IN MEMORIAM: A HISTORY OF THE OSCARS F***ING UP THE EASIEST PART OF THEIR SHOW!

So, for the first time since I've done this blog, I didn't go out of my way to focus on the Oscars races this year. I probably could've faked it and posted a few things, but I didn't see the movies, and really have just been too distracted by life to trust my judgments at that time anyway, so I wasn't gonna force myself to say some stuff out of obligation, especially I didn't have anything to say about who won or who should've won or whatnot. I'm tired of talking when I don't have anything to say anyway. But, I'm starting to get out of that funk. At least, I'm trying to anyway. So, I happen to be able to watch the Oscars this year, which wasn't planned, but since it was kismet, I decided to watch and live tweet some thoughts on the show. 

Overall, it was a good Oscars show. Probably one of the better ones in recent years anyway, arguably the first great one post-Covid. Well, almost great.... There's one thing that ultimately ruined the show for me. It wasn't any of the results, it wasn't the fact that it was Jimmy Kimmel's worst and laziest gig as Oscar host yet, it wasn't that it went on too long, or that any of the performances were too shit. No, the Oscars were destroyed in my mind, after they did something, that they, and other award shows have been doing, for what seems like a ridiculously long time now, and this one, is maybe arguably the absolutely worst one yet. They've been fucking up, the In Memoriam segment! 

  

 

So, who died last year? As far as I could tell, the only person who died was Alexei Navalny; he was the only person who died who got honored at the Oscars this year. What in the freaking Hell was that!? Well, if I have to sit here and detail every single thing that was wrong with that segment,- it would be twice as long as the longest and worst Cinema Sins video, so I'm not going to do that. I'm just- I'm just not gonna do that. 

No, this post is about, how we got here. 'Cause this isn't the first time, I've been pissed off at an award show for screwing up the "In Memoriam"; no we've been trending this way towards that abomination- which...- like- that might legitimately be the worst segment of any kind in Oscars history. That might be worst than the goddamn Snow White and Rob Lowe opening segment. And if it isn't worst, it is undeniably so much more baffling, 'cause, it's the goddamn In Memoriam segment!!!!!! Like, stop it. Why is there so much bullshit going on?! Sad music, from the orchestra, montage of dead people, nothing else! How hard is this?! 

But no, we get, everything, but that, it seems.... So, I decided, to look up what the hell happened? Why did this segment of the Oscars suddenly get so goddamn overblown, and why?! And more importantly, find out who's responsible, 'cause somebody needs blame for this shit. Somebody looked at the In Memoriam segment and decided, "Hey, let's fuck it up!" and that's put the terrible idea in every other Oscar and award show producers' head! 

So, I looked it up. The first thing I looked up was, well, when did In Memoriam segments start? Cause, I remember the old In Memoriam segments from my youth and I know they weren't like this. At all. Like, here, this one's from the 1994 Oscars: 

    

See, that's how they should be. You get somebody who can say a few words, and then, you play, some kind of appropriately sad music,- Producer Chuck Workman would call it "Schmaltzy" music, which, okay that was schmaltzy, but just sad and appropriate and you don't need a big name performer to do it, in fact, you don't need a performer at all, just get some sad music, or have the orchestra play it, and then roll the clips! What's wrong with this approached. It's worked for years, right? 

Actually, um..., that clip above, um, that actually was the first In Memoriam segment ever at the Oscars, or any award show. 

Yeah, I didn't realize this, but apparently the In Memoriam is a much newer segment than I realized. I guess, it makes sense that it wouldn't like, date back to the original Academy Awards, back then, it was so new that not a lot of people would've died yet, but I'm still kinda surprised to find out that the In Memoriam only dates back to '94. At least, the way we think of the In Memoriam,- they did one kinda, back in 1978, and that one actually is a performance. 

It's Marvin Hamlisch  on piano and Sammy Davis Jr. singing "Come Light the Candles", and it's- barely an In Memoriam.

