As is the case every year, the Academy vote for the films, actors etc that have been adjudged to have been the "best" of the past year. In a ceremony hosted by comedian Chris Rock, Million Dollar Baby was head to head with The Aviator as the two big pictures of the year that threw up favourites against each other in many categories. Comedian Jamie Foxx gained two acting nominations for Ray and Collateral in a year that saw him shake off his "ethnic comedy" roots while smaller films such as Vera Drake and Sideways try to compete.
And so it was this year that I was forced to watch the highlights of the show because there was no live broadcast available for those of us who do not subscribe to Sky Movies the only way to see it live this year. In previous years the BBC broadcast it live to the whole UK but, word has it, that the American company behind the Oscars did not like the poor presentation from Jonathon Ross et al (it was poor) in 2004 and took the chance to swap it over to another station. God knows what they will have made of the pathetic showing from Jamie Theaston and Sharon Osbourne then they were horrible to watch and I was glad I didn't have to endure the whole ceremony with them. Anyway, as a result of them being all over the highlights show I managed to see very little of the actual ceremony (well done Sky now please give it back to the BBC so we all can see it). However, I quite liked Chris Rock even if I felt he wasn't anything special or interesting; I will always prefer the out and out entertainment value of Billy Crystal rather than the hosts who try and just do stand up material but he was OK. The musical numbers felt like an overdose of Beyonce no matter how easy on the eye she is, four or five songs was probably too much.
The fact that that the show ran shorter by an hour showed that things did work in terms of that but I must admit to just not liking the idea that awards were presented to some people in the aisle of their seats- if their categories are so minor then perhaps they should be done another time like the scientific awards? So to the awards. None of the nominations really stood out to me and the year kind of felt, well, obvious. I quite liked Aviator and Million Dollar Baby but neither was a "great" film and the clambering over them recently had me a bit confused and wondering if I had seen different films from everyone else certainly Baby's best film award did nothing for me at all. Eastwood's direction was deserved even if Scorsese just needs to win one for the sake of his contribution over the past decades. The acting awards for Baby were also deserved but it was hard to ignore that better performances existed in both categories. Foxx has had a great year so fair enough but to me Cheadle was the one who really pushed the boat out and was worth me losing £35 on a 33-1 bet on him. The awards went to the nominees that you would guess Hollywood would give them to there were some close calls here but no real surprises; I only hoped Cheadle would win and I don't think anyone gave things like Sideways etc a cat in hell's chance of winning major awards and spoiling the big boys' party.
Overall the ceremony was OK and the awards were mostly deserved if unsurprising and uninspiring. Chris Rock did OK but will hopefully move over for Crystal to come back again and maybe next years the pick of films will be as wide but also throw up a lot more surprises since this years' was pretty obvious and typical for Hollywood. I'm not too upset I missed the live ceremony on the basis of what I did see but I still say Sky did a poor job and once again used their buying power to show that they want to win viewers by forcing them to buy the packages rather than winning them around. Shoddy at best and made the BBC's messy Jonathon Ross fiasco seem as slick and smooth as silk.
And so it was this year that I was forced to watch the highlights of the show because there was no live broadcast available for those of us who do not subscribe to Sky Movies the only way to see it live this year. In previous years the BBC broadcast it live to the whole UK but, word has it, that the American company behind the Oscars did not like the poor presentation from Jonathon Ross et al (it was poor) in 2004 and took the chance to swap it over to another station. God knows what they will have made of the pathetic showing from Jamie Theaston and Sharon Osbourne then they were horrible to watch and I was glad I didn't have to endure the whole ceremony with them. Anyway, as a result of them being all over the highlights show I managed to see very little of the actual ceremony (well done Sky now please give it back to the BBC so we all can see it). However, I quite liked Chris Rock even if I felt he wasn't anything special or interesting; I will always prefer the out and out entertainment value of Billy Crystal rather than the hosts who try and just do stand up material but he was OK. The musical numbers felt like an overdose of Beyonce no matter how easy on the eye she is, four or five songs was probably too much.
The fact that that the show ran shorter by an hour showed that things did work in terms of that but I must admit to just not liking the idea that awards were presented to some people in the aisle of their seats- if their categories are so minor then perhaps they should be done another time like the scientific awards? So to the awards. None of the nominations really stood out to me and the year kind of felt, well, obvious. I quite liked Aviator and Million Dollar Baby but neither was a "great" film and the clambering over them recently had me a bit confused and wondering if I had seen different films from everyone else certainly Baby's best film award did nothing for me at all. Eastwood's direction was deserved even if Scorsese just needs to win one for the sake of his contribution over the past decades. The acting awards for Baby were also deserved but it was hard to ignore that better performances existed in both categories. Foxx has had a great year so fair enough but to me Cheadle was the one who really pushed the boat out and was worth me losing £35 on a 33-1 bet on him. The awards went to the nominees that you would guess Hollywood would give them to there were some close calls here but no real surprises; I only hoped Cheadle would win and I don't think anyone gave things like Sideways etc a cat in hell's chance of winning major awards and spoiling the big boys' party.
Overall the ceremony was OK and the awards were mostly deserved if unsurprising and uninspiring. Chris Rock did OK but will hopefully move over for Crystal to come back again and maybe next years the pick of films will be as wide but also throw up a lot more surprises since this years' was pretty obvious and typical for Hollywood. I'm not too upset I missed the live ceremony on the basis of what I did see but I still say Sky did a poor job and once again used their buying power to show that they want to win viewers by forcing them to buy the packages rather than winning them around. Shoddy at best and made the BBC's messy Jonathon Ross fiasco seem as slick and smooth as silk.