And I'm gonna keep complaining about this one for as long as I'm a lover of movies (I'm still complaining that Kevin Spacey beat Sean Penn's career performance in Dead Man Walking) so here it is... JIM CARREY- BEST ACTOR for MAN ON THE MOON! And I really like Kevin Spacey... he gets better and better... but this is twice that he's won when he shouldn't have.

Okay, I'm done.

Wait, I lied.
Malkovich should've won Original Screenplay.

There... now I'm done.

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Scott A. Magie

I agree with you about Being John Malkovitch!

How's Missoula? Both Ky and I went to U of M.

Ian BA 1985, English Literature
Ky BA 1987, Business Administration/Marketing (Which comes in handy)

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From: TSSINC Mar-27 10:38 am
To: ALL (1 of 2)
545.1 next

I don't normally comment on the Academy Awards, but this year was too much.
Well, I think the producers of the Oscar finally blew cover.

First, with two small exceptions, the award recipients were brief in their acceptance speeches and yet the program still ran long! Yessir, I was pleased <not> when the music came up to drown out a recipient in the last two seconds of his speech, so that the next batch of old clips could be screened for five minutes, and Crystal could ad-lib with impunity.

I dunno about anyone else, but I'm getting tired of seeing the same old recycled clips as well. "History from two million years ago to now according to moviemakers?" Pu-le-e-se! Why not be more honest, since a good percentage of the clips were from fiction anyway, and say, "We thought you might have forgotton these old film scraps we showed last year, so we dusted them off and decided to run them again in no particular order, and with no attempt at a theme." I don't wonder that Morgan Freeman looked pissed.

And what the heck was that with Isaac Hayes? It says a lot for his professionalism that he sat through a fog that was so thick that the audience was waiting for a foghorn blast and reprise of the Titanic theme. I know that had I been in his shoes, I would have walked off the set. "You can't see me though this sh__! Screw you guys, I'm going home!"

During the same medley, Ray Charles looked as though someone had shoved a piano into his stomach to pin him to the set wall in back of him. Top off his segment with Burt B. playing over Charles fingering of what was probably an unstrung piano, and a pattern begins to emerge.

Billy Crystal's remark for the co-star of Green Mile "I see white people out there!" fit right into the mix. Cap _that_ one off with a shot of the (again black) dumpster diver that found the lost Oscars being barbed with "This is fine but now I want to direct." and I was beginning to wonder if the next production number was going to feature all the southern actors dressed in white robes and hoods doing a Bob Fosse kick-step turn.

All of this may have been an unintentional slight of blacks and an odd coincidence, but in any event the cummulative effect was thoughtless, rude, and an embarassment to the industry.

One also has to wonder about the correctness of applauding the actors that died over the past year. Is the audience applauding to say "Thank-goodness he's dead!" or is it a post-humous popularity contest? "And the dead actor Oscar goes to..."

And what was the on-again off-again hosting by Crystal? Did he get to pick and choose what he introduced? Or did the Don Pardo stand-in have some purpose? Judging from the camera shots he wasn't directly visible to the audience.

I did wish that this announcer could have done the singing that Crystal attempted. To say that Billy Crystal was flat would be a disservice to the word. I had visions of union musicians demanding ear protectors and popping vallium just to make it past the opening skit.

By the end of the telecast, the faces in the audience were again looking like tired masks of guys wanting desperately to take a pee break and go home.

Judging from all the comments throughout the show, I think the two real reasons that everyone was there were that Jack Nicholson was there, and for the off chance that Warren B.'s wife would pop out a kid dressed in full tux during the telecast.

The three people that could have made the show more interesting with off-the-cuff comments, Robin Williams, Jane Fonda, and Steven Speilburg, were locked into appearances as constrained as Ray Charles stomach, making this show one of the dullest I've ever seen.

My advice for the producers of this years show is -
"Give it up guys. Let Fox produce the ceremony next year. Fox might at least include some wild police chases and gratuitous sex and violence. And for Pete sake, put a trigger lock on any musical note in the vicinity of Billy Crystal."

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Oh yeah, Ian... I forgot to mention... I'm actually an alumnus of MSU-Bozeman, not UofM.
1999 - Bachelor of Arts in Media & Theatre Arts (Motion Picture/Video Production Option)
Go Cats!
(Please don't hate me!)

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Scott A. Magie

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