Forget about the economy, let's watch movies

The eighty-first Academy Awards which aired last night set its own stage up for a possible disappointment with its decided change from the norm and the way it went about promoting itself. After the red carpet but before the ceremonies there was a behind-the-scenes look at the stage and music production at the curtain of crystals hanging from the ceiling and the recognizable theme from Lawrence of Arabia, but with a swing beat. Take all of the eccentricities and add Hugh Jackman—the first non-comedian single host since further back than anyone’s recent memory-- and let the nail-biting begin. David Carr summarized the pressure in the end of his pre-Oscars projection, “Can Hollywood find a way to acknowledge the times we are living in without giving in to the gloom?”
Jackman answered all of these questions with ease as he introduced his opening number, “Due to budget cuts,” he explained that there wasn’t originally going to be an opening song. Luckily, Jackman says he “stayed up all night in his garage” making props, and out comes a make-shift “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” set made from pizza boxes and glittery green letters on cardboard. Then Jackman started his song with full vibrato.
The longer Jackman was on stage singing about the biggest movies of 2008—props to Jackman and writers for the intense dance scene complete with backup dancers as he sang “I haven’t seen The Reader”—the more comfortable the audience became. He ended the number with a duo reenactment of Frost/Nixon with Ann Hathaway and finally Jackman belting the line “I’m Wolverine.” His playful jabs at the actors before the first award presentation was funny but by then the laughter felt more like his payment for not letting the audience down with his musical opener.
In perhaps the best-intended but minimal-follow-up joke Jackman mentioned Brad Pitt saying, “I don’t have a joke for him, my contract says I have to mention his name five times—that’s one.” He noted Pitt in the second number of the show, but for the most part, Jackman was offstage, letting the rest of the big-name presenters have full attention.
The awards lived up to its promise of changing from the norm by letting five previous winners of the best actor and actress awards present the nominees and the Oscar. It felt more like a moment from Star Trek as five of the Academy’s elite stood in a wide half-circle on the stage and gave individual praise to each nominee before the middle actor or actress opened the envelope.
The ceremony was rushed during the recognition of some of the technical aspects of film—the visual effects, sound editing, and sound mixing— all presented by Will Smith. He seemed to be continuously tugged around the stage by those beautiful-but-business-oriented silver-clad stage women as he moved from presenter to background to presenter again. At one point acknowledged the rushed awkwardness, “Yes I’m still here,” and “I believe Hugh is napping” at another. It was if that section of the show was thrown together at the last minute and Smith was stuck with more than his share of presenting and in half the amount of time to do it.
The Academy Awards were starkly different this year finally in a lack of long-winded acceptance speeches; no one got the orchestra music to signal a wrap-up. With a great majority of the winners giving their own version of Hilary Swank’s “I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream” speech, the Oscars had the effect of a feel-good movie. Even with bleak economy and bleak Midwestern winter it was easy to watch the excited faces and, like Swank, start to dream.