The 80th Academy Awards

I don't know who is really in charge of the Academy Awards, but they need to re-order the awards and what comes out when. There was a time when the very first award was the Best Supporting Actor Award and it was given out shortly after the monologue or silly video that opened the show was over. This lead to some great moments like Cuba Gooding, Jr. doing his jumping and celebrating or Jack Palance giving his one-armed push-ups. Now, it starts out with some boring Art Direction award or something and, well, then it's time to start checking out what else is on.

There was, as you may know, a risk that the awards would not happen this year. The writer's strike was in full swing and the Golden Globes had to become some kind of weird show that involved Billy Bush and some other person on one of those annoying celebrity obsessed shows like "Access Hollywood." There were some who thought that the Academy Awards was next, but it turns out there are now some who feel that the approaching ceremony helped bring about an end to the months long strike.

Whatever it was, it went off this past Sunday and John Stewart was the host. For me, with the arrangement of the awards distribution, the Academy Awards is a bit like watching the David Letterman Show. I have never found Dave to be the best ineterviewer in the world and often find his celebrity interviews dull and unfunny. So, I tune in in the beginning to watch his opening monologue and then the Top Ten list and the other silly stuff. Then, normally, I tune away to other things or fall asleep or whatever.

With the Academy Awards, I tuned in to see the silly video thing that normally opens the show, then the monologue that Stewart was going to do and then tuned away for about an hour and a half before the first real award was given out. I was dreading the many montages and the silly dance performances. Who could forget the stupid dancers from the previous year when the would form shadow-puppet-like shapes behind a screen that were supposed to somehow represent each movie nominated for Best Picture. I wish I could.

There was not video to open the show, however. I saw some computer-generated film that apparently showed Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator driving what looked like a UPS truck to supposedly deliver the actual awards to the theater. Along the way were a bunch of characters and scenes of various movies, but they were not just Academy Award winning movies, at least from what I can tell. I do not recall the modern remake of Godzilla winning any awards anyway.

John Stewart took the stage and gave a funny but generally low-key monologue. I thought it was pretty good. I laughed. But it was a sign of things to come. Low-key was definitely the theme for the night. As soon as he wandered off the stage, I was hoping he would come back and do more stand-up. Instead, we started to see stupid, boring and pointless awards being given out.

I hate to disparage the people who work so hard on the movies. I know that Art Directors and Costume Designers work hard and the movies would not be what they are without them. They deserve their time to shine and they deserve a time when they should be allowed to dress nice and walk up on stage and hold the trophy and celebrate. I just feel like that time should probably be on a cable station, perhaps in a separate ceremony like they do with the movie science awards.

The awards immediately sank into a rather mind-numbing nothingness from that point forward. Some highlights were the performance of "Falling Slowly" from the movie "Once." The other musical numbers were all from the movie "Enchanted" and were standard Disney fare. In short, none of it was worth remembering. I guess the various special effects, sound editing and sound recording awards are there so we can see that movies like "The Bourne Ultimatum" actually do win Academy Awards.

I was hoping for a big upset in the Best Actress award. I was disappointed. I desperately wanted Ellen Page to pull out an upset. I am completley in love with her and loved the movie "Juno." I wanted her to have to walk up on that stage and give a speech I am sure would have been memorable. Instead some French dame who starred in a movie about another French dame who sang a bunch of songs I have never liked won. Why are the people in the Academy so taken with biopics?

The rest of the night was meant for the Coen Brothers and their remarkable movie "No Country for Old Men." Javier Bardem won, as it should have been. The movie won Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. All of this is as it should be. I would have been glad had "Juno" pulled off an upset in the Best Picture category, but the Academy never really awards the comedies.

For me, if there was a drama that had to win, I wanted it to be "No Country." As for the ceremony itself, it seemed to drag a bit, even thought it seemed to me that it was one of the shortest ceremonies in recent history. The low-key nature of it made it less entertaining and I don't really understand why it had to be so low-key. I mean, I was glad Diablo Cody won for "Juno" in the Best Screenplay category, but I was kind of hoping she might let a swear word fly like she did during the Independent Spirit Awards.