Some Thoughts on the 2017 Oscars

It’s too bad for Jimmy Kimmel, really. Up until that gigantic blunder at the end of the show, I thought the production had gone quite well. Kimmel had kept things interesting and entertaining. The speeches had been fine. The winners were spread around a fair bit, so it didn’t feel like any one show was dominating too much. People didn’t clap in the middle of the In Memoriam segment.

Sure, the Moana singer got hit in the head with a flag, but that’s life, right? I was really enjoying myself, and I thought it was one of the better shows in recent memory.

And then they announced the wrong Best Picture winner. Not that it was Warren Beatty or Faye Dunaway’s fault. As I’ve read up on the fiasco, it came down to there being multiple envelopes for each category (up to three, from what I’ve read). So Beatty was handed the Best Actress envelope. He didn’t read the outside of it (who would?), and so he was quite surprised when he opened it and saw Emma Stone had just won for La La Land. He gave it a funny look. Faye, thinking he was being a dink, then just read what was printed in big letters. La La Land.

Cue the music and the acceptance speeches. But seriously, Price Waterhouse (the accountants who run the voting), you had so many avenues to fix this. I blame you. Step one, make sure the right envelope is given out. Step two, make sure to have someone on hand to rush in and correct mistakes before the speeches are being made. You’re right there on the side of the stage. You telling me you can’t beat an entire group of people walking up from the audience? Have a mechanism in place to make sure this doesn’t happen. I felt very bad for La La Land and Moonlight.

I also felt like Kimmel’s response was pretty poor. He tried to make it into a big joke. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t the time for laughing about it. Apologize on behalf of the show, let the new winners make their speech, and apologize once again, then move on to the ending. Steve Harvey jokes? Nope. Not that I really blame Kimmel for trying to go for humor. He’s a comedian. It’s what he does. And in a high stress situation like that, you’ll default to your instincts.

It’ll certainly be a memorable show for years to come. No doubt about that. But don’t forget in all the focus on the last 10 minutes of the show that the first few hours were solid.

As usual, I had seen very few of the actual movies nominated. Maybe one year soon I’ll be able to get out to see more of them. My kids are getting older, so regular date nights are becoming more and more likely, right? And movies are great for that sort of thing. I’d love to be able to watch more new releases. We shall see. But even having not seen them all, I enjoy reading up about them, following the predictions, and making my picks.

For the record, I ended up in a tie for the Oscar the Grouch hat last night. (Well, one person beat out the two of us who tied, but he also didn’t attend the party. So he might kind of win in spirit I guess, but as far as getting the hat goes, you need to attend in person. I had one person fly in from England to win it one year. If she kept putting in entries from over the pond and kept winning, would she qualify for the hat every year? Nope.)

So I half won the hat. Which is good. If only I’d gone for Moonlight, I’d have thought I lost and then ended up winning, which would have been perfect.

Next year . . .

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