2012 Oscars Review

[rauldc14]

Not really a review, but a few random comments.

- I know the Academy barely ever gets it right, but in my opinion it was a huge miss to give Dujardin best actor over Clooney. Clooney pulled off the best performance for an actor in my opinion.

-I felt it was a pity vote win for Streep. I haven't seen The Iron Lady, but I've heard despite a good (yes, just good) Streep performance, The Iron Lady wasn't anything spectacular. Davis made The Help a solid movie.

-I don't care if I am a Descendants homer or not, it definitely deserved more oscars. The Iron Lady had more wins that it for crying out loud.

-Well deserved win for Octavia Spencer. In a year with possibly better supporting parts than leading roles for actresses, she deserved it, even over Chastain, McCarthy, Bejo, Woodley, etc. etc.

-Billy Crystal was a good host for the show this year. The beginning of the show was very entertaining to me.

-At least The Artist beat out Hugo. The Artist was my 2nd favorite film that I'd seen out of the nominees, so it could have been much more disappointing. I do like the fact that it got appreciation despite being a silent black and white film, and who knows maybe it could grow on me even more with a 2nd watch.

-Very solid pick with Midnight in Paris winning for best screenplay. It was pure genious on Woody Allen's part, and it was the screenplay that made the movie a fairly decent flick.

Thoughts/comments?

[Yoda]

Haven't seen Clooney, but even if he was truly excellent it's hard to imagine it being a huge mistake to give it to Durjardin, who had an exceptionally difficult job, for obvious reasons. But I'll have to see the film to see if I agree with the choice or not. I do love Durjardin, though, so I was happy for him.

I wouldn't say Streep's was a "pity" vote. How can you pity someone who'd won twice and been nominated 17 times? Do you mean pity for the disparity between the two numbers? She's in rare company even so. Anyway, I feel (whether the facts bare this out or not, I don't know) that the Academy sort of artificially favors people who haven't won, so that it's harder for someone to win multiple acting Oscars these days. It feels like, if it's close, they'll go with the new face, if only because it can sometimes be boring to give it to Hanks or Streep again and again, even if their performance merits it. For that reason alone I was pleased to see her win. Davis was lovely, to be sure, but Streep is a force of nature. It's just a pleasure to get to see it happen, because her career's going to remain utterly unrivaled for decades, I expect.

Agree about Spencer, Crystal, and Midnight in Paris. I think Crystal did a good job, the opening was great, and when things fell flat I'm inclined to blame the writing. And yeah, Allen's screenplay was particularly fun and creative. Really dug the movie.

[rauldc14]

It's weird because I'm not even a Clooney fan, but I thought it was one of the better performances in quite sometime. Though maybe I can just relate to the film a bit more than others.

Maybe I didn't mean pity vote. I just felt like a lot of people could have been inclined to say "can you believe it? she has been nominated all these times and hasn't won since 1982" type of deal. And she's been nominated 17 times, yet one of her strongest performances (The Hours) wasn't even nominated. She's gifted to be sure, but I don't think she took the movie to a whole new level, because it isn't even that highly thought of. I guess I should maybe she the performance though, instead of babbling.

Another thought, I think if Bejo was put on the ballot for best actress, she should have won (or at least given Davis a run for it). To me she was the biggest part of the success of the film for me, yet she didn't get awarded (tough luck vs. Spencer obviously).

[TheUsualSuspect]

I felt the show was rather boring and predictable at times. Crystal was a little tame and there were no REAL surprises.

Maybe next year will be more entertaining? At least it was better than last year.

[alby]

I felt the show was rather boring and predictable at times. Crystal was a little tame and there were no REAL surprises.

Maybe next year will be more entertaining? At least it was better than last year.

I agree 100%. I don't know what needs to happen personally, but there's no denying something has to change.