Wednesday, March 7, 2018

FORWARD MARCH

Check out the March issue of Phoenix Magazine, now on the stands...


…for my “Four Corners”column on new and newish Valley joints with four and five star ratings on Yelp.

After last year’s bungling of the Best Picture award, the focus at this year’s Oscar show seemed, understandably, to be on having a disciplined, orderly presentation. And indeed, from a set of metallic crystal that looked like the interior of a giant geode, the 90th annual honors went reasonably smoothly last Sunday.

During a straightforward but funny opening monologue, the host, Jimmy Kimmel, offered an incentive to keep the show tight: A jet ski was offered as a prize, game-show-style—with Helen Mirren impressively handling the Carol Merrill duties—to whoever gave the briefest acceptance speech. It was one of his funnier gags, compounded later when, needing to up the ante on the prize, he also offered a stay at Lake Havasu.

There was also a becoming focus on history. My favorite aspect of this year's production were the clips that preceded each acting award: quick, dazzling montages of previous winners. It had the effect such sequences do when they're well-done; they made me want to shut off the show and watch those movies.

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