Oscar’s New Style

In an apparent move to tighten the length of the ceremony, certain things were absent from this season’s Academy Award ceremony.  The thing I noticed most was the absence of the clips shown periodically throughout the night showcasing the nominees for the big award: Best Picture.  Also gone was the full performance of Best Original Song nominees by the artists who either  originally performed or wrote the song.

One new addition to the show was the way in which the acting awards were presented.  Normally, the winner of the previous year’s award presents.  This year,  groups of past winners stood on stage and announced each nominee in turn.  I thought this was a nice touch to pass the torch.

As always, we had the somewhat needless montages centering on various film genres of the past year: Love, Comedy, and Action to name a few.  They seriously do get old.

I really enjoyed the showmanship of Hugh Jackman as host.  Anyone who knows him only as Wolverine or from his other cinematic roles got a treat as he performed in two very cool musical numbers.  He even poked fun at his own flop at the box office, Australia.