Monday, March 8, 2010

'Modern Family' Promo More Entertaining Than Oscars

Loved that The Hurt Locker won best picture. Found it refreshing and inspiring to see Academy Award winning director Kathryne Bigelow holding two awards, breaking Oscar's glass ceiling. Found myself cheering when I heard that a fellow journalist got an Oscar for penning the Oscar winning Hurt Locker screenplay. Eyes teared up when I watched the films of my high school years featured during an Academy homage to the late John Hughes.

But all in all, I was not a fan of the 82nd Academy Awards. As much as I like Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin -- Baldwin simply owns 30 Rock -- I found their performance last night to be just so-so. Only about a quarter of their jokes were amusing and their opening monologue (or is it duo-logue) dragged. Comparing the Oscars to the Golden Globe broadcast, I think Ricky Gervais was much more entertaining and cutting edge . . . because I hear that the Academy Awards folks were all into getting them there youngsters to tune in, what with them recruiting the Twilight stars (sans R.Pat.), Zac Efron's hair and the slouching teen known as Miley Cyrus to present awards. If you're reading, Oscar show people: I want Jon Stewart back.

And while, in theory, I like the personal touch of having someone who actually knows the men and women nominated in the best actor/actress categories say something specific about each nominee, by the time we got to that point in the show, it was annoying and it made a long show (ditch the dance number, this is not the Tony Awards!) even longer.

By the way, was anyone else, other than yours truly, confused by the weirdness that was the documentary short acceptance speech where one guy was speaking when a "Lady Kanye," as she's being referred to online, hijacked the mic? Well Salon got to the bottom of that and found out that there was indeed prior conflict over who was going to accept the Oscar in the event of a win because there was behind-the-scenes acrimony. Oh, the cut-throat world of documentary shorts.

I'm ashamed to say that I actually fell asleep and missed the last few big awards. That's what I get for failing to caffeine up. It was the Oscars, for God's sake, I should've known better than to go into it caffeine free. And when I went to watch the rest of the show on DVR, it cut off mid-way through Sandra Bullock's entertainting acceptance speech because the show went beyond the scheduled 11:30 p.m. ending. (Damn Helen Mirren. I knew I should've extended the taping time!) So I had to go to the Oscar web site and watch the remaining acceptance speeches there.

The most amusing thing I saw all night? The Modern Family promo where the characters had a movie-themed night of charades.



What'd you think of the Oscars, both the winners/losers and the show itself?

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