 

Apparently, this came up again in pop culture recently, during the credits of that "FEUD" miniseries. I haven't seen it yet, so I'm withholding my thoughts on that, but yeah, this might be the actual catalyst, and to be honest, I don't actually like this performance. But, it's barely an In Memoriam, it's mostly a performance and then, a screen comes down, with a very brief montage of some of the performers who died the previous year. There's no names, or closeups on the montage so that they can easily be identified unless you're looking really close at a TV screen, that was not hi-def at that time. But they didn't continue it the next year or anytime after. In fact, the next year, Sammy Davis Jr. performed with Steve Lawrence in a better and more much upbeat medley of movie songs that were famously not nominated for Oscars and that performance is much, much better from him. 

 

See, that's a lot better. Also, it's kinda nice to know, the Academy already knew they screwed up not nominating either "Theme from 'New York, New York'" or "Staying Alive", both from movies that literally came out the year before. (Don't look up what actually won that year, it'll just annoy you.) 

Also, a lot better were when they actually started having a real In Memoriam segment in 1994, and for the next few years they basically kept the segment the same format. Somebody coming out who can convey the proper emotional depth, and then, we see the In Memoriam segment, just a regular montage. And the montages were even better back then, more clips, lots of great images of people in wonderful idyllic moments of their career. 

The Academy also occasionally did something different and special for certain people who pass away during this time. Like, in '96, they did a whole thing for Gene Kelly.

 

Yeah, and that was good, simple. The nice shadow effect, there, and that was the great Savion Glover, by the way, tap dancing as Kelly, if you're my age you remember him fondly from "Sesame Street" which, he might've still been on at that time, now he's one of the great living tap dancers and performers. The Academy still does this, occasionally, the last time I remember them doing one was,-eh, I think it was for John Hughes, back in (google search) 2010! Good lord, he's been dead that long? Wow! Time flies. I don't remember them doing one since, and honestly, I remember not particularly finding that tribute, good. It was also just strange; I love John Hughes, but he wouldn't have struck me as someone that the Academy would go out-of-it's-way to specifically honor, (I mean, how many John Hughes films even got an Oscar nomination? [The answer is three, all of them in Music. One was for "Beethoven's 2nd". The Academy is weird sometimes.]) I don't think they've done one since, but I could be wrong about that.... But, y'know, occasionally doing something special for somebody in particular separate from the regular In Memoriam, not the worst idea some years, although you can go overboard with it, ask the 2013 Emmys about that one. 

Anyway, for the Oscars, and other award shows followed with a similar format, and it's not like they weren't controversial. There's always controversy on who gets in or who's left out. Even back then, after the 1999 In Memoriam, the show's host, Whoopi Goldberg stopped the show to mention somebody being left out, by giving a thumbs up to the heavens to honor Gene Siskel. I couldn't find that clip to post, or I would've but I'm going through every Oscars In Memoriam that I can find, and if possible, finding the montage, as it was broadcast. Even the Academy, who again, has been screwing this up in recent years, has tried to remedy their mistakes before with this. Even still, I could nitpick some of the details between them. Some are better edited than others, some are more emotional than others, but for the most part, it's fair to say that there's extreme care put into these segments. From what I can tell that first starts to change in 2005. 

 

This isn't, terrible. It's the first time they've had a performance associated with the In Memoriam; they have Yo-Yo Ma come out and perform, and then the picture screen drops and shows the In Memoriam. This is..., acceptable. They do break the montage one time to show Yo-Yo Ma playing, but you don't miss the montage. That said it's a little lazily edited, the actual montage. Like, with some of the non-actors in the past, they would show clips or images from the movies they worked on, that showed off their achievements and instead, they kinds just use texts. Some of this btw, might've be a rights thing at times. The Academy does need permissions to show a lot of clips, and sometimes that might be harder than we'd like to think it is, but I would argue it's worth it, if for no other reason than to see more than just the words "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" on the screen in white text. Still, this,- this isn't like horrific at first, and if you have to do, (eye roll) a musical performer of note accompanying the In Memoriam, than just having Yo-Yo Ma play the cello and then cut immediately to the montage and then back to him at the end, like, eh, that's probably the most harmless way you could go about it, but still, you're not gonna get him every time....

To be fair, the next couple years they got it back to being about the way it should be. Then, 2009, this is when it first went off the rails. 

