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The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things, of tears and faked smiles and dead Hollywood montages, and actresses who think they can sing.
Listen up, Academy awards: I have been watching you for a long time. Longer than best supporting actress nominee Hailee Steinfeld has been alive, so I know whereof I speak when I say this year's event was not just bad – it was boring. And that's worse.
But I really do love you, Oscars, and I want to ensure your survival. So here, in the style of a presenter who is not Anne Hathaway, I would like to present the 10 Commandments of what must and must not be allowed to happen next year.
1. Don't let Anne Hathaway present ever again
Let's begin, Inception style, with a list within a list: what were the worst Hathaway moments of the night? The way she cried "woop" every time someone came on stage, suggesting she had been filling her hours by watching Girls Gone Wild? When she announced that the best thing about hosting the Oscars was "getting to breathe the same air as [Oprah]"? When she bowed to Billy Crystal? Blew kisses at Kirk Douglas? Used the word "hip" with an apparent lack of irony? Her – or, to be more precise, her stylist Rachel Zoe's – desire to placate every fashion designer in the world by changing into a new dress every (by my reckoning) two seconds, thereby distracting the audience from the event by making them imagine all the ugly long gowns piling up backstage in Hathaway's wake? And the winner is . . . the shouts of "woop!" Well done, woop, you put in a sterling effort, and you couldn't have done it without Hathaway's vocal chords, her utter lack of self-awareness and the stupidity of the person who decided to hire her. Woop!
2. Instead, hire James Franco's grandmother
Easily, the best on-stage interaction involving the bloodless Franco and Hathaway was at the beginning when there was some audience interaction with Franco's granny. She expressed lustful feelings for "Marky Mark", and while I personally preferred the Funky Bunch, and Betty White might have cornered the "old lady who talks dirty" market, Granny Franco did well and probably got the best laugh of the night.
3. But if you're going to insist on having bad presenters, don't remind people of the good ones
It's bad enough that every presenter AC (After Crystal) has insisted on doing the "comedy movie montage" in which they insert themselves into the nominated films, a trick Crystal coined and mastered in his glory days as presenter. But whoever thought it would be a good idea to bring Crystal himself out on stage this year for a guest presenting slot is someone who hates Hathaway and Franco a lot.
4. If we must have songs, have singers sing them
Gwyneth Paltrow gets the ultimate karaoke gig. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images If the prospect of an event that involved Hathaway doing Les Mis in a tux, Gwyneth Paltrow pretending to be from Nashville and singing in a faux southern accent and Kevin Spacey breaking into song for no obvious reason doesn't have you attempting to scrape out your own eardrums, you are a stronger Oscars viewer than me. And by the way, Gwyneth, maybe you should ask Chris Martin for singing lessons. Wow, never thought I'd say that.
5. Reinstate the tactless cutaway shots
Perhaps as part of the Academy's campaign this year to be more cool or, in Hathaway's words, "hip", there were fewer of the gauche cutaway shots for which the Oscars are so rightly renowned. You know the ones: the close-ups on the losers during the winner's speech, the quick cut to Morgan Freeman when someone makes a faintly racial joke ("He's laughing! So it's not racist!"). We did get some good ones: Annette Bening on the verge of tears of disappointment when Natalie Portman went up on stage; Helena Bonham Carter saying (correctly, as it turned out) to her seat neighbour, "I won't win" during the best supporting actress announcements; Harvey Weinstein glowering menacingly every time any movie other than The King's Bloody Speech was mentioned; Justin Timberlake only starting to laugh at Randy Newman's speech when he noticed the camera was on him – but it was not enough. Part of the problem was that the hosts were so boring so there was little to react to.
6. But some of those unfortunate pauses were excellent!
Colin Firth should have learnt from The King's Speech that pauses are often unfortunate. Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Reuters Maybe the Unfortunate Pause is the new Awkward Cutaway Shot? There were some great moments when stage fright or, more likely, wonky teleprompters led to some potential misunderstandings. Firth telling the world in his acceptance speech that he was "experiencing stirrings" was intriguing, until he added after a just-too-long pause that they were in "somewhere in the upper abdominal region". Better, though, was the adorable duo from The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, who won for best editing. They hugged one another on stage and then thanked their "wives who allow us to have incredibly passionate love affairs with . . . " Each other? "Our families and our work." So close!
