When people look back on the 2017 Academy Awards, they will remember two films being announced as Best Picture and a pair of producing groups huddling on stage like a couple sports teams confused after a coin-flip. That’s it, painfully.

It wasn’t exactly Bonnie and Clyde: Part Two on stage with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, but it was a bizarre scene.  The 79 year old actor was given the wrong envelope for the night’s biggest award, but were movie fans given the wrong show on Hollywood’s biggest night?

First, Jimmy Kimmel didn’t leave a mark as host, and that’s on him and the writing team. Perhaps people find him funny near the stroke of midnight or after dark, but on Sunday he was anything but funny. He’s the guy who gets up on the stage at open mic night at an underground comedy club, and literally slices through the room with his dry wit and arsenal of recycled jokes that had been overcooked by someone else already.

On a night where Donald Trump’s new role as executive in chief was mocked more (not that much more though) than Oscar winner Mahershala Ali’s first name, Kimmel didn’t do much to impress. He was a popular yet tired dish as the Academy ordered.

As thoughts begin to move around the room for next year’s host, it’s important to look back on a show that was a spectacle for all the wrong reasons: the show’s late gaffe and mismanagement of a very long show. When it was all said and done, the channel was flipped and a smirk was on my face, and I love the movies.  (more…)