Odd Oscars

[daviddesper]

It's me again, with another complaint. I realize that the pandemic forced the Oscars to make some concessions this year, but my goodness, what a weird show we just saw!!!

First of all, the In Memoriam section, which I always enjoy, was absurd. They flew through most of them sooooooooo fast that you simply could not look at anyone's photo or name to see if you recognized them, but then a time or two they slowed the pace down. It was almost as if that feature was being presented live, which of course it couldn't have been, and some director was saying "slow down!!!"

My next gripe was with the Best Song category. In the past, someone would sing all five of them in their entirety throughout the show, but tonight each one got 15 seconds of airtime all at once and then they announced the winner.

Then toward the end of the show, they presented Best Picture as the third to last award, which to my knowledge has never been done before. But at least the magnificent, ageless Rita Moreno got to do the honors.

After that the Best Actor and Actress were awarded, but they were presented by last year's winners, whereas in the past I am sure that they crossed genders for those awards, didn't they? Meaning that Renee Z should have presented Best Actor and Joaquin should have presented Best Actress. Or am I wrong about that?

Finally if there was a Best Director award, I slept through it, which I suppose is possible. Overall, the lesser awards [make-up, editing, etc.) were treated as if they were the major awards of the evening. Certainly those winners gave the longest speeches.

The whole show came across as if the message was "we have to present an Oscar telecast this year but let's make it the quickest and most basic one we have ever done." So let's hope that next year we can return to the more spectacular extravaganza that the Oscars have always been known to be.