The Film Experience

by Eric Blume

ABC/Art Streiber

My Oscar assignment for the site was to do a review of the show's hosts (Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer, and Regina Hall) and cover the evening's best jokes. But the next day, it's difficult-come-impossible to do such a thing, because there really was little to no humor in the show! In fact, the evening drove into such an abyss of darkness that it was actually full-on depressing. What can one say about a program that is meant to honor the highest artistic achievements of the craft, when there is no attention given to art, achievement, or craft?

I will do my best to quickly execute my given assignment nonetheless. There were jokes in there somewhere...

The three hosts never embarrassed themselves, but they had zero chemistry together and appeared as though they had maybe met for about 30 minutes before curtain. Their opening, where they stood woodenly beside each other delivering individual "jokes" that had no symmetry, build, or pizzazz...started the evening off flat, and they never really recovered. Their attempts at building something together, like the run on Samuel L. Jackson, fell in a painful thud. Nathaniel has already written about their terrible "joke" about The Power of the Dog...a masterpiece film which they just refer to as too boring to watch all the way through...but that was just one of several put-downs of more artistic efforts (the crack against The Last Duel fell equally flat and felt equally mean). One could even forgive these jabs at the artist if they were inspiring or funny, or even if the performer made the joke land, sort of like Amy's joke about Sorkin making a movie about Lucille Ball with any laughs in it. As written, the joke can skewer mean, but as delivered by Amy, the timing took the cruelty out of it and it came off as harmless fun. But more often than not, the tone was one of dismissing ambition and integrity. When coupled with clips from movies like Army of Darkness, the evening progressed into not a celebration of the best but almost a shunning of the best.

Amy had the best run of the three hosts. Her first individual monologue near the beginning of the show showed her talent at delivering on even the smallest of jokes (on the years of her body post-pregancy: "not bad for a year, right? it's been two. closer to three..."). Setting herself up as "When Melissa McCarthy says no" in Hollywood, her routine had a subtlety and a confidence that we didn't see before or afterwards. She nailed that harmless tone with her joke about "Academy members clearly DON'T LOOK UP reviews" and got a personal joke in there for her close friend Jennifer Lawrence (I appreciated that she put it in there probably JUST to make Jennifer laugh). Nothing killed, but it was harmless enough and Amy had a steady hand with the material.

Wanda tried some more sustained bits, like dressing up as King Richard, which went nowhere, and her extended piece at the Academy Museum was unfortunately filled with jokes that felt like placeholders in a conference room that the writers never got back to.

CREDIT: NEILSON BARNARD/GETTY

And the less said about Regina Hall the better. She's a lovely actress, but she was awkward and stitled as a host and never found her timing with any of the jokes. And her bit about Covid swabbing Hollywood's hottest dudes was horrifying: imagine the sexes being switched on that set-up, and can you imagine the controversy? Aren't we better than this? Can't a room full of joke writers find better, smarter, funnier set-ups and jokes?

I realize the irony of my writing a column about humor and comedy in a show and delivering this dirge of a review! I'm usually able to laugh these things off, enjoy a bunch of Hollywood-elite burn jokes, and find a rainbow amongst the weakest of hosts. But this year was truly different. The show felt spiritually ugly and garish, determined to pitch to lowest-common-denominator tastes and thinking. I've watched the Oscars since I'm ten years old, and despite the stupid politics of who wins and why and who loses and why, this annual tradition had glamour and grace and style and at least worked hard to celebrate artistic achievement and put our best face out to the 70 million people watching worldwide. This year felt like a sad disgrace and brutally reflective of the painful divides in our country.