Who wants to be a Slumdog Millionaire? Just about anyone right now. So what did you think of last night’s Oscar telecast, from the scaled-back red carpet to the cabaret-ific hosting of Hugh Jackman? We want your opinion in our Oscar Reader’s Poll. Be sure to go to the jump for the rest of our questions — and then weigh in on what you liked and disliked about the show.
More Oscar content:
Oscars: The best/worst moments
Oscars: Best/worst fashion
Oscars: The view from backstage
Oscars telecast: Ken Tucker’s take
Biggest snub….Milk winning best original screenplay over In Bruges. An absolute atrocity.
BEST Oscars in a very long time – Jackman was superb, production design was gorgeous-old Hollywood glam-y, the 5 previous winners format was a stroke of genius and the writing for them was touching and sincere, Ben Stiller was hysterical…the only negative I can think of, well two, were the delayed black sheer curtain opening and Daniel Craig. otherwise, thoroughly entertaining and a delight to watch ALL the way through!
I liked the show overall, but I thought the music got in the way of a lot of the dialogue.
Hugh Jackman is a triple threat and a wonderful host. Why did they have to go and spoil things by adding Beyonce? I am SO over her.
When will the oscar telecast producers understand that viewers don’t want production numbers?!? Save them for the Tonys (which has even lower ratings I might add.) Hugh Jackman is very talented, but his performance seemed wrong for this event. Cheesy if you ask me. I loved the intimacy of the new seating, but if you’re trying to make a telecast shorter, having five actors/actresses each introduce a nominee by kissing their ass on national television is not the way to do it. Just give us pretty and talented stars to look at, some clips and the friggin awards! That’s all we care about as viewers. And PLEASE bring back Steve Martin as host. He was great with Tina Fey last night.
I’m sad a lot of the stars were told to skip the red carpet. That is my favorite part!
I was a bit disappointed in the general lack of surprises among the winner, and that “Frost/Nixon” was the only Best Picture nominee not to win anything. But I’m happy for Kate (finally), Penelope (yet another woman wins for working with Woody Allen
), Heath (God rest his soul), and the winners for “Milk” (Sean and Dustin).
Hugh Jackman was a wonderful host (I actually wanted to see more of him!), and the musical numbers were fine.
The one part that I can honestly say pissed me off, though, was the direction of the “In Memoriam” — I didn’t mind the singing (which sort of downplayed the Applause-O-Meter aspect), but with the stupid camera moving around to different screens rather than still-framing a montage of the faces, it was damned near impossible to read some of the names (even on a big-screen TV).
was it REALLY a surprise that MIA wasn’t there??? seriously woman just, like just, had a baby after managing to perform on the grammy’s the night of her due date!!! cut the girl some slack
Horrible telecast. Hugh Jackman is horribly overrated. The song and dance schtick is so passe. Dull and trite.
considering these are the people that get paid millions to entertain us for a living, i thought the production was very weak.
The problem is, if you read all the comments, clearly there are plenty of people who like the big production numbers. I didn’t love the Beyonce extravaganza but I loved the opening (Anne Hathaway!!!). Those were really the only 2 production numbers. The nominated songs they do every year and the clip montages aren’t production numbers. I will agree that there were too many clip montages. Oh, and while I’m at it… PEOPLE!! Stop complaining about Heath Ledger not being in the In Memorium thing…. he was in it LAST YEAR!
I liked the show as a whole. I really liked the past winners presenting the acting awards. My biggest complaint was the salute to those who have passed away. The screen images were so small that they were hard to see. I would rather they focused on the people in the tribute than seeing Queen singing!
My Wife likes to check out the dresses. We usually cut that cra off right there, but when there was not a lot of anti-religion and politics, we stayed tuned. Oh Bill Moyer had to do his little anto religion bit and Sean Penn had to make politcal statements as that is what he really is about, being a well paid commie anti-american, but by them we wanted to see which movie ( I assure you we have not seen a one of them! ) won.
Oscars? I watched ‘High School Musical III’ on ABC instead. The weird thing was there were a lot of notable actors in this production.
Teh whole musical number thign is hit and miss. I usually dont like them or think they are worth it. However, lots of the oscar audience digs them. Ergo the problem, for a show that needs to do sooo much it is the wrong call.
Personally give John Stweart deadpanning the whole show.
Also more credit be given to the fantastic speech given by Milk’s author!
Oh and a fun conspiracy theory for you:Mickey Rourke shafted because his acceptance speech woudl be too vulgar?
Not that Sean Penn isn’t good but come on…I already saw “I am Sam”