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In an endearing, embarrassing moment that cemented her status as Hollywood’s most adorkable young actress, Jennifer Lawrence tripped on the steps on her way to accepting her Best Actress Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook, prompting a sympathetic standing ovation. “You guys are just standing up because I fell and that’s really embarrassing, but thank you. This is nuts,” said the breathless actress as she accepted the award. (And bonus points to Hugh Jackman, who proved once again that he’s one of the nicest guys in Hollywood by darting up to the stage to help Lawrence up.)
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Another year, another Oscar ceremony, and another fierce debate over the merits of the telecast. As The Artist celebrates its five wins, including Best Picture, here’s a look back at the moments being heralded as the night’s best… and those singled out as the worst:
BEST: The Wizard of Oz focus group
With all due respect to Crystal’s ably executed, classic opening sequence, says Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly, the night’s best pre-taped bit was a mock focus group (supposedly circa 1939) for The Wizard of Oz that starred the Christopher Guest players, including Bob Balaban, Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Jennifer Coolidge, and Guest himself. Willard’s relentless enthusiasm for the film’s flying monkeys coupled with Coolidge’s deadpanned, ridiculous complaints (“There are lots of elevator faces… hatchet faces”) made the segment the “most clever, concise, witty, and laugh-out-loud funny” of the telecast. The Guest crew’s “sarcasm and absurdism was a refreshing dash of humor in an otherwise sludgy show,” says Katie Hasty at HitFix.WORST: The celebrity interview packages
The producers made a gross miscalculation, says New York, by drafting a confusingly diverse roster of celebrities to wax poetic about why movies are important and assuming that such blather would resonate with viewers. “They’ll believe movies matter if Reese Witherspoon and Adam Sandler say they do! Right?” Wrong. The actors’ often-ponderous soundbytes — “If I see myself on screen, I know that I exist” — were so implausibly masturbatory that they could barely be taken seriously, says Tim Kenneally at The Wrap. “These were spoofs on the self-importance that pervades Hollywood, right?”Chris Rock slays, Emma Stone delights, and Robert Downey Jr. crashes and burns. More highs and lows from Sunday night’s Academy Awards telecast
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Both The Artist and Hugo, the top contenders to win the Best Picture Oscar this Sunday, are being called “valentines” to the Golden Age of Hollywood — an era that spanned the late ’20s to the early ’60s, when color television and cynicism conspired to deflate the movie industry. With Sunday’s telecast set to pay homage to that time, here are 11 amazing photos from Hollywood’s Golden Age.
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Feminists are mad at Natalie Portman for saying that motherhood is her ‘most important role.’
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The goal: A refreshed, hipper version of the Oscars to draw in a younger audience. The result: A ceremony “about as relevant as Nehru jackets and love beads,” says Colin Covert in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
We’ve got our own suggestions (including more Billy Crystal), but we want your thoughts on what the Academy should do to win back the audience for its annual awards extravaganza?
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The Oscars: What people are talking about
After months of predictably relentless anticipation, the Academy Awards were handed out last night — in a lackluster show that some are calling the “worst Oscars ever.” But people are still finding things to talk about, including how boring it was. Here are some talking points:
- The James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosting disaster
The two hosts seemed to be “operating in alternate realities,” say Willa Paskin and Kyle Buchanan in New York. “Hathaway committed [to her hosting duties], and committed hard,” energetically singing, dancing, toothily smiling and woo-hooing. “Franco, meanwhile, went blank-slate, projecting nothing except expressions verging on outright disdain,” and left “Hathaway hanging in the wind.” Maybe he was stoned, theorizes Melissa Bell in The Washington Post and she’s not alone.
- Billy Crystal saves the show… briefly
One of the Oscars’ most beloved former hosts was greeted with a standing ovation when he walked on stage to introduce a series of Bob Hope clips. With Franco and Hathaway “pretty clearly bombing,” Crystal, an eight-time host, was “welcomed as a savior,” says Daniel Fienberg at HitFix. It’s safe to bet he’s now a leading candidate to host next year. Yeah, when he appeared on stage, it was a “relief… a royal restoration,” says James Poniewozik in TIME.
Other topics: Kirk Douglas stole the show, and Melissa Leo talked so long that it started to get uncomfortable.
- The James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosting disaster
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Members of the Academy must have been smoking something powerful to snub Christopher Nolan’s astonishingly creative work on Inception.
—Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times
Other snubs: Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine, Mila Kunis in Black Swan, and Andrew Garfield in The Social Network.
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Hollywood has mommy issues
As the Oscar-prediction odds firm up, it seems likely the supporting actress field will be dominated by women playing crazy, domineering, and even murderous mothers: Barbara Hershey in Black Swan, Melissa Leo in The Fighter, and Jacki Weaver in the Australian film, Animal Kingdom. “Nothing seems to delight Oscar voters like a mother from hell,” says Stephen Farber in The Daily Beast.
