It’s somewhat comforting that I am so infrequent a movie-goer, and so off-mainstream (in a goofy, not elitist, sense) in my movie preferences that I don’t have to be emotionally involved in the whole Oscar thing. I really didn’t expect LotR or Moulin Rouge to win anything, and (aside from the obligatory fx and original score and art direction and costuming nods) they didn’t.
(Though if Mr. Jackson manages to pull off with the next two installments what he did with the first, and he doesn’t end up with something out of it, I might have to get medieval on someone.)
It does let me sit back and view the coverage, since I “missed” the broadcast, in an after-the-fact, look-at-the-funny-pictures-mommy sort of way. It lets me wonder why Gwyneth Paltrow was trying to look like she had just come from the Jerry Springer Show. I remember Denzel Washington when he was the intense young doc on St. Elsewhere, and it was clear then he was going places. Ron Howard has gotten incredibly bald. Poitier and Redford are both richly deserving of special recognition. And I don’t know if the Best Picture should have been A Beautiful Mind, but Uma Thurman … wasn’t focusing on the mind thing.
Biggest surprise: Chris Rock bombed. He is not funny. His jokes were lame and mostly fell flat. The clip of Johnny Carson hosting the oscars & being very funny was not flattering to Rock, who is far from being in Carson’s league. Robin Williams was funny too — his antics got lots of laughs, which was in stark contrast to the lack of mirth at anything Chris Rock said.
As a general note, the above Oscar post was for the 2002 Oscars.
That said, Chris Rock not being funny at the 2004 Oscars is not a wild surprise …
Or, for that matter, for the 2005 Oscars. 🙂