DISAPPOINTING AS A SHOW

I missed the opening with Ellen Degeneres, but caught the rest of the Oscars show and have to say her comic bits seemed pretty lame to me (especially the pizza and selfie things) and there wasn't much excitement in the acceptance speeches except for Lupita Nyog'o's which had me teary eyed (she also seemed one of the few truly glamorous stars on the show—along with Jennifer Lawrence who right now can do no wrong in my book [and McCounaghy's wife, Leto's mother and my old friend Alfre Woodard]—despite all the expensive gowns and beauty products and surgery etc.—poor Goldie Hawn and Kim Novak [and John Travolta]) and Matthew McConaughy's speech which had me a tad bewildered as to his being his own hero only ten years from now and chasing that etc...I liked his Golden Globes speech better (Jared Leto's speech was pretty impressive, but despite it's clarity and concern and the moving acknowledgement of his mother, he seemed somehow passionless to me, like almost detached, which may just be his personality or way of coping with fear etc.).

The music acts were fine but nothing spectacular and the FROZEN anthem is and was just too over the top for me (though the song writers seemed sweet and if I heard the announcer correctly were the first songwriters to win a Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar), and the camera work on Pharell's "Happy" looked like it hadn't been rehearsed it was so bad.

I thought GRAVITY won way too many awards, deserving definitely for special effects but otherwise it seemed to me there were films that deserved the editing and cinematography and directing awards more than it. But happy to see some of my favorites win, and especially the writing awards reflecting the good taste of my fellow writers, and most of the acting awards.

I appreciate why McConoughy's performance in DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB won best actor (the old Hollywood tradition of a beautiful actor or actress distorting their beauty to play someone less attractive especially if fighting a fatal illness or mental disease etc.) But he's a Texan playing a Texan from a few years back (though the real character had nothing to do with Rodeos, especially riding bulls) while Chiwetel Ejiofor is an Englishman playing an African-American who lived over two hundred and fifty years ago. Both characters had to face physical challenges, but the range of human emotion was broader and deeper in Ejiofor's case. Anyway, that's my opinion, though both actors obviously did what they did very well.  

Happy that 12 YEARS A SLAVE took the top honors though, and that the audience and the presenters were much more racially mixed than any Oscar show before. Now we need to see more other "minorities" on the show other than African-American, (I think the GRAVITY director was the first Latin American to win for Best Director) including people in the business whose talent is not diminished or prevented from flowering by physical challenges (I knew several paraplegic wheelchair bound actors in Hollywood who were incredibly talented). Onward and upward.