ellen is a fine host for the proceedings. She’s not ever going to be overly serious about things, and she seems to always enjoy what she’s doing. Ordering pizzas and taking selfies are exactly the sort of thing I’d want to do if I were hosting the ceremony, so maybe I’m just too in her corner on that to agree with folks who griped.
“People griped?” you ask. Yes. About everything. Twitter is simultaneously great and terrible (…kind like the Wizard of Oz, I guess?) – great because you can find people who like what you like, terrible because there’s always gripers. Always. Someone could a million dollars and a kitten to every orphan on the whole planet and there’d be a guy griping about it. “What about the kids who are allergic to cats? What kind of jerk gives a cat to someone who’s allergic? And that million is only going to be like $600k after taxes. Ugh.” (Yes, I know that’s more than 140 characters. The kind of jerk who’d gripe about people giving millions and kittens away is the kind of jerk who’s going to tweet several times about it.) I mean, I get that people are going to disagree with the winners the Academy chose, and I even get that people have problems with the Academy itself, and that’s fine. What I don’t get is “ugh, that 10 seconds of airtime should have been edited out because it was the worst” kinds of things. We here at zwolanerd like to like things, so it’s sometimes hard to understand why people put so much effort into not liking things.
Anyway.
My favorite musical performance of the night was Idina Menzel singing that song from Frozen that everyone but me had heard before. My second favorite was Karen O (and that other guy) singing the song from Her. And I really enjoyed hearing Bette Midler singing “Wind Beneath My Wings.” I guess it had been long enough since I heard it that it was nice to hear again. Oh, and Pink was great, too! U2 was U2, and I don’t much like that “Happiness” song, so that covers us for Music Monday.
I didn’t do very well on my picks this year. I never go all in and try to pick everything, but our local movie theater has a contest with a prize of 52 movie passes, so I’m up for trying that. They only have you pick seven categories (with Best Foreign Film as a tie-breaking eighth), and I only got four right. I chose Leonard DiCaprio for Best Actor, but it went to Matthew McConaughey. And I chose Amy Adams for Best Actress, but it went to Cate Blanchett. Since I haven’t seen any of those four movies, I don’t feel bad about it, other than being bummed I’m not going to win free movie tickets.
Bill Murray’s unscripted mention of Harold Ramis was a touching tribute. I know much has been said about their falling out over filming Groundhog Day, but it was a meaningful touch, and I’d bet you a bunch of dollars that Bill wishes he had those years back. Most of us regret something, right? I’m glad they were able to patch things up in recent years.
I was glad to see Gravity win so many awards, because I really like that movie. I knew Sandra Bullock wouldn’t win for her performance, but it was one of my favorite of hers.
I’m not one to give in to “the magic of the Oscars!!!” but I was reminded several times during the presentation of how much I enjoy movies. It really is the Super Bowl of awards ceremonies, and it’s always fun to see the best representations of a particular thing.
But, seriously, next year get Kevin Spacey to host and make him do impressions. He’s phenomenal!
Written by: Mark
Permalink # Mandy said
I always enjoy the Oscars, and I like Ellen’s style of hosting- no mean-hearted comments and just goofing around.
I wish my movie theatre did something awesome like that. I was doing pretty well until the last… maybe 5 awards or so.