Published on February 27th, 2012 | by simeon

Oscar Impressions

It is early morning and had some time to digest last night’s Oscars. Honestly, I was very underwhelmed by the show as it’s become rather bloated and stiff. I made the joke that there was more life in last night’s episode of The Walking Dead than a large number the nominees in the audience in attendance.

I think unfortunately I become really jaded towards the show because years ago I learned from a studio executive that the nominations are bought and paid for and it often comes down to who has the best marketing campaign who makes the biggest push during crunch time and so on.

I’m still absolutely perplexed over how “Hugo” won so many awards especially passing up films in the visual effects category that had far greater effects going for them. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with some of the winners specifically Meryl Streep for her performance in “The Iron Lady” when it had largely been assumed “Viola Davis” was going to win for her performance in “The Help”. I also have to admit little bit of shock in the wins for “The Artist” specifically in the best director and best picture category, not to say that the film isn’t worthy it’s just that foreign-language films or in this case very little language films often tends to be overlooked in terms of larger mass-market films.
Woody Allen was also a suprise winner and in keeping with his dislike of award shows was not on hand.

I’m not going to do a complete recap of the winners is that’s all over the Internet but I will say congratulations to the winners and the nominees as well as for Billy Crystal for doing his best to keep the ship on course even though it’s become painfully obvious that the Oscars are desperately need a shakeup permits tired and plodding format.