This is Me Smiling at the Oscars
A night to make you believe maybe it will all be alright
Okay, now we’re talking.
I mean, really, way more than we had any right to expect. It was almost like, a classic Oscar night.
No, it wasn’t the most memorable, exciting awards show of all times (whatever that would be) but it was fine. And given where we’ve been, fine is fantastic.
Some jokes hit, others missed but all were well within the range of modern day Borscht Belt repartee. Jimmy Kimmel has become the most at ease and confident of hosts, not awed or cowed by the room and manages to land in just about the right spot on the smarm/snark spectrum (35 percent smarm, 65 percent snark is The Ankler’s Golden Mean.)
There were missteps of course. The In Memorium Dance Company set to the theme from The Bellagio’s Dancing Waters fountain was a classic bit of groanable Hollywood self-serious schmaltz. Al Pacino’s Best Picture announcement freestyle fantasia should make clear our boomer icons have graduated past the point of safely turning the mic over to them for the show’s big moments.
Jonathan Glazer stepped in as the requisite grandstanding blowhard.