Writing for the Carpetbagger, Tony Scott:
A Small Oscars
By A.O. ScottIt looks like they might bring this one in at under three hours, so I’ll curb my complaining. And I’ll close by noting that this seemed not only like a relatively brief Oscar ceremony, but a small one. Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come. Like it or not, the movies have lost their pop-cultural supremacy, and the fate of the Oscars may either be to go after a vanished mass appeal or to scale down, acknowledge the shrinking of the audience and turn into something like the Tonys. More of a coterie affair, appealing to the aficionados and the curious. It would be an honorable outcome.
And the 3 hour, 20+ minute Oscars telecast ended, fittingly for tonight, with more Tony’s-style music. On a dark stage devoid of color or interest.¬†Followed by a tacky montage of upcoming movies at the end of the show. And, once again, AMPAS committed public suicide.
I have a lot of thoughts right now. The amazing show that Bill Condon and Larry Mark should be so, so proud of, a glorious night for what I feel to be the year’s best film, pleasant surprises and strangely easy-to-handle disappointments…this is the best Oscar telecast I’ve ever seen. And it’s doubly sweet, since I don’t believe I’ve gone 21/24 on my predictions in a long, long time — if ever.