The Academy Awards

I've always been a fan of the Oscars. And why not? I'm a movie kind of guy. I watch tons of movies and try to keep up with the latest top flicks of the year. So every year I get excited to see the Hollywood contingent dressed to the nines, throwing a massive awards show honoring the best movies (according to The Academy). I look forward to the ridiculous scene that is the Oscars, that is, seeing overpaid actors living in paradise all blow smoke up each other's asses for four hours and give over-the-top acceptance speeches. Oh yes, Sunday was the 80th annual Academy Awards.

So last night I'm on my couch raring to go, but there was a problem. The 80th annual Academy Awards show sucked. There's no other way to put it. I don't know what exactly it was, but the show was far from what it had been in prior years. Maybe it was the lack of quality movies (There Will Be Blood, Sweeney Todd...come on, seriously?) up for awards or maybe it was the lack of one movie running away with the show or maybe it was Jon Stewart's jokes missing their marks or maybe it was just me. Nothing that exciting happened. The songs performed were snoozers (three numbers from Enchanted...are you kidding me?) by people nobody has ever heard of. Hell, get Beyonce back that the Academy fell in love with two years ago when she performed about 23 times. And Stewart did an okay job, not great though. He had some good jokes and some witty input throughout the show, but for the most part his jokes were missing their marks. Of course he did a joke about democrats and one on how Bush is dumb...blah blah blah...we've heard these before Jon. Maybe it was the lack of time the writers had to deliver these jokes with the strike recently ending...who knows. Plus I think he held back on directing the humor toward individuals in the crowd. Stewart's better than that...he should of poked more fun at celebrities in the audience. Plus some of the videos they showed that were supposed to be funny ended up being just stupid (see the movie montage to binoculars).

The whole night wasn't all bad though. A refreshing moment was watching the down-to-earth Coen brothers speech after winning for adapted screenplay and picture of the year. Joel Coen, who hardly said anything the first time on stage, added after winning picture of the year, "I don't have much to add from before....thank you." Thank you Joel for being modest and keeping it short.

I was pulling for Juno or Michael Clayton for picture of the year and even though neither won, it was nice to see Juno and Diablo Cody (no way that's her real name) win for original screenplay. Very odd to see an ex-stripper on stage winning an Oscar as voted by The Academy...that's just something you don't see everyday.

Also, there was no Al Gore sightings! (Unless of course Al has taken the identity of someone else and in that case, we are all in serious trouble). It became the norm over the past few years for the liberal Academy to parade Gore on stage to talk about some iceberg that's melting somewhere and totally kill the mood of the evening as well. Kudos to the Academy for canning that annoying act.

That's all I have on this year's show. Overall I thought it was a yawn fest and hopefully it'll turn around next year. I have an idea for 2009...get Lewis Black or Ron White to host it...that'll mix things up a bit. If you disagree on this year's Oscars, let me hear about it below.