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
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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”
I actually enjoyed the opening number with Hugh and Anne. I thought that wasn’t bad. I did NOT like Beyonce there and thought that blew. I was also VERY disappointed that the cameras cut to Angie when Jennifer was speaking. I thought that was tacky and that the Oscars should have been far above that. I was also REALLY sad that Mickey Rourke didn’t win, but that’s not about production. Oh and Ben Stiller nailed it with his bit. It didn’t suck as bad as past shows. It would have been far better had Mickey won though because everyone loves a good comeback kid. It gives us hope.
Overall, a great telecast with Hugh Jackman as the host and the funniest moment had to be Ben Stiller doing his Joaquin Phoenix impersonation. I nearly was red in the face. The acceptance by Ledger’s family and seeing the faces of the celebrities in reaction was the moment of the night. The musical numbers may have been overdone but still in good style to celebrate a genre that once saved Hollywood.
I think I would have rather seen Anne Hathaway do the giant musical number with Hugh (et al) than Beyonce. She was so cute in the opening.
The memoriam segment was not great. I like Queen L, but singing over projections was distracting. Also…how the heck did they miss Harvey Korman? The production seemed disjointed.
I thought the telecast was one of the best in recent memory. It managed to be inclusive, honoring filmmaking and the tradition of filmmaking rather than the usual inside-joke exclusivity that I think is very off-putting to the audience at large. Hugh Jackman did a terrific job, the Judd Apatow short was hilarious, Tina Fey and Steve Marin were delightful, and I really enjoyed device of the five past winners in an acting category lauding each of the five current nominees. Even the scripted banter was funnier this year. Kudos to all involved.
Biggest complaint for all of us watching was the constant moving camera during the In Memoriam. Nobody was able to see the names or the their title, and sometimes the camera completely blocked access to the deceased person’s image. We would ask the Academy to fix this for next year so that we can see everything rather than the back of the wall and the performer. Treat it as a real In Memoriam.
Bring back Billy Crystal, Steve Martin even. Huge Jackman looked awkward and other than his performance with Beyonce he failed miserably.
I wish the Oscars schedule would have given more time for Hugh Jackman to loosely banter with members of the audience, academy, etc. It was jam-packed with so many scheduled productions and drawn-out nominee presentations that it left little room for improv, which Jackman excels at.
Hugh Jackman’s singing and dancing talents totally toook us by surprise. Who would’ve guessed Wolverine could kick up his heels and hold his own? Great job…worth tuning in to see his command of the stage.
Hugh Jackman’s singing and dancing talents totally toook us by surprise. Who would’ve guessed Wolverine could kick up his heels and hold his own? Great job…worth tuning in to see his command of the stage.
Ug, this was one of the worst Oscar presentations that I’ve seen. It felt like watching the Tonys. Hated the opening musical number, and really loathed the song and dance number that celebrated the comeback of the musical(do we really want to celebrate that?). Also missed seeing the clips of the nominated performances. Bring back Steve Martin as host! He and Tina Fey were the highlight of the show. Also, congratulations to Kate W. for a well-deserved win!
i cried when heath ledger won, but i turned off the oscars after i realized the totally overrated slumdog millionare was going to win everything (yes, i did see it)
It is frustrating to see just a few moview win everything. It makes one think the vote is very political.
Ben Stiller by a mile. Even those of us who didn’t see Mr. Phoenix on Letterman got the joke and Ben played it perfectly. I needed the laugh, too.
my 2 1/2 cents:
1) no! nooo! the musical is NOT alive. especially not when NONE OF THE NOMINATED FILMS THIS YEAR ARE MUSICALS. the number with beyonce was unnecessary, as was the attendance of zack efron and kid’s choice what’s her face. hugh, buddy, we know you can sing and dance. once is enough. ugh.
2) 5 former winners praising the nominees? really quit beautiful … and kind of intimate and personal… and kind of not necessary. i’d much rather have seen clips to be honest, so the PERFORMANCES were recognized over the actors.
3)the montages??? waste of time. what was the point, really, in having half secind cuts of films squished together. that time could have been better used on showcasing the best picture nominees, none of which we ever got to see clips of.
4) jennifer aniston???! really??? you guys HAD to go there? what a waste. tacky. tacky. tacky.
5) loved the category clumping together. loved not so much having to see sarah jessica parker on stage for that long