7. Can we please have a word about Kirk Douglas?
If you found yourself asking at some point, "Holy Jehosophat, why on earth is Kirk Douglas presenting the best supporting actress award?", I shall explain: it's because last year's supporting actors winners, Mo'Nique and Christoph Platz, were, respectively, being difficult and away working. But if there's one thing worse than getting less work as one ages in Hollywood, it is surely being blinded by the condescension dripping from the smiles of the likes of Jude Law when you are brought up on stage in a manner that can only be described as "token and patronising". Now, Douglas is a legend, true, but I'm not convinced that having him get up on stage and be smiled at benevolently by the whole of Hollywood as if he were an adorable Chia Pet while he leches over Hathaway is the best way to honour his work. Perhaps it is preferable to having one's passing honoured by a Celine Dion performance (who appeared to be struggling to move her forehead, which must be a problem for a known emoter like Dion), as poor Tony Curtis and his fellow RIPs had to endure. But only just.
8. Don't reveal the winner before the envelope is actually open
Academy, we know you love the royals. But at least pretend it's not a given before the award is announced and by that I mean, maybe, in retrospect, it wasn't the smartest move to play the recording of Colin's famous kingly speech over the clips of all the other best film nominees before the actual announcement.
9. That orchestra needs a raise
God bless the Academy awards orchestra. Instead of a giant cane appearing from the wings and pulling off miscreant performers, we have the orchestra, striking up random bits of music from whatever film just won, forcing the winners to get the hell off the stage. Heretofore, the orchestra merely annoyed me, mainly because it is so blatantly snobby: while best actors and best actresses get about three hours in which to thank everyone they've ever known (tip o' the tiara, Natalie Portman), the poor sound technicians etc get about five seconds. But I have to say, after hearing that orchestra bravely play on despite having been given the death stare by Aaron Sorkin – possessor of officially the scariest glare in Hollywood – I am filled with awe.
10. Encourage more male hair eccentricities
Listen up, Academy awards: I have been watching you for a long time. Longer than best supporting actress nominee Hailee Steinfeld has been alive, so I know whereof I speak when I say this year's event was not just bad – it was boring. And that's worse.
But I really do love you, Oscars, and I want to ensure your survival. So here, in the style of a presenter who is not Anne Hathaway, I would like to present the 10 Commandments of what must and must not be allowed to happen next year.
1. Don't let Anne Hathaway present ever again
Let's begin, Inception style, with a list within a list: what were the worst Hathaway moments of the night? The way she cried "woop" every time someone came on stage, suggesting she had been filling her hours by watching Girls Gone Wild? When she announced that the best thing about hosting the Oscars was "getting to breathe the same air as [Oprah]"? When she bowed to Billy Crystal? Blew kisses at Kirk Douglas? Used the word "hip" with an apparent lack of irony? Her – or, to be more precise, her stylist Rachel Zoe's – desire to placate every fashion designer in the world by changing into a new dress every (by my reckoning) two seconds, thereby distracting the audience from the event by making them imagine all the ugly long gowns piling up backstage in Hathaway's wake? And the winner is . . . the shouts of "woop!" Well done, woop, you put in a sterling effort, and you couldn't have done it without Hathaway's vocal chords, her utter lack of self-awareness and the stupidity of the person who decided to hire her. Woop!
2. Instead, hire James Franco's grandmother
Easily, the best on-stage interaction involving the bloodless Franco and Hathaway was at the beginning when there was some audience interaction with Franco's granny. She expressed lustful feelings for "Marky Mark", and while I personally preferred the Funky Bunch, and Betty White might have cornered the "old lady who talks dirty" market, Granny Franco did well and probably got the best laugh of the night.
3. But if you're going to insist on having bad presenters, don't remind people of the good ones
It's bad enough that every presenter AC (After Crystal) has insisted on doing the "comedy movie montage" in which they insert themselves into the nominated films, a trick Crystal coined and mastered in his glory days as presenter. But whoever thought it would be a good idea to bring Crystal himself out on stage this year for a guest presenting slot is someone who hates Hathaway and Franco a lot.
