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Like Jessica, I can't see the Oscars as much more than Hollywood giving itself a big old sloppy wet kiss on national TV. But I thought there was a high moment and a low moment worth mentioning. The first came when Heath Ledger's family accepting his Oscar for best supporting actor. It was sad but, well real -- this was a family up there, a crew in a whole other sense, and the award had a meaning for them that went deep. The low moment came when, during the award for best adapted screenplay, they flashed up a section of the script for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And it had a huge grammatical mistake! As I recall--and I could be wrong--it said something about an "inept silence"; the word they meant, presumably, was "awkward."
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OK, I'm just going to take the plunge: This was the most entertaining Academy Awards I've ever seen. That is sort of damning with faint praise, since watching the Oscars is usually about as exciting as watching a really slow person run every minute of an entire marathon—kind of thrilling at the beginning and end but mostly endless, and you're just trying to find a way to sneak off to the bathroom the whole time. This, too, felt never-ending at points, especially between the best supporting actor award (how poised was Heath Ledger's family? Unbelievably restrained and touching) and the big awards at the end, but, in general, I thought it was much, much better than usual.
Hugh Jackman's energetic willingness to do even the shlockiest thing with a convincing smile single-handedly put over the opening musical number, which didn't have nearly as good lyrics as it should have but was executed with breathy exuberance and set a fun tone. Changing the order of the awards, so that interesting ones for screenplay and supporting actor and actress were mixed in with the boring stuff, helped the pacing. Even though the musical number was an incoherent mess (just let Beyoncé sing!), it broke the monotony and staved off serious boredom for about 15 minutes. The speeches (even though I'm super bummed we'll never get to hear Mickey's) by Penélope Cruz, Danny Boyle, Dustin Lance Black, and Sean Penn were thoughtful and well-delivered (even Kate Winslet did much better than her usual histrionics). Even some of the presenters, like Tina Fey and Steve Martin, were actually, well, funny. And though having former Oscar winners laud each one of this year's nominees personally got a little awkward and long at points, it was more interesting than usual, very sweet, and an excuse to bring out awesome old-timers like Christopher Walken and his crazy hair, Whoopi and her crazy leopard-print dress, and Sophia Loren and her crazy tan. OK, now you can all tell me whether I'm crazy: What did you think?
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Despite her courage, Jess, though Marisa Tomei performed her heart out as the pole dancer Mickey Rourke courts in The Wrestler, her (OK, let's call her "feminist") character didn't quite sell me—showing more compassion than passion in the film's fleeting love story. It may be a chick flick, but it ain't no romance. Speaking of, while everybody has a different reason why Millionaire will win the best picture statue tonight, for me, Slumdog's happily ever after fade out puts it solidly ahead. The Bollywood ending wins by a mile in a field where the only other love stories are the doomed courtship of Brad and Cate in Benjamin Button and The Reader's bordering-on-child-molestation sexual trysts between Kate and impossibly young actor David Kross. (Parenthetically, I wonder whether Harvey Weinstein—if Wall-E, the other love conquers all narrative in this year's top films, had been nominated in the BP category, as many fans and critics opined it should have—would have run a whisper campaign charging cartoon-robot exploitation?) Meantime, as we wait for confirmation of the Slumdog sweep, in honor of romance classic It Happened One Night's 1935 Academy Award shut-out of The Thin Man, I heartily recommend reading Slate's Nick and Nora of movie-criticism trash talk, the matchless Dana Stevens and Troy Patterson.
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The Oscars are Sunday night (maybe you heard). When Kate Winslet finally gets awarded the shiny, gold-plated, bald phallus she's been so volubly longing for, I'm going to feel tempted to throw the remote at the television while damning Academy voters for rewarding just an OK performance in a dreadful film. Come on, Academy! Aren't the Oscars about rewarding quality acting? Ha-ha, I kid. Of course not! As this year demonstrates, even better than most, the Oscars are all about rewarding compelling campaign narratives.
Front-runners Kate Winslet, Mickey Rourke, and Heath Ledger (nominated for performances in The Reader, The Wrestler, and The Dark Knight respectively) all have just such a narrative, and you can tell because each of their victories is easy to imagine as a scene in a movie. (Try to do this trick for any of their fellow nominees—it's much harder.) Winslet's win is the moment the heroine's childhood dreams all come true. Rourke's is the instant the hero's comeback is finally complete. Ledger's victory
actually will be a scene in a movie, the inevitable Heath Ledger Story. (Can't you see it? A packed auditorium of the best actors in the world rising to give a bittersweet standing ovation to his immense talent.) If any of this trio wins this weekend, it will have something to do with singular performances and a whole lot more to do with their real-life stories and how those stories have been pitched to the voting public. (A similar logic applies to Slumdog Millionaire, which should win because the field is weak, people dig it, and, as the unheralded, multi-ethnic crowd pleaser, it is the Barack Obama of the best picture category.)
Excellent backstories have propelled many past Oscar winners. To name just a few of those many, think of Jennifer Hudson, Matt and Ben, the coronation of Julia Roberts, or even someone like Al Pacino, who won for Scent of a Woman not because it was his (or the year's) best work but because he had been Oscar-less for too long. Academy voters have proved again and again that they love a great story as much as a great performance—they're movie people after all; great stories are their business. It's about time I stopped being surprised.
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