Why is the Oscar show so tedious? There are few movies of good quality and even when there are they are usually not nominated; the presenters read tedious justifications for each particular award; the recipients read dull and predictable thanks to everyone they've ever known (almost every recipient spoke from their own script; there was less spontaneity than ever); all the nominated songs are insipid and over-produced; there was little acknowledgement this year about the sexual harassment scandals; the host, Jimmy Kimmel, is not at all amusing and has no relationship to the movie industry, etc.
There were only two winning films that I had seen: Coco as best feature animated film, and Jordan Peele for writing Get Out. Coco I have already written about in my movie blog. Get Out, like most contemporary films, looks as though D.W. Griffith had never lived. Get Out, however, is at least a passionate and personal film and is an impressive attempt to make a film about racism that avoids the perils of didacticism by placing itself loosely in the horror genre.
Director Glenn Weiss kept the Oscar show moving as quickly as he could but, as usual, there were too many gimmicks, including a visit to a movie theatre across the street (they could better thank the movie audience by making better movies and fewer cartoons and superhero films) and a jet ski for the shortest acceptance speech (at least they didn't use music to give people the bum's rush or have someone saying "get out," as Kimmel threatened). In spite of constantly reminding us that these were the 90th Academy Awards there was little attempt to connect the current show with the past, except for some hurried montages and a tribute to those who died last year, from which many deceased were absent..
It's clear that the Oscars serve no useful purpose, except perhaps to keep people from making up their own minds what movies are worth seeing. It's not even clear who the members of the Academy are (mostly older white males, as far as we know), whether they have even seen the movies they are voting on or how the nominations are chosen and by whom.
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