  

Yup, this was the first time I distinctly remember everybody being pissed off at the show for the In Memoriam. And this was controversial even regardless of the mind-boggling dumb choices for the actual presentation,- there's a whole Wikipedia on the controversies of the omissions and who got put in for this year. But, the actual montage, was not watchable. You had, Queen Latifah performing "I'll Be Seeing You", which, you don't need. She's fine, but you don't need that. And then, instead of the one big screen, just showing the montage, I guess the thinking is that, there's this whole room at the Kodak Theater that they can show images of the deceased, so, they have to show that, which, again, they don't, it- it- might work, live, for the people there but it doesn't on camera, on TV, and so, they kept zooming in and out, what I think are crane camera shots of both sides of the Kodak Theater and, you can read some of the names, but not all the names. They're not all gonna be recognizable to everyone at home. So,- what you get is that, instead of one screen, you're looking at a bunch of screens, you're focusing some time on Queen, a camera that's moving around,- so you're trying to focus on a screen, within a screen.... 

It's atrocious, and I thought after this, we'd all just learn the lesson, that you don't fucking do this for the In Memoriam!  But, time and time again, that's not been the case. The next year,  the editing wasn't as bad, but they had James Taylor perform a cover of The Beatles "In My Life" and the montage was again, multiple screens and out-of-focus for the viewer at first. After that, the next year, Celine Dion performed Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" (Yes, that Charlie Chaplin wrote "Smile") Again, too many cuts to the performer, only one screen, although the montage itself was edited a little lazily. The next year, Esperanza Spalding performed Louie Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World", with a giant choir that surrounded the stage. This was also, like the first year that they mostly just stopped doing clips of the artists and just showed a single picture of them. They put a couple clips in there and, it's kinda artistically done well, and perhaps this was a rights issue, but I still think it sucked. (And I'm sure somebody thought they were being funny ending with a shot of Elizabeth Taylor in her role in "Cleopatra" of all goddamn movies.) 

2013 though, this is the one year, where they basically, did the performer thing and they got it right. For one, they just showed the In Memoriam first! The huge montage of all those who died, they had music underneath but no performer or performance, and it was beautiful. The last one they named was Marvin Hamlisch, and that's when there was a surprise performance and speech, by Barbra Streisand singing "The Way We Were". Okay, this works, mainly because, they did the In Memoriam first, secondly they perform a song that fits into the montage, because of who passed away, Hamlisch is a legendary singer-songwriter, an EGOT winner, and one of the most importants musical artist of their day and in particular of cinema, and this is a song that he's known for and that he won an Oscar for. Also, Barbra Streisand, appearing, is itself a shock! She's somebody who generally doesn't show up for these things first of all, and then getting her to perform, is also such a rarity and an honor for these things that it's actually meaningful. She doesn't show up, she rarely performs even if she somehow does and now you got her performing, and it's all because of who passed away and she's decided to honor him, because they were such close friends, personally and professionally. It's beautiful, and perfect. And also, a once in a lifetime perfect storm scenario where the performance along with the In Memoriam actually works!

The next year, they kinda got the same idea, kinda.... The huge montage first, and then after the montage is when you go into a performance. (And again, if you are going to do it, this is the best way, but even then, I'd advise, their has to be a perfect storm scenario) Unfortunately, they choose Bette Midler to perform "Wind Beneath My Wings", which.... ugh.- look, I love Bette Midler, but for one, I hate that song. But worst than that, it's not a song that's immediately connected to anyone who passed this year and it wasn't to honor someone in particular, they just called her in to sing it. Bette Midler does have mystique, but not Barbra mystique, and- I guess co-writer of the song Larry Henley did pass away around that time, but he wasn't honored during the Memoriam, he wasn't a film person and that's not why The Divine Miss M is there, she's just there, because last year, they got a diva to sing an emotional number after the In Memoriam, and she's a diva who can sing an emotional number after the In Memoriam, but the context and meaning of the way it worked the year before is completely gone. (Also, did you know that song was a cover. It's actually a country song originally sung by an Malaysian-born Australian singer name Kamahi and Bette Midler was like, the tenth artist to record that song! Man, how did that become her standout tune; it's not even her best movie song ballad; hell, just making her sing "The Rose" instead would've improved this thing a little) Anyway, this doesn't work. It's an unnecessary performance that doesn't add anything to the In Memoriam, and that's the problem. All of these performances, whether they're good or bad, or nice or not, you have to ask, "Do they add anything to the In Memoriam", and I would argue that, only the Barbra Streisand one, in 2013 does that, and that literally, none of the others do. At best, they don't get in the way, like Yo-Yo Ma. At worst, you get...., well this year's In Memoriam. 

