Reactions to the 2009 Oscars - Page 3

The host, Hugh Jackman, however, came away largely unscathed by many of the ceremony’s problems and, if anything, the great, natural talent and showmanship he has shown on Broadway gained wider visibility and will earn him more notice. His opening number showcasing cardboard cutout scenarios from the Oscar-nominated films (after cracking a joke that the current state of the economy has caused this downsizing) were quite hilarious, from re-enacting the game show from Slumdog Millionaire, putting his face through holes on top of cardboard drawings of reverse aging or replaying the duel of Frost/Nixon in a surprising duet with Anne Hathaway. Then, the skit with Tina Fey and Steve Martin that followed and presented the screenplay Oscars was a comedic jewel, particularly the opening line when Fey said, “It has been said that to write is to live forever,” and Martin replied, “The man who wrote that is dead.”

There were two more distinctly memorable moments, however. One was when James Marsh’s Man on Wire won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature and Philippe Petit came up on stage to perform a magic trick and then tried balancing the Oscar on his nose for several seconds. The other was the “In Memoriam” montage that had the brilliant background addition of Queen Latifah’s beautiful live rendition of “I’ll Be Seeing You.” Numerous significant people passed on in the past year such as Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack (who were posthumous nominees for producing The Reader), Bernie Mac, Roy Scheider, Ricardo Montalban, Isaac Hayes, Charlton Heston and, of course, Paul Newman. Having Latifah’s smoothly legato jazz singing voice was a masterstroke and did wonders for capturing the perfectly reverent tone for the annual tribute.

What really, really fell flat though was the idea of performing the medley of the three songs nominated for Best Original Song right before announcing the winner. I had shivers thinking about how they will awkwardly combine the more Bollywood-styled songs like “Jai Ho” and “O Saya” from Slumdog Millionaire and the slower, more contemplative song, “Down to Earth” from WALL·E (which was performed in the ceremony by John Legend). When they actually shamelessly meshed “Down to Earth” with “Jai Ho” at the end, it was really like fingernails on a chalkboard and I was literally shaking my head in disbelief. They were not just ramming globalization down our throats but the entire globe itself. When they announced the final winner, “Jai Ho,” I was simply glad that it was over and maybe wished the Bollywood dancers and performers would do just that song again to make me forget what just happened.

Article Author: moviejohn

Joo-Wang John Lee is a computer programmer at Binghamton University by day and a movie critic by hobby. Upon insistent suggestion from people around him, he finally decided to start critiquing movies in writing instead of just verbal form among his friends. …

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