The 77th Annual Academy Awards (2005) Reviews

• Boring, Disrespectful, and Disgraceful....

  castansfield2005-02-28

  I'm not usually given to hyperbole, but after seeing over two decades worth of Academy Awards, I can honestly say that this year's awards show was the most disgraceful example of poor direction, total cruelty, and sheer stupidity that I've ever had the misfortune to witness. I'm not talking about the awards themselves- as usual, there is plenty to argue about when you tally up who won, who lost, and who never even got nominated, but the process is as it's always been and is as fair as it's liable to be. What is terribly UNfair is the treatment both the "stars" and "non-stars" received at the hands of Cates and Horvitz, in the name of "reducing boredom." It is bad enough that for the last several years anyone who isn't Al Pacino has been "played off" at 45 seconds without any regard for what he was saying, how he was saying it, and what the emotion was behind the statement. It demonstrates nothing more than a total lack of respect, however, to herd nominees on the stage like cattle without paying them the honor of showing their faces while their names are read, to make them slink away quietly when they lose, to deny them the thrill of a walk to the podium, and to force them to read their statements with their backs to the audience. All of those things were done to the "non-stars" -never mind that the movies wouldn't exist at all without those artists and that most of them only ever get one chance to face their peers and their audience. The stars didn't fare much better. It's becoming more sad than funny when winners of the caliber of Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood have to beg for a few extra seconds for their speeches. Chris Rock, as host, was neither as inflammatory and controversial as the Academy had hoped, nor nearly as funny as he could be. His opening remarks were almost (but not quite) as offensive as Sean Penn made them out to be, and his comments during the show were more innocuous than interesting. Of course, he could hardly be blamed when it was clear that was being kept on as short a leash as any host has. In the end, Chris Rock was something he's almost never been before: a non-entity. Even the musical numbers were handled poorly. Beyonce sang well, but there was simply no reason why she should have been featured in three out of the five songs. Another example of utter disrespect for an artist was giving Jorge Drexler's nominated song to Antonio Banderas- even though Drexler was present and clearly wouldn't have minded singing his own song, based on his winning "speech." The efforts of Cates and Horvitz to make the show shorter and faster may have worked to a degree, but what resulted was a show devoid of life. We've all whined about the overlong speeches given by people we don't know, about the overblown production, about the self-congratulatory quality. But this is THEIR night- not ours. What is meant to be a celebration has become an insult to the people being celebrated. Cates and Horvitz should, frankly, be ashamed.

• Not as controversial as one may had expect, but surprising to me.

  eddy-282005-03-17

  Many people thought that the 77th Annual Academy Awards were going to be controversial because of Chris Rock taking over as host this time around. We all know of Chris Rock's attitute and comic lines, but he was not as funny as I would have hoped. To begin with, I was disappointed that neither Passion of the Christ or Phantom of the Opera got Best Picture nominations, instead the Academy nominated The Aviator, Ray, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways and Finding Neverland. The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby went head to head for the Oscar for Best Picture with Million Dollar Baby eventually taking the top prize. Clint Eastwood won his second Best Director award for Million Dollar Baby, previously winning in 1993 for Unforgiven. Martin Scorcese probably may have been a better choice for directing The Aviator. In this major breakthrough year for African Americans actors, as expected, comedian Jamie Foxx won Best Actor for his realistic role of real life blues singer Ray Charles in Ray. Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood were also favored to win in the race as well. As for Best Actress, Hilary Swank took home her second award in that category for Million Dollar Baby. Annette Bening, whom had also previously been nominated with Swank in 1999, was nominated for Being Julia. For Best Supporting Actor, I personally thought Thomas Haden Church would win for Sideways or Alan Alda for The Aviator. Morgan Freeman took home that award for Million Dollar Baby, a long overdue and also deserved award. Cate Blacnhett won for her portrayal of screen legend Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. I thought that maybe Natalie Portman would have won for Closer. Director Sidney Lumet was honored with the Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award. One of my favorite segments was somewhat disappointing, the In Memoriam tribute segment remembering the artists that died the year before was done with a musical solo by Yo Yo Ma, I think his cellist performance was not as good as using the Academy orchestra like in previous years, but the Academy did remember quite a few of Hollywood's dearly departed: Ronald Reagan, Peter Ustinov, Carrie Snodgress, Dan Petrie, Dave Raksin, Fay Wray, Carol Eastman, Elmer Bernstein, Frank Thomas, Russ Meyer, Jerry Orbach, Ralph E. Winters, Robert Thompson, Howard Keel, Janet Leigh, Christopher Reeve, Ossie Davis, Mercedes McCambridge, William Sackheim, Ed DiGullio, Paul Winfield, Philippe de Broca, Jerry Goldsmith, Rodney Dangerfield, Virginia Mayo, Tony Randall and Marlon Brando. As special tribute was also given to Johnny Carson, who hosted the Oscars in the past.

