Lamps and Oscars

We went to Home Depot yesterday morning to get a lamp and some other household wares. We found an unoffensive clear lamp on clearance for $16. Score. We also got a lamp dimmer switch so we can turn it off from bed. Yes. We’re lazy.

Adam dropped me back off at home and went to work. I did some cleaning, laundry, and then settled in on the couch for the NCIS marathon. Adam was originally supposed to be home early afternoon, but he ended up coming home around 6. He brought dinner with him though, so it was ok. We ate, watched the race for a little while, and then he retreated to the bedroom soon after the Oscars began.

I did watch the whole thing. Well, I turned the TV off after Slumdog was announced so I didn’t get to see the slew of people up on stage. I thought Hugh Jackman did a fine job of hosting. He didn’t actually get to be on stage much aside from the musical numbers. There were no stupid jokes, no uncomfortable jabs at the famous people in attendance. I thought the overall structure of the ceremony was interesting too. Though some of the presenters seemed ill at ease, I liked the idea of bringing former winners on stage to announce the most recent winner. I thought it was pretty low that they kept cutting to Brad and Angelina while Jennifer Aniston was on stage though. Overall I think that couple gets way too much attention. I’m kind of glad neither of them won last night.

There were no long-winded acceptance speeches. There were a few that were unintelligible due to language differences. But overall, things kept moving well. No one got cut off by the evil orchestra. Only two were even remotely political (Sean Penn and the guy who wrote the screenplay for Milk) and even those were still respectfully said and generally well received.

I was kind of confused by the musical montage of songs though. Only three nominations, two from Slumdog? Were there really no other songs in any of the movies this year? And wow, what a wardrobe malfunction when they announced the winner. The lady dancer to the right of the podium totally had her boob exposed. Luckily the 7-second tape delay enabled them to blur it, but come on. It was obvious. You could see her scramble to pull her shirt up when they cut away. Heh.

There were a few other technical difficulties I noticed. They had problems getting the curtain open for the first award montage. Some of the presenters went the wrong direction or forgot they had multiple awards to hand out. And, while not a technical difficulty, I was annoyed by the In Memorium section. I loved that they had Queen Latifah sing, but the pictures kept getting bigger and smaller, moving around the screens on the stage. It was really distracting.

I haven’t read too many “professional” critiques yet. I thought it was a pretty good show. I liked the musical montage, but if you’re not familiar with the musicals of days gone by I can understand why you’d think that was a bad idea. I liked how they intercut the current year’s best picture nominees with previous ones (the challenge was to see how many you could identify), but apparently this bothered some people. I didn’t really think the show dragged. I was more annoyed by stupid commercials (I’m looking at you Van Vreede’s) than stupid presentations and witty scripted banter. I thought the new format worked well – taking us through the whole film-making process in order and giving background. Then again, that’s something that appeals to me in general. I love the AMC show “Backstory” for this same reason. As I said before, I also liked seeing former winners present, but admit this was the part of the show that seemed the least sincere and the slowest. No show will ever make everyone happy. I do hope they decide to stick with some of these new ideas in the future.