The Oscars In Memoriam segment can never win
The 2024 Oscars In Memoriam wrapped up with a list of late stars, but that still bothered some fans
Aux News In memoriam segment
There is something comforting about the recurring narratives of awards season; the familiar patterns of adulation and outrage, riding along on the well-worn grooves of decades-old discourse. Who was snubbed? Who got their long-overdue career achievement award? Which presenter had the breakout bit? What stars were left out of the In Memoriam?
Obviously, the In Memoriam segment is a sensitive section, and obviously, the Oscars are never going to be able to fully satisfy everyone. The show has less than five minutes to create an appropriate, tasteful montage that pays tribute to an international community of artists, and not just the big stars you know—in addition to actors, the segment acknowledges directors, producers, composers, production designers, editors, attorneys, agents, executives, basically the whole gamut of the entertainment industry. With so much to do and so little time, there’s always someone left out that will make the audience upset. This year the Academy attempted to subvert this typical reaction by concluding the larger montage with a long list of names who didn’t get their pictures flashed on the screen or a snippet of dialogue.
No surprise here, but the list was not enough to appease some unhappy fans. That’s because the list included some notable names, including Lance Reddick, Treat Williams, Ron Cephas Jones, Suzanne Somers, Burt Young, Norman Lear, Sinéad O’Connor, Tom Smothers, Kenneth Anger, Ray Stevenson, Cormac McCarthy, and Terence Davies, among others. Angus Cloud—who, in fairness, was better known for television in his all-too-short career—was not included at all.
As always, there’s a more exhaustive list of the stars we lost over the last year on the Oscars’ website, but the exclusion of certain artists like Reddick from the main montage ruffled feathers. Feathers are always going to get ruffled, though, because deciding who to include and who to cut is an undoubtedly thankless task. The full presentation, which was backed by Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo Bocelli singing “Con Te Partirò” (“Time To Say Goodbye”) and a choreographed dance, included figures like Ryan O’Neal, Matthew Perry, Jane Birkin, Glenda Jackson, Tina Turner, William Friedkin, and more recently deceased stars like Glynis Johns, Chita Rivera, Carl Weathers, and Richard Lewis.
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Not only was just throwing text on screen for ten seconds absolutely shit, the entire presentation was zoomed out and I could barely read who was being remembered. Also and this is probably just a me problem, the song being used was also used in the ending of Step Brothers and I just can’t take anything seriously if John C Reily once played it and occasionally yelled boats and hos!
My wife and I joked they could have got Will Ferrell to sing int instead. At least he’s in the movie biz.
In fairness, if they’d randomly had someone – anyone, really – occasionally yelling “Boats and hos!” it would have been perfect.
I would have said its tasteless, but also whoever says that has a commitment to comedy that I respect.
Next year:
“We decided to play a five-minute song while showing only ONE dead person’s face. To choose which one, we put it to Twitter.”
This sounds entirely too plausible.
So… bring back Best Popcorn flick or whatever the hell that was and make it memorial.
OR… use AI to take every person who ever worked in Hollywood who died in that year and make a mashup of their face.
RIP The Flash entering the speed force, if that’s how we’re voting
Some of those are pretty notable, not gonna lie. The problem was compounded by setting this to an actual song, which I never like because it really limits them to the finite amount of time of that single song. (By contrast, instrumental background music can be played on an extended loop if need be.) And what made it worse, was because the telecast wanted to show the dancers and performers and all that shit, the cameras were pulled back, and you had to squint to even read the names on the stage screen! I super hated the way they did it this, lol. I’m convinced the Oscar producers are like the game makers in The Hunger Games, continuously scheming up ways to torture me each year!
Perhaps because I’m a bit older, but I wouldn’t mind if “In Memoriam” was longer than 5 minutes. I feel like there’s always someone I didn’t realize was gone, and I also feel like they deserve their time.I don’t need dancers, or famous singers, but I do need to be able to read the names, ffs. You can even go full screen if you’d like, while the show takes a bathroom break.Show the name, show their title, show the clip. Simple. 10 seconds for major stars, 5 seconds for minor.
