What was THAT?

Good Monday morning to you!  It's late enough in the morning that I can afford to be chipper, having had coffee and a reasonable amount of time to return to work-mode.

Did you watch the Oscars last night?  We debated on it here at my house and ultimately decided that we had nothing else planned, so we invested three-plus hours in what I could easily characterize as the most unusual awards show I've seen in a while.

Important to note that we attempted the same with the Golden Globes several weeks ago, and gave up after about fifteen minutes, it was that bizarre.

This was better in several respects, namely the setting.  The event was staged at Los Angeles' historic Union Station, which is a classic art-deco building that still exudes the same appeal it did when newly constructed.  And there were no hosts, which means fewer lame jokes, no production numbers, etc.

But the cadence of the show was off.  Presenters would walk into view (in a variety of locations in the building, it seemed) and start reading off a prompted about one or more awards that they were presenting.  Often the two awards that many presented were not related to each other (an award for Best Supporting Actor followed immediately by a costuming award, for instance).  There were some ad libs, but most fell pretty flat.

The presenters and nominees were all seated in an area that looked like small cocktail tables in an old-line lounge, with rather dim lighting and the entire event was photographed in kind of a hazy way.

My wife and I saw only a handful of the films nominated for anything, so had little rooting interest in the outcome.  I have to say, though, that with so little product out there to be considered (and so much of it from streaming services, too), there were some surprising results.  The "experts" were wrong on most everything, it seemed to me.

And in the biggest faux pas of the evening, the last award presented was not Best Picture, which customarily ends the ceremony, but rather for Best Actor, where the late Chadwick Boseman was nominated and thought to be the heavy favorite to win posthumous recognition.  Instead, Anthony Hopkins won, and he wasn't present either in person or remotely (numerous nominees were in London or Paris at venues to accept if they won).  And the show ended abruptly.

I may not love the traditional awards show format, but this was probably a little more out there, made so by the ongoing pandemic and the desire simply to shake things up.

As I'm fond of saying, that's three hours of my life I'll never get back.

Onward.  Have a good week!