Silver Linings Gradebook: Commentary on the 85th Academy Awards

After months of award ceremonies, Oscar campaigns, and tight races, Argo has risen above the competition to claim the prize for Best Picture. It was virtually unstoppable in the past few months, proven by it's win at last night's ceremony. Argo has cemented it's place in the pantheon of 85 films to ever take the Best Picture award. However, Argo's legacy will forever be plagued by two lackluster "achievements": it now joins Driving Miss Daisy as being the fourth film in Academy history to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination; and, it is the third Best Picture in the past forty years to only take three total awards. 

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, you could have done better. 

I've said it once and I'll say it again: 2012 remains one of the best cinematic years in recent history. With movies like Lincoln, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, and Les Miserables finally and successfully seeing the light of day, there were multiple choices for the best motion picture of 2012. The Academy went with the fairly average thriller. I am not saying that Argo was bad; but, in a year with so many great options, they could have chose better. 

As for the show itself, the 85th Academy Awards brilliantly shined at it's extremely high points, but was miserably bogged down by it's extremely low points. In order to show readers what I mean, here is a breakdown of the different segments of the Oscars: 

The Opening Monologue: Seth MacFarlane seemed like the logical choice for Oscar host. He has an expansive knowledge of pop culture, would appeal to a younger audience, and has experience in putting on a good show. And for at least the first part of the night, he did that. MacFarlane kept his jokes appropriate and not too mean (except for the unnecessary "boob song"), and the audience at least seemed to enjoy the show. The Captain Kirk portion was a nice surprise and pretty funny, but drug out for too long. And props to MacFarlane for dressing up in the flying nun costume and exchanging jokes with Sally Field. After a few song-and-dance numbers that featured a seemingly random mix of celebrities, the show finally got started. A little long for an opening monologue, and a little repetitive, but all in all not too bad. Three and a half out of five stars. 

The Presenters: Like every other year, the Academy Awards boast multiple presenters who attempt to crack (usually) unfunny jokes. This year, they were exeptionally bad. Melissa McCarthy and Paul Rudd's awkward joke reel was terrible, as was Mark Wahlberg and Ted's. Viewers looked forward to presenters who actually gave genuine compliments and not distasteful cracks. Also, the show wasted two key opportunities, reuniting The Avengers and Chicago casts, by giving them poor material to work with. The Avengers have people who are especially funny together, and they could have done so much with the five guys. Even the producers of the Oscars, who also produced the movie Chicago, could not make their own cast shine. Zeta-Jones and company looked bored and awkward together, and the least they could have done was sing a little. And no matter how you feel politically, Michelle Obama's appearance was just inappropriate; the Oscars are an international celebration of movies that should not be closed by someone completely unrelated to the film industry. For the biggest award of the evening, the Academy needed Jack Nicholson to actually present. The presenters of the Academy Awards remained an extreme low of the evening. One out of five stars.

The Orchestra: This year, the orchestra was in another building away from the show. All in all, they did a good job of playing recognizable movie scores throughout the evening. They celebrated various winners of the past, and even featured a few popular movie songs that were not Oscar winners. But, the biggest fault of the orchestra was how they "encouraged" winners to end their speeches. Instead of playing the friendly Oscar theme, the orchestra instead blasted the Jaws theme song over acceptance speeches. It was rude, unnecessary, and cruelly interrupted people's once in a lifetime opportunities. Three and a half out of five stars. 

The 50 Years of James Bond Tribute: I was really looking forward to this one. The James Bond franchise has been infamously snubbed by the Oscars in the past, so this was a rare opportunity to reconcile with the past. But, of course, the lame theme of the evening (Music in the Movies) prevented the producers from doing anything good with this. The 50 Years of James Bond Tribute was rushed, and shamefully represented the longest-running movie series of all time. Introduced by Bond Girl Halle Berry, the montage was choppy and poorly done. It did not even show the best parts of the series. They limited an awesome franchise to simply it's music, but did not even feature any other Bond song besides the theme and "Live and Let Die". The only reason I'm giving this section a somewhat good rating is because of the legendary Dame Shirley Bassey's performance. As someone who grew up on James Bond and "Goldfinger", it was really special to see her perform live. She's still got the midas touch; I just wish the producers could have helped show that Bond does too. Two out of five stars. 

