Last night’s Oscars was funny (at least, the talents of Billy Crystal were certainly still up to par), with dull moments of – dare I say it? – predictability. People avoided political statements, more or less (the biggest one was, surprisingly, not from Sean Penn (who made some incoherent WMD reference) but from the director of “Fog of War” (the documentary where Robert McNamara, ex-secretary of Defense, tries to explain how/why the USA went into the Vietnam War)), putting aside Crystal’s amusing lines. It was, stunning enough, “The Lord of the Rings” all the way through. I saw it coming, but didn’t really think it would happen, and once it did happen, it was, well, boring. Sort of. For five minutes, I muttered, “Yeah, so they’re just giving ‘LOTR’ everything but best picture?” But, it didn’t happen – it went as planned and it felt… not exciting.
On the other hand, it wasn’t as if I felt the need to change channels. It was immensely watchable tv- not one cringeworthy moment. Moving tributes to Bob Hope and Katherine Hepburn. Tribute to director Blake Edwards (why was Jim Carrey the presenter of Edwards’ lifetime achievement award, I do not know – they could’ve picked someone better). Charlize Theron was moving in accepting her award. But, it was still… lacking in a buzzy feeling. Even the feeling of “Boy, they’re just not going to end on time” wasn’t there. (they ended on good time – 12:10, as I predicted at 11:30pm and realized how much good pace they actually had). Did the five-second tape delay (to avoid any possible bad language) really affected anything?
Blame it on Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake, I guess – we can’t get no excitement like we used to anymore. Kudos to LOTR anyway; good movie all around.