• Average ceremony with predictable and lazy winners (spoilers)

  bob the moo2005-03-01

  As is the case every year, the Academy vote for the films, actors etc that have been adjudged to have been the "best" of the past year. In a ceremony hosted by comedian Chris Rock, Million Dollar Baby was head to head with The Aviator as the two big pictures of the year that threw up favourites against each other in many categories. Comedian Jamie Foxx gained two acting nominations for Ray and Collateral in a year that saw him shake off his "ethnic comedy" roots while smaller films such as Vera Drake and Sideways try to compete. And so it was this year that I was forced to watch the highlights of the show because there was no live broadcast available for those of us who do not subscribe to Sky Movies – the only way to see it live this year. In previous years the BBC broadcast it live to the whole UK but, word has it, that the American company behind the Oscars did not like the poor presentation from Jonathon Ross et al (it was poor) in 2004 and took the chance to swap it over to another station. God knows what they will have made of the pathetic showing from Jamie Theaston and Sharon Osbourne then – they were horrible to watch and I was glad I didn't have to endure the whole ceremony with them. Anyway, as a result of them being all over the highlights show I managed to see very little of the actual ceremony (well done Sky – now please give it back to the BBC so we all can see it). However, I quite liked Chris Rock even if I felt he wasn't anything special or interesting; I will always prefer the out and out entertainment value of Billy Crystal rather than the hosts who try and just do stand up material but he was OK. The musical numbers felt like an overdose of Beyonce – no matter how easy on the eye she is, four or five songs was probably too much. The fact that that the show ran shorter by an hour showed that things did work in terms of that but I must admit to just not liking the idea that awards were presented to some people in the aisle of their seats- if their categories are so minor then perhaps they should be done another time like the scientific awards? So to the awards. None of the nominations really stood out to me and the year kind of felt, well, obvious. I quite liked Aviator and Million Dollar Baby but neither was a "great" film and the clambering over them recently had me a bit confused and wondering if I had seen different films from everyone else – certainly Baby's best film award did nothing for me at all. Eastwood's direction was deserved even if Scorsese just needs to win one for the sake of his contribution over the past decades. The acting awards for Baby were also deserved but it was hard to ignore that better performances existed in both categories. Foxx has had a great year so fair enough – but to me Cheadle was the one who really pushed the boat out and was worth me losing £35 on a 33-1 bet on him. The awards went to the nominees that you would guess Hollywood would give them to – there were some close calls here but no real surprises; I only hoped Cheadle would win and I don't think anyone gave things like Sideways etc a cat in hell's chance of winning major awards and spoiling the big boys' party. Overall the ceremony was OK and the awards were mostly deserved if unsurprising and uninspiring. Chris Rock did OK but will hopefully move over for Crystal to come back again and maybe next years the pick of films will be as wide but also throw up a lot more surprises since this years' was pretty obvious and typical for Hollywood. I'm not too upset I missed the live ceremony on the basis of what I did see – but I still say Sky did a poor job and once again used their buying power to show that they want to win viewers by forcing them to buy the packages rather than winning them around. Shoddy at best and made the BBC's messy Jonathon Ross fiasco seem as slick and smooth as silk.

• Bad show but nice winners!

  Boba_Fett11382005-04-02

  Seriously the only good thing about this year ceremony were the winners. Although the ceremony itself was pretty short it still was somewhat boring. I think it's seriously time to look for a new director and producers for the show, who can come up with something REALLY new. It's pretty obvious that they tried to make the show more 'hip' and appealing for a younger audience this year by letting Beyonce perform and letting P. Diddy and Prince present a category. Also letting Chris Rock be the presenter was an attempt to re-new the ceremony and make it more appealing. None of it really worked out. Sure, Chris Rock is a funny guy but he wasn't really a good presenter. I really merely saw him as a guy who just talked every now and then in between of the different categories. His presence wasn't really as 'big' as for instance Billy Crystal's. Also the handing out of the awards was pretty dumb at times. Not letting everybody come to the stage but also handing out some of the awards in the middle of the theater was plain weird. Still, I can't remember being any more satisfied with the award winners. None of the movies really swept away the awards as the last couple of years always had been the case. So does that mean it had been a good year for movies with lots of competitive contestants? I don't think so. I think most of the movies will be largely forgotten in 20 years from now, with the exception of "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Passion of the Christ" maybe. Sure I don't agree with every single award that was handed out this year, for instance Caleb Deschanel should had won for best cinematography, not that I don't like Robert Richardson's work, he really did some amazing work for most of Oliver Stone's work but I really feel that Deschanel deserved the award way more. Also I would had liked seeing Jim Miller and Paul Rubell win for best editing and John Debney for best music. But oh well, there is no way the Academy Awards can please everybody of course, I understand that. There will always be people complaining about the winners. It also was funny to see that most of the award presenters were way more nervous than the nominees and winners. Did Prince said any of the nominees names right at once? And were is Sean Penn's sense of humor? Al Pacino and Jeremy "I hope they missed" Irons were the best presenters of the night. Overall a very forgettable show but with nice winners. 4/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

• What Uruguay was thinking.

  lee_eisenberg2007-01-09

  A day or two after "The 77th Annual Academy Awards", I read an article in The Wall Street Journal about how Uruguay's new populist president Tabare Vazquez had just been sworn in. But it said that the thing on the minds of most Uruguayans was not their new president, but what happened at the Oscars: Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler didn't get to perform his nominated song "Al otro lado del rio", so he sang a few lines when he won. Aside from that, I wonder just what Martin Scorsese has to do to win an Oscar. I mean, "Million Dollar Baby" was good, but Clint Eastwood had already won an Oscar. As for the whole thing about cutting people off before they have a chance to finish their speeches, what are you gonna do? And I do think that Chris Rock was a pretty good host (but I liked Jon Stewart even better the next year). All in all, passable.