Jim's random comments about this year's OSCAR telecast

Random thoughts on tonite’s OSCAR telecast:

The new producers of the show promised a bunch of “changes” and “surprises”. Overall, they actually DELIVERED on that, from a beautiful sparking crystal-infused set to a nice, energetic pacing with host Hugh Jackman and a number of musical numbers, and striking video montages mixing story lines and speeches from the past with ones from current movies (& the ’08 nominated efforts tended to be shown in more effective ways than in most previous shows)!…

… Everything wasn’t fine: some of the scripted “banter” was weak (as in past shows); and, while the new songs specially-created for the show had good intentions, they often weren’t very clever or especially good (tho the dancing and big-cast numbers were usually impressive)… Jerry Lewis fittingly won the Hersholt Humanitarian award, for his fantastic work raising like $ 2 billion for kids afflicted with MS…

… One of the biggest complaints I’ve had about past shows is, they seldom really honor and utilize people who’ve helped CREATE our current memories about films and movie-going. One of the major improvements this year was the efforts to CHANGE that, by bringing in 5 PREVIOUS-winning stars to give special announcements directly to the new nominees about their nominated work:

… That was done for Supporting and Leading actors & actresses, etc. For example, 1962 Oscar winner Sophia Loren (whom I met at a Chicago Int’l Film Festival tribute a number of years ago & who still looks great at nearly 75) spoke directly to nominee Meryl Streep about her wonderful career of 15 Nominations including for “DOUBT” this year; and 1984 “Terms of Endearment” Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine spoke directly to Anne Hathaway about her past, present and future work. It brought a fine “PERSONALIZING” element to the show, while it allowed the audience (both in the theater and at home) to appreciate and honor some of the industry’s past…

“SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE” — as expected — was the big winner, with 8 Oscars including as Best Picture; each of the winners (and the entire large cast and crew flown in for the show) appeared truly THRILLED and appreciative to have won (which is always a pleasure to see). Kate Winslet, on her 6th try, finally WON (as Leading Actress for “THE READER”), and gave a fine, touching acceptance speech…

… Sean Penn (who appropriately won for Leading Actor in “MILK”) gave a speech that was both sincere and humorous at times. And, he made some political commentaries, including echoing some of the essence of “Milk” by saying “We’ve got to have EQUAL RIGHTS for everyone!”… Overall, an impressive and WELL-DONE show in my opinion.