Anyway, the next year, they did it correctly, just Meryl Streep coming out and a montage of those who passed. Again, not clips so much as some well-done painterly images of everyone, which, eh,- I prefer clips but that's fine. Then, the next year, they went back to a performance, which in this case involved Sara Bareilles singing,- she sings Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now"? Okay, again, there shouldn't be a performance of any kind, but at least until now, I understood why they picked each of these songs- even "Wind Beneath My Wings", I-, I get why someone would use that song, This might be me, but I have no idea why you would pick "Both Sides Now". That song has nothing to do about death or passing or- it's a song about self-reflection of one's own life, it's not really a song about reflection on others' lives. I know it sounds sad, but like,- what?- This might be me, but I don't think that song works for this; maybe I just love that song too much, but I don't think that's a good song for an In Memoriam of any kind. Maybe, an instrumental as background, but definitely not as a performed piece.

Also, can I just say, there is something kinda just gross, about bringing somebody in to just do one song about the dead people every year. Not that we need another reason not to do this shit; like, I'm sure all these artists were happy to do this, and that they were at least paid well to do it, but like,-, "Hey, we want you to sing, while everybody is sad for a few minutes, can you come?" That gig sounds awful and kinda offensive, honestly; what would that sound like to you if people asked that of you, that they think of your music, they think about dead people? I might be kinda insulted myself. Even if it made sense,- like, I don't think they ever asked, say Elton John to come and do this while singing, "Candle in the Wind" for them, which is literally a song about a movie star who died, but I'll bet you a million bucks that if they did, he would immediately rejected the offer, and keep in mind, he's a two-time Oscar winner himself. (And he's smartly kept away from these performances by the way....) 

Anyway, the next year, Eddie Vedder performed Tom Petty's "Room at the Top"- which, okay another weird-ass song choice, even though I like that cover, and I guess, you can kinda stretch that song, to being relevant to an In Memoriam, at least the way Eddie does it, but the editing is back to shit, with the camera panning, right in the middle of the montage, and the screen in the background again for part of the tribute...- who now leads to the question of, who gets the full screen treatment and who gets the in-the-background of the performer treatment, as though this process isn't already too morbidly political to begin with.... 

They did it correctly in 2019, just the orchestra and the montage, no cutting to the orchestra in the middle,- perfect, no notes with the staging. The next year, Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connor, who have performed at the Oscars, way more than I realize they have at this point,- they do, The Beatles "Yesterday",- which, is an appropriate song but at this point, I'm just morbidly curious on what other beloved songs the Academy is gonna try to shove into their In Memoriam; they seemed to just go through every popular song that's remotely emotionally sad. And this is also one of the more obnoxiously edited ones, as instead of a solemn video screen, they project the images of those who've died on these elongated, arch-like double-screen that's behind the main stage, and sometimes there's one person and an image or two from their career, and other times there's two people listed at once, and you wonder why, are they related or something, did they work together, or what, but no, they just want to shove everybody in. Also, they back up the camera again, so that we don't just see them entirely. It's another shitty job, and it another thing that politicizes this more than it needs to. Like, now that you're dead, are you important enough to have your own screen, or do you have to share the space with some other dead person? WTF?

This is another pet peeve of mine-, I know there's constant complaints that the Oscars or other award shows are too long. I'm not saying they're wrong, necessarily, but the In Memoriam, is not the area where we should be cutting time on this. I'm not saying include everybody who died...- there's always gonna be certain snubs for one reason or another, and yes it sucks, and sometimes I will complain about certain ones they makes, like the year they snubbed Joan Rivers, but I'm okay with having that controversy. We can complain about them, but what's worst, not having your name mentioned or not having your name focused on when it's there? I'm sure if you ask they'd say, "I don't care, I'm dead do whatever you want," but for the sake of argument, if your doing this, it should done well, and that's the real complaint. This doesn't need to include everybody or be apolitical when perhaps it shouldn't, but if you're doing it, it has to be done well, and frankly, we've had a long, long run of most-of-the-time, the Academy, just, not doing it well. And, to be clear, they're not the only ones, they've had bad In Memoriams at the Emmys and Tonys as well, (Probably the Grammys too, but I haven't watched them since Santana won everything) but the Oscars are the ones who started this and they're the one that, frankly we're gonna just scrutinize the most, as we should, and you know what, more than the other award shows, they have to be the ones doing it well and showing everybody how to do it, so when they are, going through it badly and lazily, you gotta really call it out. 