The coordinator has consumed poison berry’s in penance.
End the In Memorium section entirely. People will complain for a year or two, then everyone will forget it used to be a thing.
The “loser producers and financiers” gets to part of the problem with the In Memoriam and arguably the Oscars as a whole, the tension between whether this is an industry event or a broader cultural one. Those producers and financiers were probably more relevant to more people on that stage and in the auditorium than even some of the more well-known actors and directors, but that’s also because their main contributions were in industry spaces that the public (by design) don’t see.
Yeah, just because they weren’t famous doesn’t make them “losers.”
Yeah, I didn’t go into it because I didn’t want to get too aggro, but what a kind of vile thing to say. I get it, anti-capitalism and all that shit, but its still kind of fucked up to insult a bunch of people with families and loved ones because you don’t personally respect their position. Everybody’s allowed their opinions and beliefs, but I kind of feel like if that was about literally any other group people would rightfully be dragging that dude for being a bit of a cunt
They should just show the names and pictures. These singers and dancers are just flowers on the coffin.
The worst part is this is one of the -better- presentations…I don’t ask for much, I just want an instrumental piece and them to show a relevant clip for crew (e.g., if they’re an editor, show a clip from a movie they edited!)If memory serves, the only time they broke out the lyrics were at the end, so that checks. They did clips for crew, check. I also liked the rapid fire using the five pillars for agents, et al. They’re going to be listed, so let’s get through them.
But…I guess I’m going to have to add a new criterion: just show the home audience the video! We don’t need choreography for this shit!
I honestly don’t think they’ve done it right since the 90s, though I’m not sure I’m motivated enough to check the archives…As far as forgetting people? It’s going to happen. Deal.
They have been doing this since 1993 if my memory is correct. Audrey Hepburn was the first listed in memoirum figure. They have had 31 years to get this right, evidently not.
The in memoriam exemplified this Oscars, and the Oscars in general to me: you’re not going to get everything right and this is already kind of embarrassing, so just try not to trip over yourself reinventing the wheel. At least they had the promise of a more definitive list if you…followed a qr code.
I think they should’ve stripped it back to keep the focus on the people Hollywood lost, and then they might have had more time to properly honor them. What also gets me about the “cut for time” list is that these are people who were in big films of the past year (like Lance Reddick) or films that had been nominated for something quite recently (who can forget Ray Stevenson’s mustache-twirling performance in RRR?).
Yeah, it’s almost laughable how they never seem to do it right and last night was the worst. I’d honestly cut out all the performances of best song candidates if that’s what it took to allot the appropriate amount of time to honor these people.
I am still mad they forgot Abe Vigoda. Its a running joke in my family, will they remember Abe Vigoda this time?
There shouldn’t be anything else going on on-stage while this is running. Just run the video. Nothing should distract from the remembrance.
Agreed. No one wants to squint past the dancers in the foreground to see the list; I don’t know why they insisted on doing it this way again.Not that anyone asked me, but I’ve always loved the In Memoriam reels that Turner Classic Movies puts together at the end of the year. If I were the Academy, I would just commission them to do it.
TCM is flawless. Every time. They are several minutes longer so they tend to miss less people. The visuals are minimal yet feet the general theme. A good taste in music, images of the actors in happy times plus relevant quotes to sum up a life. Brilliant, everyone should just play the TCM memorial videos.
The last best one was the 2019 one for that exact reason
They got it right by not having a song, just music, and by mostly just showing the montage, but if I were grading that one, I would give it at most a B because they bookended it with shots of the conductor and orchestra performing. Start with a dark stage; end with a dark stage. No distractions whatsoever.
Agreed. Dancers draw attention to them, no this is all about people who died. Get that shit off the stage!
This reminded me of the scene in The Running Man where they are announcing the deaths of the Gladiators and they have the random In Living Color dancers on. It was meant to be satire!
Exactly. I blame the direction/production choices more than anything. The way they kept switching screens, and then switching camera angles, panning and slowly zooming, etc, made it next to impossible to actually register who was being remembered. Like… it’s not about the people on the fucking stage. It’s about the people who actually, y’know… died.
