The Oscars 2020 are history. The show also made history. Parasite,from South Korea, took home the top prizes for Hollywood’s biggest night, including Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. Before all that happened, there was an opening musical number from Janelle Monáe, Steven Martin and Chris Rock were hosts who weren’t and a handful of comics made us laugh during an otherwise enjoyable evening.
It is officially the end of awards season and before we close the book on the movie year that was, let’s take one last Oscar Watch look at the show itself and dole out some grades…
The Opening Number
Janelle Monáe took the Dolby Theatre stage by storm. She commenced the show with her “appearing as” Fred Rogers, complete with red cardigan sweater and singing the iconic children’s show theme song.
Then, she triumphantly segued into performing an Oscar-ized version of her hit, Come Alive, that saluted those nominated—and more importantly … those snubbed (hard to miss the Dolemite Is My Name costumed dancers behind her). After last year’s show starting barn burner from Queen, perhaps producers felt they had to rock the house to kick off the 2020 program. Who cares why they employed Monáe, it worked for this guy. Then …
Grade: A
Two Former Hosts Get a “Demotion”
After the hoopla faded from Monáe’s raucous performance, two former hosts—Steve Martin and Chris Rock—arrived to deliver a monologue. Wait, I thought we weren’t going to have hosts this year, Academy? Both comics delivered big time, and we suspect went off script a few times to thunderous applause. The thing is it felt like a cop-out. Don’t remind us that we don’t have a host by giving us two guys who have previously hosted and did a solid job getting the show going! This part of the evening gets two grades. One, for the talent themselves and two, for the show itself. More on the lack of a host later …
Grade: B+for Martin and Rock
Grade: D for the show
Best Song Performances
All five of the Best Original Song nominees took to the stage and performed, as is tradition. The thing that caused a bit of an issue here was the lack of any kind of introduction for two icons. Perhaps it’s true what they say. “Here’s a man who doesn’t need any introduction.” There was Randy Newman and Elton John performing their nominated tracks without the benefit of any context from a presenter. See, a host would have helped that. Confounding the confusion on this issue was two of the performers had not only someone introduce them, but someone else to introduce that person! Of the tracks performed, the most astounding of the pieces came from Cynthia Erivo. She sang her Stand Up from Harriet. The performance started small and intimate, and by the conclusion, it was electrically epic … with the star-studded gathering cheering so loud the ceiling could have shook. The second most powerful singing performance arrived courtesy of Idina Menzel and her Into the Unknown from Frozen II. By including a dozen of the singers employed to do their native language’s version of the song across the globe, a sentiment was brewing for Oscars 2020—international inclusiveness. Menzel has one of the best voices of her or any generation and that song, in particular, allows her to show it off on the biggest stage on the planet. Sadly, the other three live incarnations of the Oscar nominated tracks were somewhat forgettable.
Grade: A+ for Erivo
Grade: A for Menzel
Grade: B-ish for the rest
Grade for the winner: B-, this victory reeked of sentimentality instead of being a forward thinking opportunity to reward Stand Up during a time when we could use that kind sonic inspiration.
Songs in Film Montage
One of the things that first culled my heart and head into this crazy movie world was how songs and cinema working together had lit up the early 80s (Flashdance, Footloose, Top Gun). To discover that one of the Oscars go-to items, the movie montage, was saluting the seismic pop culture mark left by certain songs in certain movies, this should be pure bliss. Then, the editors somewhat failed us. Sure, they showed us the scene in Almost Famous where a bus full of divided bandmembers come together while singing Tiny Dancer—which totally makes the montage’s point more than anything else they could have included. But, so many of the other songs they featured weren’t even the scenes where the songs made their musical mark. Awkward to say the least … although I do salute them for the effort. Sadly, that would be the only montage of the night. Then again, since the show clocked in at three-and-a-half hours, more montages definitely were not needed. Which leads us to …
Grade: B
Time Management
Not good, Academy, not good. But and this is a huge but, I don’t mind. Those of us who live and breathe movies could have sat through a six hour salute to the art of cinema. But, year after year, we hear all about the length of the Oscars and how they need to shorten it. Part of the reason given for not having a host was to help with the show’s running time. If that was the case, then why do we need people to introduce people who are introducing other people?! It should just be a given that the Academy Awards are going to clock in at three-and-a-half hours to four hours and stop trying to manage that aspect! In fact, a host can help immensely in moving the show along. They got it backwards. Otherwise, it just comes off as somewhat aimless. A host grounds the show, they can comically highlight spontaneous moments that occur throughout and make the entire program feel a bit more interactive. Can you tell I hate this no host thing? Back to time management, or lack thereof. There seems to be this sentiment that no matter what they do, handing out 24 awards is going to take some time. Toss in five musical performances, the In Memoriam section and comedy bits that richly enhance the show and hours are gonna pass, people!
Grade: D, but it must be stressed I do not have an issue with the length. But if you’re going to publicly make it a big deal to keep the show tighter, then this critique is coming your way!
Eminem Loses Himself & We Lose It!
Seventeen years ago, Eminem was an Oscar winner, but was nowhere near Hollywood to accept his Best Original Song Oscar for Lose Yourself. After the Academy presented its pretty decent movie montage of movies and hit songs, the rapper from Detroit shocked hundreds of millions who watched live as he took the stage and rocked the house in the biggest way possible. The excitement was palpable and could be felt from every corner of the globe that tuned in to watch the big show.
