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“I’d like to thank the Academy.”
Clockwise:
Sandra Bullock 2010,
Melissa Leo 2011,
Octavia Spencer 2012,
Jean Dujardin 2012,
Jeff Bridges 2010
and Jerry Lewis 2009.
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GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (BULLOCK, LEO, BRIDGES)
KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES (SPENCER, DUJARDIN, LEWIS)
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Farlane, because they want young,
brash and unpredictable, but he’s
got his work cut out for him. The
tone is incredibly important. You’re
in a room of people whom you want
to make laugh, but they’re sensitive.
It’s very easy to offend them.”
Is testing the line-toeing skills of
every comic in the Western world
really the answer? (Or deeming
them unfit even before tests, as
happened to Sacha Baron Cohen,
who was invited, then banned, from
the stage in 2010?) Jeremy Boxer,
director of the Vimeo Film Festival,
a showcase for online videos, suggested “looking at hosts in a different way. They don’t necessarily
have to be funny.” At both Vimeo
festivals (there have only been two
so far), the host functioned as a
master of ceremonies, in charge of
mild transitions, or “punctuation
points,” between moments devoted
to the show’s true focus: the nominated films and players.
Sparing funny people from the
Sisyphean task of simultaneously
ripping into and coddling a bunch
of touchy actors could revolutionize
awards shows (or just neuter the
THE OSCAR ISSUE / HUFFINGTON / 02.10-17.13
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