I'm glad that Billy Crystal was back as the host - although he's not spectacular, I don't think anybody could have done a better job. Why can't there be any younger, classier actors or comedians who can succeed Crystal? Last year's James Franco and Anne Hathaway were disastrous, but the Academy should keep looking and not simply give up on the young, promising talents. There are a lot of gifted and funny comedians in Hollywood, but none of them is as classy as Crystal. David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Chris Rock have all tried and failed. I'm not sure if Eddie Murphy hadn't backed out, he could have done a better job. Ricky Gervais is funny, but his jokes would have been too irreverent for a formal and traditional ceremony like The Oscars. Why don't they try Jerry Seinfeld next year? Here's a comedian who's classy and quick on his feet, and if I may add, a celebrity whom everybody loves.
I was thrilled that The Artist won three awards - Best Director, Best Picture and Best Actor. If Jean Dujardin lost to George Clooney, that would have been the biggest insult in his entire career! So I was in a great mood until we came to The Best Actress Award being handed to Meryl Streep. But I guess I can live with this one 'loss' for me so long as The Artist swept the rest. I was, of course, delighted that Woody Allen won the Best Original Screenplay even though I think Michel Hazanavicius of The Artist should have won that as well. And typical Woody - he just chose to snub The Oscars again by not showing up.
A couple of likes and dislikes: a lot of impressive gowns on the red carpet - Natalie Portman, Cameron Diaz, Gweneth Paltrow, Rooney Mara, Angelina Jolie and even J.Lo looked stunning. I don't know why Tom Cruise deserved to give out the Best Picture Award at the grand finale, but even he looked amazing at 50! Esperanza Spalding looked and sounded amazing when she took us through who passed away during the last year.
The sharing of experiences with short anecdotes from stars didn't quite work for me. They were neither charming nor funny. But one of the worst moments for me last night had to be Angelina Jolie shamelessly strutting her stuff on stage - one hand on her waist and one leg out of her gown's slit - what's that all about? Her bad taste was shared by Will Ferrell and his sidekick Zach Galifianakis who behaved like bozos and totally out of place on that stage.
Even though Billy Crystal did an okay job as host, The Oscars remains one of the longest and most boring events that we have to sit through once a year. It's definitely high time for the Academy to come up with innovative ideas to jazz this up next year in order to do justice to all the award recipients!