Huge talent that dotted the Dolby Theatre were reduced to being enormous music fans as they banged their head and uttered every single word to the rapper’s huge hit. Surprises are hard to keep under wraps in Tinsel Town and somehow, someway, everyone involved managed to keep this appearance quiet and it turned out to be one of the biggest moments from an evening that featured many defining moments.
Grade: A+
Comedic Award Presenters
Since there was no host, producers sought to amp up some of the award presenting aspects with comedy bits. Let’s be honest, that’s what they are! What winds up happening is they become the most viral of the show’s moments, which is a good thing, but you are not helping your time constraint issues one bit. What Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig, and James Corden and Rebel Wilson achieved with their award presenting moments were absolute show highlights. This is a situation that was not created in a vacuum. Not having a host has consequences and that involves the length of the show itself and how what could have taken mere moments to present two Oscars took almost 15 minutes. Again, that’s fine. But don’t say we’re not having a host to help cut back on time!
Grade: A-
Billie Eilish For the RIP
When it was announced that Grammy sensation Billie Eilish had been tapped to perform at the Oscars, people racked their brains to try to figure out what the 18-year-old wunderkind was going to do. I looked into my crystal ball and figured she was going to debut her James Bond theme for No Time to Die. Wrong! Instead, she and her collaborator brother Finneas O’Connell, gave a deeply personal performance of The Beatles classic Yesterday while the Academy paid tribute to those who we lost. Love how they were able to include two recent souls who have left us—Kobe Bryant (who won an Oscar last year for Best Animated Short Film) and screen legend Kirk Douglas (who passed away just the other day). In hindsight, it is kind of a strange song selection. Listen to the words … Paul McCartney was singing about himself and being self-aware about his evolution as a human being. I’m nit-picking here, I know. From a show point of view, a reflective song sang while we reflect on who we lost … works. For what it’s worth, the young singer did her thing and let’s hope she returns to the Dolby Theatre stage next year as a nominee.
Grade: B
#OscarsSoWhite & Gender Progress
It was fascinating to watch the show with the knowledge that the Academy in the last two years have added thousands of younger and more diverse folks to its membership with hopes that the result will be a list of Oscar winners that reflect our society as a whole and not simply the older white male demo that had largely dominated the Academy. Now, one could easily say that success was achieved with Parasite winning Best Picture. After all, it was the first time that a foreign language film had won Best Picture … ever! Bong Joon-ho, writer-director of that South Korean masterpiece, won four Oscars and made history. Sam Mendes was the favorite to win Best Director, but Bong won that category, as well as Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature Film and of course, Best Picture. Let’s not get to self-congratulatory just yet. Even though the South Korean won, and Hildur Guðnadóttir broke a glass ceiling as the first female composer to win Best Score for Joker in 20 years, there was only one person of color nominated in the four major acting categories and despite a year that saw some incredible films directed by women (such as The Farewell), not one woman earned a directing nod. Needless to say, even though we may be feeling a bit of progress has been made, if you look at the wider scope of the Oscars and its long list of nominees, we still have a long, a very long, way to go.
Grade: C
Host or No Host?
Obviously, The Movie Mensch has strong opinions on this issue that this show needs a host. Just because Kevin Hart had a Twitter past that caused such a stir that last year’s host was out before he was really even in, shouldn’t influence the Academy’s belief about hosts in general. Last year, and once again this year, several presenters showed that they would make a great host. Some combination of the big five comediennes (Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Melissa McCarthy) would make for a fantastic host(s). I say … employ all five next year and the viewership would have a blast. In subsequent years, just use Fey and Poehler, then Rudolph and Wiig, etc. There is a bevy of brilliantly talented women out there that could entertain while they enlighten and most importantly, give the show some much needed structure that has lacked these last two years. Please stop this no-host nonsense, and let’s never let it happen again.
No Host Grade: F
Parasite Upset
Parasite winning Best Picture was the absolute best thing that could have happened at the end of a awards fete that had been largely predictable up until that point. It went beyond enlivening an evening that celebrated the art of cinema and immediately became a timely shout out to the world from Hollywood. As our government builds walls to keep people who look or speak differently from coming in, the fact that Tinsel Town is welcoming everyone speaks volumes. Parasite scoring its Best Picture Oscar also was a deafeningly loud pronouncement to the world that something that had previously seemed out of reach, suddenly became possible. Tonight, there are thousands upon thousands of aspiring filmmakers in all corners of the globe who collectively raised their hands in victory tonight. Now, these artists have hope to aspire to achieve the greatest tribute in their field. No matter where you come from, the Academy Awards are the gold standard for the filmmaking community. Sure, other countries have their own version, like the BAFTAs in England. At the end of the day, it is the Oscars that have folks pretending to give acceptance speeches in their bathrooms. Before February 9, 2020, those bathroom “I’d like to thank the Academy” moments were pipedreams for our global film community. Now, they are a reality. It happened. That may be the greatest plus from the shocking and historic win for the South Korean film. Anyone with a camera and a great story can realistically have a shot to win the greatest honor on the field. Why? Because it happened. Do not underestimate this moment.
Grade: A+