JLab140

Fernando Gonzalez
Staff Writer

Every February, all of Hollywood’s famous actors and actresses flock to the Kodak Theater to celebrate their own personal achievements. For 79 years, the Annual Academy Awards gives acknowledgement to the top movies and the people that star in them. The nominees are announced weeks beforehand, building up the anticipation and hype for it. Every show, the Awards (also known as the Oscars for the gold statuettes they hand out) have an entertainer host the show and lead all of the pomp and circumstance.

This year, comedian Ellen DeGeneres hosted the show, doing a decent job keeping the long show alive. Also moving the show along were several montages with sweeping music dedicated to a certain theme from the films. There were also several musical performances and a running theme. This year’s running bit was a dance troupe forming the shape of several icons from nominee movies behind a scrim, just letting their shadows come through.

After Ellen’s opening monologue and all the flashy extras were introduced, the meat of the awards began: the handing out of the Oscars themselves. The presentation of the statues was full of angst; watching the nominees’ faces light up as their names were called, only to watch them applaud the actual winner with fake smiles was extremely entertaining. When Alan Arkin won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Little Miss Sunshine, Eddie Murphy looked like he was going to burst into tears. That was not the only upset of the night: one of the Dreamgirls songs was expected to win Best Original Song (there were three of them nominated out of the five), and The Departed won Best Picture, although Babel and Little Miss Sunshine had been hyped as frontrunners.

As is the norm, too many acceptance speeches were too long and too dull. One of the memorable ones included Jennifer Hudson’s after winning Best Supporting Actress due to her teary recollection of having been booted off of American Idol just two years before.

This overage of long acceptance speeches and special montages led to the show going over its scheduled three hours by approximately 47 minutes. At one point, DeGeneres even joked about never getting to the two main acting awards or the Oscar for best picture, the “only ones people actually care about.”

Although it was lengthy, overly flashy and at times too dramatic, the 79th Annual Academy Awards were entertaining and fully surprising. Ellen DeGeneres turned out to be a good, safe choice for a hostess, delivering laughs and keeping the celebrities at ease. Although not particularly popular among teens, the Oscars are engaging and one should tune in next year for the 80th presentation of the awards.