The 2021 In Memoriam is a good example. This is a weird one, 'cause of COVID there actually wasn't an orchestra at the show, and there also wasn't a performance of any kind, so, from what I can tell, I think they used an acoustic version of Stevie Wonder's "As" as the song. I'll let that slide, 'cause 2020 is the exception year for everything, and at least they didn't drag Stevie or anybody else to perform it, but what I will knock them down for is rushing through the In Memoriam too damn quickly! 

   

 

Okay, this is why I never advocate listening to fans, "Oh, the show's too long, it needs to be shorter," yeah, but sometimes it needs to be longer, and if there was ever a year, when you should've just said, "Fuck it, make the In Memoriam ten minutes long if we need to!", it was the 2021 Oscars. Like, I didn't feel sad, or annoyed, I think I just got dizzy watching this. Maybe figure out how long the montage needs to be, and then pick the song? And, btw, you picked a song that should've worked; the album version of "As" is seven minutes long, why are you playing it at double-speed to get through everybody?! If it's ABC bitching, (And it very well could be, I might add) stand up to them and tell them, we're spending this much time on it, I don't care, we'll cut something else! 

Oscars 2022, they fuck up the In Memoriam so badly, that the Academy had to post an alternative, better version on their Youtube page. They previously did this in 2009, but it was only on their official website at the time, Youtube and the Oscars Youtube presence wasn't as prominent back then. This one, again, they use this oddly-shaped stage where the screens are more abstract, and not like a normal screen, and the montage is blocked, originally by Tyler Perry talking too much about Sidney Poitier and then by the gospel group The Samples, that's a little way too happy to be singing, and singing the peppiest version of Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You" at that, 'cause that's how that song should be sung as gleefully and blissfully happily as possible, (eye roll) and then Bill Murray talks about Ivan Reitman for a bit in the middle, then the stupid peppy chorus does a two-step in unisom and starts happily singing Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky", and yes, complete with lots of cutting away from the screen putting the emphasis on them. And then there's- I'm told that was Jill Scott, I didn't recognize her but she's singing-eh, actually, I honestly have no idea what song that is. She's just singing "I'm Going to Heaven" on repeat; I honestly have no idea if that's an actual song or not. I tried to look it up, but I couldn't find it. She might've just been improvising until Jamie Lee Curtis and a puppy came out to talk about Betty White's passing for a few minutes. Then the theme to "The Golden Girls" kinda leads into the rest of the music performing over the clips. Then there's some other speech...- Um, this was awful. All of this. Weirdly, while the Academy did post their more appropriate montage, I don't see a lot of reports about just how bad this montage was at the time, but-eh, it's honestly horrible, maybe the worst version of it yet. I can kinda understand though, 'cause this occurred a few moments after the Will Smith/Chris Rock incident, so I'll forgive some for not remembering this, but this was pretty bad. And I'll show the French dub for maximum hilarity.

  

Man, this was so tone-deaf, it's kindly startling in hindsight. This is the kind of performance that might work, like the old Gene Kelly one did, for a single person, separate from the In Memoriam, but when you shove into it a joyous gospel performance for their passing, this- well,- some of these deaths this year, were kinda difficult to consider like that. For instance, William Hurt, who while an amazing actor, and an Oscar winner, also was a domestic abuser, and a domestic abuser to another Oscar winner, one who just happened to be starring in that year's Best Picture winner, btw. That's a little indecent.... Also, Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was accidentally killed on the set of "Rust", a death that, we're still in the middle of dealing with through the court systems. (Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter's case is going to trial in July, meanwhile a jury convicted Hannah Gutierrez-Reid, the film's armorer of involuntary manslaughter with sentencing up to 18 months in jail possible) Yeah, I think gospel choir was a very bad idea to "celebrate" that particular horrid death. 

