Five Worst Oscar Telecast Moments
The saddest moment during the Oscars in my household Sunday night came when the cache of saved footage ran out on the Tivo and we were no longer able to fast-forward through the commercials -- and the boring parts. (We tuned in a half-hour late after watching The Amazing Race.)
There was an abundance of both commercials AND boring parts. And this in a year when, for the first time in personal memory, I really didn't care who won. Slumdog? OK. The Reader? Sure. Milk? Why not? Just get on with it and get it over.
One innovation that did work: Having the acting awards presented by a council of elders, as it were, past winners of the same award, each of whom directly addressed a single nominee. When they did it for supporting actress, I had an "uh-oh" moment, thinking, "If they do this for every award, we're in for a long evening." Thankfully, they trotted it out for only the acting awards -- and it had a nice emotional weight to it.
Otherwise, this reconfigured Oscars telecast failed for a much simpler reason: It was the most ineptly directed Oscar show ever. Over and over again, producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon made sure the cameras were focused in the wrong place, draining several key moments of their dramatic impact. They repeatedly had the cameras trained on their ever-changing series of stage sets, which dwarfed the video screens showing the footage that the at-home audience really wanted to see.
Here are the five worst moments from the telecast:
5. Weak writing and nobody presenters: I'm sorry -- Zac Efron as an Oscar presenter? Sure, the guy is box office -- at least in the High School Musical series -- but what else has he done? By that logic, the show should have been hosted by Tyler Perry (each of whose movies has done more business than Australia). With the exception of Steve Martin and Tina Fey (who, I would imagine, wrote their own dialogue), the banter between presenters was incredibly thin; Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston gave me chills of embarrassment. While Hugh Jackman's opening number was clever and energetic, nothing he said afterward was worth repeating -- or remembering.
4. Distracting graphics: When the nominees for each category were announced, the images of them were squeezed into a rectangle even smaller than a letter-box image, in the center of the screen -- and then given a split-screen treatment within that tiny rectangle. Even worse, that rectangle was framed by a monochromatic collage of moving images from some of the year's other films. The one that inevitably drew the eye was a shot from Kung Fu Panda, just southeast of main image.
3. Distracting sets: One of the Marks' and Condon's "innovations" was to present the awards in an order that would tell the story of how a movie is made. But for several of the most visual of these awards, you couldn't see anything BUT the set. For the set and costume design awards, for example, presenters Daniel Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker stood in front of a set within which were hung several video screens, which showed the designs the presenters were talking about. But the viewing audience never got the direct feed of those video images -- and was forced to try to discern what was on screens that were seen in miniature in the background. Were Condon and Marks afraid that showing the actual images would distract from their genius production design (which, of course, is what we all tune in for, right)?
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Thank Goodness for TiVo - watched what I wanted to watch, and no mind-numbing self congratulatory dreck. And as the author pointed out - really didn't have a strong opionion about who should win.
The one thing I really wanted to see was the tribute part, but instead of running fully on our TV screens for us at home, I was forced to squint my eyes and look at a tiny, overly busy screen behind the presenters....as though they had some kind of "minimal screen time" clause in their contract!
I sat there unable to believe this was really how they were broadcasting this mess. Turned it off and doubt I will ever bother tuning in again.
That was it for me, I can read who won in the paper or here on Huffpo, I'm not wasting any time watching it again.
The kids from HSM were prominently on display because Disney owns the HSM franchise AND ABC. They call that "synergy" in Hollywood. As for me, I'm in favor of Beyonce appearing on TV 24/7. Doesn't hurt my eyes the least little bit!
Eartha Kitt being left out of tribute.
Good call, that was an oversight that should be pointed out by the press as well.
The timing was weirdly disjointed from start to finish. I could not understand for the life of me why there were such long pauses following some patches of script, like the announcing of the name of the award followed by what seemed like an eternity before naming the nominees. Just weird.
i promise you, the initiation of actors peers introducing each nominated actor was brilliant-- the new centerpiece for future oscar shows. --- i promise you, it has set the standard.
Beyonce being there was atrocious. She really brought down the musical number. Singing at last will probably get her another whooping from Etta James.
My god.... was there a single major event this past year that has NOT featured Beyonce?
Whoever is doing her bookings needs to look up the definition of Overkill.
I like her well enough, but this push to keep her front and center is turning her into a product, not an artist.
It sure looked like Jackman was singing live but Beyonce was lip syncing.
I also thought the musical medley for the nominated songs was atrocious. there was enough time to honor each song in its entirety and without making it this huge convoluted number.
I thought that was the best part of the show by far. Although I would have been fine with it going a bit longer.
Totally agree, only highlights were five presenters for the four acting awards, Fey and Martin (who were hilarious), and musical number of the three nominated songs.
The "warehouse" set was awful, not showing the video screens directly, the "frames" that made the actual video content so tiny, the panda clip that I couldn't help but have my eye drawn to every time. Bad stuff.
No mention of Ben Stiller with the fake beard? By far the worst of the night, and one of the worst oscar moments ever. The Lewis moment was odd - the way they cut away when he started making faces made it hard to tell if he was clowning around or having some sort of health related muscle spasm.
They used to have the announcer say how many wins and nominations the winner of each category had, I missed that and spent a lot of the telecast just trying to remember if this was the first win or not for various people.
Jackman had decent execution, but they gave him absolutely no good material to work with. The opening musical number was horribly unfunny, and the "top hat" one in the middle was very odd and disjointed. Seemed like the only oscars I can remember where they didn't even give the host any jokes (or maybe they were just so unfunny I couldn't tell what was supposed to be a joke).
I'm shocked the ratings went up from last year, this was the weakest telecast I've
I loved the Ben Stiller bit. But then again, I was stoned.
I wonder how many people saw the clip they were referencing - for anyone who hadn't, it would make no sense.
Agree with you on almost everything, but I thought the show was entertaining overall and moved along quite well, considering. But the direction did suck, especially during the In Memoriam, I' ve seen Queen Latifah, will see her again. But this is a final tribute to some legends and they don't even get a full screen.
Maybe they thought it was just a bunch of old people who today's viewers couldn't relate to so lets show more of QL because everyone knows her. And were the directors getting paid by the producers of Kung Fu Panda? Should have been a simple matter to put in some different clips for background.
I thought the In Memorium segement was terrible and disrespectful. The home audience could barely see the footage on the screen within a screen, and the shifting around was distracting.
I did like the innovation with the acting award.
I liked idea of ordering the awards in order of filmmaking, but it was poorly executed.
Agreed. The roaming camera was totally worthless.
Totally disagree. This was the BEST OSCAR SHOW EVER. It was not cheesy with ridiculous sniping back and forth and the same old, same old. There was humanity and class represented. I especially loved the five former Oscar winners coming out and talking about each person nominated. The dance numbers were excellent. It was like old Hollywood instead of the ugly obsense one we have had to tolerate.
I agree with you. But what is "obsense"?
You say classy, I say boring.
There were bits I liked, but the show was very much hurting for lack of humor.
The Kung Fu Panda clips playing in the wallpaper while they were announcing the best actor and actress nominees was appalling.
You mean, I'm not the only who thought those orange-y screens surrounding the presenters was trashy. I only remember to rotating images of Kung FU Panda (emphasis on F U). I guess these Hollywood types are really out of touch with real folks as much as the bankers on Wall Street!
I loved it.
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