First, out of all the nominated movies in all categories, I've only seen "Nebraska", "The Wolf of Wall Street", "The Missing Picture", "Dirty Wars" and "20 Feet from Stardom". All really good. Nonetheless, I'd say that "12 Years a Slave" probably dealt with the most important topic, and I like that Steve McQueen noted that there are currently almost 21 million enslaved people worldwide. One might say that by awarding a movie that looks at the sheer brutality of slavery, the Academy is atoning for awarding the pro-Confederate "Gone with the Wind".
I'm not particularly a fan of Ellen DeGeneres, but that whole thing with the pizza was a neat surprise. I know that everyone likes to treat Bob Hope as the standard, but in this day and age is it really possible to see him as anything except the gross old man who took Playboy bunnies to Vietnam? Watch the Oscar-winning documentary "Hearts and Minds" and see if you can view him positively. As for Best Documentary Feature, I would've gone with Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars". I noticed that Alain Resnais didn't appear in the In Memoriam montage. He died the day before the Oscars, so they probably didn't have time to include him.
It's hard to deny that the ceremony's highlight was Lupita Nyong'o's impassioned acceptance speech. It turns out that Nyong'o is the niece of the brother-in-law of one of my undergrad professors.
All in all, I enjoyed the telecast. I hope that a major result of this is that we all start taking a serious look at the genocidal inhumanity that was the plantation system.
I'm not particularly a fan of Ellen DeGeneres, but that whole thing with the pizza was a neat surprise. I know that everyone likes to treat Bob Hope as the standard, but in this day and age is it really possible to see him as anything except the gross old man who took Playboy bunnies to Vietnam? Watch the Oscar-winning documentary "Hearts and Minds" and see if you can view him positively. As for Best Documentary Feature, I would've gone with Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars". I noticed that Alain Resnais didn't appear in the In Memoriam montage. He died the day before the Oscars, so they probably didn't have time to include him.
It's hard to deny that the ceremony's highlight was Lupita Nyong'o's impassioned acceptance speech. It turns out that Nyong'o is the niece of the brother-in-law of one of my undergrad professors.
All in all, I enjoyed the telecast. I hope that a major result of this is that we all start taking a serious look at the genocidal inhumanity that was the plantation system.