90th Academy Awards leave something to be desired
By Jack Murphy // Staff Writer
The Oscars: where millions of people watch Hollywood elites give each other trophies for four hours. This year, Jimmy Kimmel hosted the 90th rendition of the award show, and as usual, it was a rather boring experience. Of course, nothing could possibly top the screw-up that ended the show last year, as that was some of the best television in years, but this show was the first award show since the Me Too movement really took to form. There was a lot of pressure on Kimmel this time around. He had to not only put on a good show, but he also had to address the progress of the movement by bringing to light the atrocities that men like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, Charlie Rose and other members of Hollywood’s elite have committed toward women over the years. How did Kimmel do? He did a good job.
Kimmel’s opening monologue was almost identical to the ones he does at the beginning of his talk show every night. He talked about the progress that has been made with women in Hollywood, but acknowledges that we have a long way to go—not just in Hollywood, but for women all around the globe in all professions. He also asked for every one of the award winners of the night to say whatever they wanted and to promote whatever cause they wanted. Finally, Kimmel offered a prize jet ski to whoever had the shortest speech of the night. Many of the speeches would acknowledge the jet ski, which ruined the joke, but it was still funny when Kimmel introduced it.
“The Shape of Water” took home four awards, which was the most of the night, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score and Best Production Design. Nothing against “The Shape of Water,” as it is a great movie, but it only deserved Best Director and Best Original Score. Best Picture should’ve gone to either “Get Out” or “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and Best Production Design should’ve gone to “Blade Runner 2049,” in my opinion.
It was great to see Gary Oldman, Frances McDormand, Jordan Peele and especially Roger Deakin win an Oscar. Deakin had been nominated 14 times prior to his win this year, and he rightfully deserved it for “Blade Runner 2049.” I might be in the minority on this one, but I was happy to see Kobe Bryant win an Oscar. I’m as big of a basketball fan as they come, and I actually watched the animated short film “Dear Basketball” that he won the award for, and it was fantastic. It was so well done and all hand drawn with beautiful music done by John Williams. However, it was just such an odd thing to hear Kobe Bryant’s name called for an Oscar that it just made my night. Finally, the sketch of all the actors and actresses going into the movie theater to prank the audience watching the sneak preview of “A Wrinkle in Time” was cool. This, however, leads into my criticisms.
Disney owns ABC, the channel that broadcasted the Oscars. “A Wrinkle in Time” is a Disney film. “Black Panther,” a Disney film, was mentioned nine times throughout the night and four times in the opening monologue. A trailer was premiered for the new live action Mary Poppins movie during the commercial break. Finally, Oscar Isaac, Kelly Marie Tran, Mark Hamill and BB-8 all presented two awards, and they star in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”—you guessed it, a Disney film. There are many instances of product placement from Disney throughout the night that I didn’t even mention, but Disney constantly promoting their products throughout the four-hour award show was mentally exhausting and just annoying.
This show was also three hours and 53 minutes long, the fourth longest Oscars in the history of the show. They don’t need to be nearly that long, and the show was not nearly interesting enough to make up for the ridiculous run time. Part of the reason that the ratings were so low this year is that no one wants to stay up and watch a near four-hour award show.
To be fair, there are a multitude of other reasons why the Oscars recorded historically low ratings, but the run time has to be part of the issue. Kimmel did a good job hosting the show and there were many enjoyable moments throughout the night, but this year’s Oscars was certainly not one to remember.