It’s sad but I bet this is one of the most ‘enjoyable’ parts of the broadcast. Or at least an oft-viewed segment. A couple more minutes to honor people properly would not be out of line. They could have earned those two minutes back and by avoiding all the dumb banter between presenter / strangers. No one cares about that fluff. Just get to the award noms and announcement w/o the nonsense.
At this point, just retire the in memoriam section or include a link to the list of more comprehensive names of people lost over on the Oscars website. You can’t win by doing it half-assed.
they did include a link to the list!
I’m for getting rid of it altogether as well. Or move it to a different ceremony on a different night where you can actually cover everyone and flesh out the tribute.
Norman Lear should have an entire hour of the next Emmys devoted to him. But the Oscars? No.Suzanne Somers hasn’t been in a movie where she wasn’t playing herself in a joke cameo since 1980. That was a TV star. Same with David McCallum. Frankly, Matthew Perry too, but there’d have been riots over that one.
Sinead O’Connor? For a song in a movie 30 years ago?
They can also be a bit more selective here.
Obviously someone never saw Fools Rush In.
There’s usually a couple ovations when they show somebody especially beloved, but I didn’t notice any this year.
I noticed an entertainment lawyer featured and wondered how many entertainment lawyers die every year — and what’s it got to take to get featured during this segment. Over people that way more of the public would know, like Lance Reddick or Treat Williams.
What’s the point of the list? To tell us people we already knew were dead… are dead?They should just get rid of it.No one likes the one weepy speech at weddings where we bring up the relative who died 7 years before the wedding, who never even met the groom. And most people don’t like this in memoriam business, no matter the format.
They should include how they died.“Pancaked by Drunk Dump Truck Driver”
Burst blood vessel while pooping.
The show has less than five minutes to create an appropriate, tasteful montage that pays tribute to an international community of artists, and not just the big stars you know—in addition to actors, the segment acknowledges directors, producers, composers, production designers, editors, attorneys, agents, executives, basically the whole gamut of the entertainment industry. That’s a self-imposed limitation. They can take as much time as necessary to do it right.
It’s one of the most talked about parts and every year, they do it worse.
If the show is going to go over their time anyway, why not take a few more minutes and do this part right?
Where the hell was Akira Toriyama’s name? There were multiple Dragon Ball movies.
I mean, two filmmakers as influential as Kenneth Anger and Terence Davies left as a footnote… it hurts.
it also hurts that terence davies was not even mentioned in av club when he died
In what world is Lance Reddick a footnote. I mean holy shit.
Totally different kind of person to the ones I was mentioning – way more known for his contributions to video games and television. I was talking about film, about filmmakers.
Either way, this is the first year where they just threw a wall of text to finish and, yeah let’s never do that again.
I think the only way to fix this is take a cue from I Think You Should Leave, and include a cause of death for each individual.
I thought you were going to go with have them fall naked out of the bottom of a coffin
Fucking coffin flop would murder the Oscars in the ratings.
I don’t know, I’m hearing it’s not even a show. It’s just hours of dead bodies falling out of coffins without explanation.
We don’t need permission cause they ain’t got no souls!
“Pancaked by Drunk Dump Truck Driver” remains one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.
I would have lost a lot of money betting on who the last person to be shown would be. Tina Turner? Really?Big star, but not really film royalty.
What’s Truth Got To Do With It?
I thought the Step Brothers song was a real nice touch.
It bothered fans because for reasons unknown these dumbasses don’t know what the fuck they are doing. Just put a simple video together with all of the people and stop with all the other fucking bullshit.
Boo hoo.
This is pretty much the worst format for meaningful acknowledgement of the death of some people.
Might as well just slap a QR code on the screen to a full list, otherwise people gonna bitch, no matter what.
I really think the best way to go about the In Memoriam would be to split it up into several parts and sprinkle them throughout the show before and after the commercials. With the amount of commercial breaks they have, it would only be like 10- 20 seconds each time.