Pet Peeve: The Oscars

The Oscars were last night. I watched them, and enjoyed parts of them. But what gets me about the Oscars is not the occasional ups and downs typical of an individual show, but the things that keep reappearing and frustrating me to no end.

Seth MacFarlane should stick to his day job.

People We Don't Care About Talking Too Much

People only really care about five, six awards max during the Oscars; the four acting awards, Best Director, and Best Picture. We care about these because they are only things that we, the viewers, noticed when we watched the movie. Sure, I pick up on the fact that Anna Karenina had some good costumes and, of course, Les Miserable had some cool music going on, but I'm not going to lose sleep over how those smaller categories turned out, just like I'm not going to rush out and buy Life of Pi because of its original score.

So I'm frustrated when these awards I don't care about are handed to not-famous people I don't care about, who then try and take up an inordinate amount of time thanking even more not-famous people I don't care about. Unless you're one of the top six awards listed above, you should be confined to thanking your production team (as a whole, not individuals), the director, your family and friends (as a whole, not individuals), and God (which, I noticed, no one did last night. Ang Lee thanked the "movie god," but that was as far was we got. What a shame). This would drastically cut down on time and fluff, making the Oscars a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Pacing

I know that no one would watch the five-hour-long awards extravaganza if they handed out the important awards first, but they could really stand to space out the stuff we care about a little better. Last night, for instance, they started by presenting the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Christoph Waltz), and then they waited another hour and a half before showing us another acting award. Then they crammed four of the most important awards together at the end, which sucked because they had to cut a lot of the good stuff short. So here's my proposition: give us a good award, then three bad awards, then another good award. That way I can at least have something to look forward to while I'm listening to some random guy talk about how grateful he is that his short, live action film won.

Picking the Wrong Host

Seth MacFarlane is known for his cartoon show (where we can't see his face), and the various characters he plays in that show (which don't sound anything like him), so why was he picked to host the Oscars? I have to imagine that everyone over the age of 30 had no clue who they were being offended by, and the people that knew who he was were just expecting Peter Griffin to show up in a tux.

I would've really liked to see this, actually.

This isn't the first time this has happened either. Chris Rock wasn't exactly a wise choice, and they followed a good show by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin with the unproven James Franco and Anne Hathaway. It seems to me like we just need to stick with people who have proven to be good hosts (get Hugh Jackman back!), or pick people who aren't famous for being offensive.

So the Oscars have some problems, and those problems will annoy me until they are remedied, but I'm still going to watch the show, which is the biggest part of the issue.