Compared to that, the 2023 Oscars where Lenny Kravitz sings "Calling All Angels", is considered better, even though it's pretty awful too. Kravitz's performing his own song is good, but again, we don't need him. Also, this has everything bad about past bad In Memoriams. The bad directing, constantly cutting to a performer, the screen in the background not the foreground, some people getting clips others having to share the screen with another random dead person. I do like, that they added the Oscar insignia for those who've won an Oscar; it's kinda tacky, but I like that that's acknowledged now. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, started doing that one recently too, and I kinda like that when they did it. It's still just a lot of everything that ruins the In Memoriam for me, just tamer. 

And now, we finally get caught up to this year's atrocity.... which, again, I'm just not going into.

So, who is responsible? Well, while I'm tempted to the first year they had a performer for the modern In Memoriam, which was '05, I think '09, when they really first started screwing this up, and apparently they never learned the lessons that should've been taught then. So, who was running that show? 

Okay, that year, Bill Condon and Laurence Mark were producing the show. Bill Condon, an Oscar-winning screenwriter for "Gods and Monsters," he also wrote the screenplay for "Chicago" an Oscar-winning Best Picture, and he's also directed quite a few movies, "Kinsey", "Dreamgirls" most notably. This is the only time he produced the Oscars. Laurence Mark was a producer on "Dreamgirls" and him as well as several other films; him and Condon have worked together a lot. They're both industry vets and they both like things to be a little too big and a little too over-the-top when possible, especially when it comes to music, so yeah, perhaps they were thinking, "The audience likes musical numbers, let's find places to put more musical numbers in the show" and they thought of the In Memoriam as a place for music a musical performance, and not, as an In Memoriam. (Also, Queen Latifah, was in "Chicago", so there's that connection.) Anyway, knowing that, explains why it happened that time, but it certainly doesn't explained why everyone else keeps following in that tradition, which, again, was not a tradition before, and should never have been!!! 

I can't express how bad this idea was to begin with, was considered bad at the time, and how just it's continued as though it ever really worked. (Again 2013, is the most extreme exception) But now, I'm afraid people are going to think this is normal and common and it's friggin' not! And for that, I am blaming Condon and Mark first and most. As much as I like you guys' work otherwise, I hope you two burn in Hell and when you do die, you look up from there and see yourselves get snubbed in your In Memoriam! Cause, goddamn, you guys screwed this up, so much worst than you even realize.

I don't know who's producing the Oscars next year, but whoever it is, take this lesson, and don't fuck up the In Memoriam, ever again! No performer, no performance, create a good In Memoriam montage package, find a sad song and play it. I'd rather "Crash meet Green Book" win Best Picture next year than see this shit again! If ABC bitches about it, tell them, you don't have to re-up when the contract runs out in 2028 if you don't want to, but we're here now and celebrating those we've lost correctly! If the studios asks for extra money for footage,- okay, well, if it's in the budget, pay it, if not, eh, find a good tasteful idea to compensate;- that actually could be tricky paying for all that, so..... 

If you really need an extra performance, how about do a new version of that list of songs that were never nominated?! That was cool. Do a modern version, get like, Lin-Manuel Miranda and I don't know, eh, Janelle Monae to do a medley. That'd be awesome. Start with Lin, singing, "We Don't Talk About Bruno" and then have Janelle sing, I don't know, "When Doves Cry", then go into, eh "Secret Garden" or eh, "Part of Your World", maybe do some rap songs that weren't eligible but memorable, like "Gangster's Paradise" or something and Janelle goes into "Independent Women Part I". Let them figure it out and have them do ten minutes on that. Go into. you know, "How Deep is Your Love", or "Don't You Forget About Me" or "Born to Be Wild" or "Jailhouse Rock", have some fun with it. See what new songs missed and what songs from the past they didn't get to. Let the show run a few minutes longer doing that. I mean, we are starting the show at 4:00pm on the West Coast now, so you got the time. 

Or Not. But whatever you do, just do the In Memoriam correctly. No noteworthy performer, or any performer, just music that plays, montage plays on a single big screen, so everyone at home can see it! And do literally nothing else to it! Nothing! NOTH-THING! Take an Oscar-winning musical's wishful words of wisdom to heart and "Let It Be"!