Oscar Grouch

For all the bitching I did about not getting to see the Oscars last night, I should note that I was actually able to see most of them: Cablevision & ABC settled (I've heard rumors of a little FCC armtwisting) and the signal resumed 15 minutes into the broadcast. Right after the opening sequence, which I need to get around to seeing. But happily, Kathy & I were able to sit on the couch and watch the awards.

Not that the show was great, by any means. I really liked the tribute to John Hughes, and there were a couple of great speeches (Sandra Bullock's was funny, and I completely agree that Christoph Waltz won the unberbingo -- I was thinking the same thing). And the uncomfortable hijacking of the mic during the Short Doc award speech for Music By Prudence was certainly memorable. But for all bitched about not seeing the show, I can't say it was worth the anger.


Here's Alan Sepinwal's take on it. I agree with every word of his criticism of Hamish Hamilton, particularly the stuff about the reaction shots. No shot of Clooney during Bullock's speech? No Streep?

And one more link for you: If you want to see the winning animated short, Logorama, click here. (Thanks to the archive of Roger Ebert's Oscar tweets.)

Rob

So Much For The Fucking Oscars

Cablevision and ABC/Disney are in negotiation about the price of carrying ABC. Not a cable channel -- the basic ABC channel, which has Lost, Modern Family, Cougar Town and tonight (no coincidence) the Academy Awards. And as a negotiating tactic, ABC has shut the signal down.

This happened earlier this year, with the Food Network. It was resolved in a few weeks, but for a little while, we had no access to Good Eats, etc. So we already know that Cablevision are giant douchebags.

This is definitely a dick move by ABC. They've got a popular show that most people like to watch live, so they pulled their signal right beforehand as strongarm tactics. Who knows if Cablevision will back down. If I were them, I certainly wouldn't.

I don't know how cable works everywhere, but here? They're the only game in town. We have some choices for Internet, but if we want cable, we've got to go through Cablevision. So our only response as consumers angry at the preemption of some of our favorite shows is to cancel our cable... cutting off all of our favorite shows. (With the preponderance of TV available on the internet and DVD, I'm honestly considering it.)

If there were some alternate provider, who was carrying the Oscars tonight? You can bet Cablevision would be carrying them, too. Because they couldn't risk a mass defection. As it is, they're risking nothing but goodwill -- which they don't need, because they're the only game in town.

Rob

PS. I just couldn't find any suitable Oscar imagery to go with this post. Google Image search terms included: Oscar statue broken, Oscar statue in toilet, Oscar statue in trash, Oscar statue stolen, Oscar statue defaced, Oscar statue satirical, Oscar statue up someone's ass. NOTHING. Who knew Oscar was such a sacred institution? Will Academy members issue death threats to newspapers who print anything but an official image of Hollywood's favorite sex toy? When did Google become a Dutch newspaper?

Be Seeing You

In case you were annoyed with the staging of the In Memoriam montage from last night's Oscars, here's the whole thing with just the clips, and Queen Latifah singing.

Now I'm just sorry they left out Don LaFontaine.

Rob

Oscar Night

I have to say, I really enjoyed the Oscar telecast tonight. The show's new producers changed some things that had gotten stale, provided context for the many of the less glamorous awards, and admirably kept the show moving. It clocked in at, what, 3 hours 20 minutes?

But the thing I liked best of it was the tone. The cliche is, "It's an honor just to be nominated." But with tonight's presentation of the acting awards, with five previous nominees singling out each nominated performer, it really felt like an honor. It was a recognition of all they achieved with their roles, rather than glossing that over in favor of singling one out. I don't know what it felt like for the nominees, but at home, the effect was that instead of one winner and four losers, there were five winners, and one of them got to make a speech. It was really heartwarming. I got the impression that Anne Hathaway was as moved by all the nice things Shirley MacLaine was saying about her as she would have been by the Oscar itself.

Adding to the effect was the lack of schadenfreude-cam. There was a split screen on all the nominees, and then when the Oscar was announced, the camera would move quickly to the winner, without lingering on the others for us to judge whose smiles were insincere and whose claps were halfhearted.

As someone who wanted to see Jon Stewart or Steve Martin host again, I have to admit: Hugh Jackman did one hell of a job as host. It was a great job all around, from presenter casting to production design to the staged numbers (you really can't go far wrong with Jackman, Beyonce and John Legend).

And the idea to show short previews of a number of 2009's upcoming releases was inspired. They've just broadcast the biggest commercial Hollywood gets every year, and for once they actually took the time to send us somewhere.

Rob