Normally I don’t watch the Oscars – the last thing I care about is a self-indulgent orgy of preening Hollywoodites, but this year I decided to bite the bullet and watch. Surprisingly, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. Starting out with Michael Moore being crushed by a large war elephant set the right mood as far as I’m concerned.
Of course, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King managed a clean sweep of 11 Oscars, tying with Titanic and Ben Hur for the most Oscars won for a single film. It’s hardly surprising – the Academy had been waiting to award the trilogy at the end, rather than have it sweep three years in a row (which it deserved). Peter Jackson most certainly deserved Best Director for his incredible work in bringing Tolkein’s world alive.
While I haven’t seen Monster, from what I’ve heard and seen of it, Charlize Theron deserves to win Best Actress for her work. Anytime an actor so disappears physically and emotionally into their role that you can’t even recognize them is a sign of excellence in the craft.
Of course, there was the usual anti-war business, although much more subtle this year. Sean Penn and Errol Morris couldn’t resist slamming the war, while Tim Robbins went with the better tack of wearing his opinion on his sleeve and reaching out to abuse victims instead. (Of course, he didn’t really care that much about victims of Ba’athist torture in Iraq…) It’s too bad in some ways, having a bunch of self-important Hollywood stars make asinine statements about things they don’t understand is always good fodder for politics.
Billy Crystal was decent as the host, although the material he had to work with wasn’t the best. What surprised me is how amateurish the show was. There were parts that seemed like a high-school awards assembly. Renee Zellweger’s delivery was incredibly stilted, as was many of the presenters. Some of these people need to get on a stage rather than a set and learn how to actually deliver a line. Certainly someone like Ian McKellan could give them a few pointers.
It was another year with no big surprises, and no big controversies. Those that won deserved to for the most part, and those that didn’t still were almost universally excellent as well. Still, with so many bigger things happening in the world, the importance of a few self-indulgent awards just doesn’t seem as great as it once may have.