4. If we must have songs, have singers sing them
Gwyneth Paltrow gets the ultimate karaoke gig. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images If the prospect of an event that involved Hathaway doing Les Mis in a tux, Gwyneth Paltrow pretending to be from Nashville and singing in a faux southern accent and Kevin Spacey breaking into song for no obvious reason doesn't have you attempting to scrape out your own eardrums, you are a stronger Oscars viewer than me. And by the way, Gwyneth, maybe you should ask Chris Martin for singing lessons. Wow, never thought I'd say that.5. Reinstate the tactless cutaway shots
Perhaps as part of the Academy's campaign this year to be more cool or, in Hathaway's words, "hip", there were fewer of the gauche cutaway shots for which the Oscars are so rightly renowned. You know the ones: the close-ups on the losers during the winner's speech, the quick cut to Morgan Freeman when someone makes a faintly racial joke ("He's laughing! So it's not racist!"). We did get some good ones: Annette Bening on the verge of tears of disappointment when Natalie Portman went up on stage; Helena Bonham Carter saying (correctly, as it turned out) to her seat neighbour, "I won't win" during the best supporting actress announcements; Harvey Weinstein glowering menacingly every time any movie other than The King's Bloody Speech was mentioned; Justin Timberlake only starting to laugh at Randy Newman's speech when he noticed the camera was on him – but it was not enough. Part of the problem was that the hosts were so boring so there was little to react to.
6. But some of those unfortunate pauses were excellent!
Colin Firth should have learnt from The King's Speech that pauses are often unfortunate. Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Reuters Maybe the Unfortunate Pause is the new Awkward Cutaway Shot? There were some great moments when stage fright or, more likely, wonky teleprompters led to some potential misunderstandings. Firth telling the world in his acceptance speech that he was "experiencing stirrings" was intriguing, until he added after a just-too-long pause that they were in "somewhere in the upper abdominal region". Better, though, was the adorable duo from The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, who won for best editing. They hugged one another on stage and then thanked their "wives who allow us to have incredibly passionate love affairs with . . . " Each other? "Our families and our work." So close!7. Can we please have a word about Kirk Douglas?
If you found yourself asking at some point, "Holy Jehosophat, why on earth is Kirk Douglas presenting the best supporting actress award?", I shall explain: it's because last year's supporting actors winners, Mo'Nique and Christoph Platz, were, respectively, being difficult and away working. But if there's one thing worse than getting less work as one ages in Hollywood, it is surely being blinded by the condescension dripping from the smiles of the likes of Jude Law when you are brought up on stage in a manner that can only be described as "token and patronising". Now, Douglas is a legend, true, but I'm not convinced that having him get up on stage and be smiled at benevolently by the whole of Hollywood as if he were an adorable Chia Pet while he leches over Hathaway is the best way to honour his work. Perhaps it is preferable to having one's passing honoured by a Celine Dion performance (who appeared to be struggling to move her forehead, which must be a problem for a known emoter like Dion), as poor Tony Curtis and his fellow RIPs had to endure. But only just.
8. Don't reveal the winner before the envelope is actually open
Academy, we know you love the royals. But at least pretend it's not a given before the award is announced and by that I mean, maybe, in retrospect, it wasn't the smartest move to play the recording of Colin's famous kingly speech over the clips of all the other best film nominees before the actual announcement.
9. That orchestra needs a raise
God bless the Academy awards orchestra. Instead of a giant cane appearing from the wings and pulling off miscreant performers, we have the orchestra, striking up random bits of music from whatever film just won, forcing the winners to get the hell off the stage. Heretofore, the orchestra merely annoyed me, mainly because it is so blatantly snobby: while best actors and best actresses get about three hours in which to thank everyone they've ever known (tip o' the tiara, Natalie Portman), the poor sound technicians etc get about five seconds. But I have to say, after hearing that orchestra bravely play on despite having been given the death stare by Aaron Sorkin – possessor of officially the scariest glare in Hollywood – I am filled with awe.
10. Encourage more male hair eccentricities
James Franco proves it was a good year for male hair. Photograph: Mark J. Terrill/AP While I appreciate that the general consensus was that it was – as the parlance has it – "The King's Speech's night", or maybe even, as Franco said, "a good year for lesbians", the truth is, this year's Academy awards were all about amazing male hair. Now that the women have been so tyrannised by weekly magazine fashion critics that they almost universally hide themselves in boring beige sheathes, it's up to the men to provide the interesting aesthetics and some of the guys this year seized the hair mantle eagerly. The dominating image of the night will be Christian Bale, working the long hair/long beard look (note to Christian: when you're trying to improve your public image after some unfortunate footage on the internet, maybe don't take personal style tips from Charles Manson). And the dominating questions will be, why is Christian's beard a different colour from his hair? And most of all, is it really true that this beard isn't for a part but he actually chooses to have it on his face for fun? But the best hair winner by a mile was Luke Matheny, who won for best short film, sporting the most glorious mane ever. An Oscar? That kid needs a shampoo contract.
Source: guardian.co.uk
Source: guardian.co.uk