The Celebration of Movie Musicals of the Last Decade: The highlight of the evening was easily The Celebration of Movie Musicals of the Last Decade. It was so cool to see Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jennifer Hudson return to their Oscar-winning roles in Chicago and Dreamgirls, respectively; they proved that they could still be excellent performers years later. And the entire Les Miserables cast performing "One Day More" was very touching, considering it will probably be their last performance all together. It brought the film's journey full circle, and it was a nice tribute to movie musicals. Five out of five stars. 

The In Memoriam: There's clear favoritism on the producer's end of the Academy Awards. While the Bond tribute was short and choppy due to supposed "time restraints", the Barbara Streisand song extended the In Memoriam section to great lengths. Yes, it was very well done and the In Memoriam was good (even though it missed quite a few big names). But could they not have had Streisand sing during the slide show instead of the orchestra, and chop at least five-ten minutes from the run time? Three out of five stars. 

The Best Original Song Nominees: Adele brought down the house with "Skyfall". She remains an artist who's songs are best performed live, but too bad the Academy could not have provided her with a more exciting backdrop. The Norah Jones song could have been done so much better, as it is a jazz compilation that was written by the host of the show. Instead, they threw her in at the last minute, right before they announced that she would lose the Oscar. However, Adele's performance was worth the price of admission, and she definitely deserved the Academy Award. Three and half out of five stars.

Seth MacFarlane: Though he started off fairly PG-rated, by the end, Seth MacFarlane went back to increasingly inappropriate and racy jokes. He had a few good one-liners, but was overshadowed by the bad ones. Though a little inappropriate, the John Wilkes Booth crack was pretty funny and probably the best of his jokes. I have a feeling the audience got scared whenever MacFarlane walked onto the stage; he went from being a potential replacement to Billy Crystal to a host in the fashion of Ricky Gervais. Plus, the closing number with Kristen Chenoweth was awkward and not funny. Much like the show itself, Seth MacFarlane shined at extremely high points, but failed at extremely low points. Three out of five stars. 

The Winners: And now for the winner's wrap up. Remember: when everything is said and done, the Oscars are the only awards that matter. Ready? Here we go.

Argo was a very good movie, but should not have won Best Picture. There were multiple other nominees, like Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook, that should have won in Argo's place. Best Director surprisingly went to Ang Lee for Life of Pi; he beat Steven Spielberg and brought Life of Pi the evening's most awards with four. I was a little shocked and annoyed at this choice at first, but I now realize that Ang Lee's work was incredible, as he brought a supposedly "un-filmable" novel to the big screen with much success. He has now set a new precedent by being the only two-time Best Director winner to not have a Best Picture film.

The acting awards were, for the most part, not too surprising. Daniel Day-Lewis took Best Actor for Lincoln, one of the greatest performances in motion picture history. He is now the only actor in Oscars history to have three Best Actor awards, solidifying his place among the acting greats. Silver Lining Playbook's Jennifer Lawrence rightfully took Best Actress for a role that made her constantly switch personalities. She has had a great year, cumulating in this award that makes her the second-youngest winner of the award and the youngest actress with two Best Actress nominations. Dark horse Christoph Waltz claimed Best Supporting Actor for his work in Django Unchained, beating tough competition and earning him his second Oscar in five years. Favorite Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for her tragic work in Les Miserables; she deserved an Oscar if not only for her powerful performance of "I Dreamed a Dream".

Other Academy Awards went to Best Screenplay winners Argo and Django Unchained, and Life of Pi won several technical achievements. "Skyfall" became the first James Bond theme to ever win an Oscar. The biggest surprise of the evening was easily the Best Sound Editing Oscar, which resulted in a rare Academy tie. The winners were Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall, and it remains only the sixth time the Oscars have ever resulted in a tie. Both of these films equally deserve the honor, as they each demonstrated strong sound qualities. I am highly impressed by the Academy spreading the awards around to several deserving films, and I agree with the majority of the winners. Four out of five stars.

Overall, this was a fairly average ceremony that could have been so much more. With the high quality of presenters, performers, and nominees, I am a little disappointed that the Academy did not do more with what they had. But, there were a few memorable Oscar moments that are bound to make history. I hate to give it an average rating, but seeing as that's how I felt about it, I really have no other choice. Therefore, I give the 85th Academy Awards three out of five stars.

Thank you for joining Movie Critic's Club over the past few months as we have covered this year's awards race. I hope that you have enjoyed discussing all things Oscar, and have learned a little in the process, too. I look forward to making this coverage an annual event. We will return to normal blog discussions on this week's Flashback Friday. Thank you, and enjoy your movie viewing time.