Quendrith Johnson

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

This Awards Season was by all accounts one of the nastiest in Oscar history, not just the Woody Allen takedown but also in general campaigning with one song nominated, then disqualified, and the vitriol against a few leading ladies. Julia Roberts took the worst hits, not just in her personal life tragedy but in a voter backlash as revealed to The Hollywood Reporter with one anonymous AMPAS member's ballot being made public, The voter described Roberts' performance as "horrendous."

So what do we take away from this year, where a selfie of host Ellen DeGeneres and a clutch of stars broke Twitter?

First, Awards Season is too long; second, there are too many award shows back-to-back. Especially the Spirit Awards, which happened on Saturday in the wake of Oscar buzz for Sunday; and third, poorly attended films like Dallas Buyers Club, the winner of both top male awards Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, will not be forced upon the public.

Matthew McConaughey's stunner star turn was career-changing, but the film itself is such a downer that even Jared Leto, who won for Best Supporting Actor, was heckled at a recent film festival. Cate Blanchett's equally charged performance left many in the Academy speechless enough to unseat perennial Greatest Living Actress Meryl Streep from the title, but the shadow on Blue Jasmine's director left her with the only option to thank him as merely "Woody," not even mentioning his last name.

Gravity killed at the Box Office, domestically and internationally, and Alfonso Cuarón rightly won. But cynics in Hollywood had a chuckle over Sandra Bullock's "big payday" of close to $70 M USD for her part. When the film tops $1 B USD, that figure becomes smaller and smaller. A-List male stars with back-end deals and percentage points routinely top-out over $100 M USD.

Truth be told, no one at the Academy loved Gravity enough. Why? Because it ignites a serious long-simmering debate about VFX vs storytelling camps in the industry. On one side, people like Rob Reiner have said they feel CGI has stolen the plot; on the other hand, guys like David Koepp feel CGI is the future, and storytelling will eventually merge with advances new technology. How stories are told must change, in other words, to accommodate both sizzling pixel breakthroughs and shorter filmed entertainment formats, new genres to come.

Speaking of tech, in the form of a Social Media coup, there was the @EllenShow Selfie that rocked Twitter. Over 1 million RT's (retweets) in the space of a 38 minutes by some counts, an hour plus by others, which received nearly as much press as the winners. Is this a good thing?

That, and a well-timed but accidental red carpet limo pratfall by last year's Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, brings the picture of what people want to see at the Oscars into sharp relief. Stars, stars, and more stars, doing anything from holding the Samsung for selfie (Bradley Cooper) to JenLaw doing a Dior faceplant, that is what sells the show. 

Although 12 Years a Slave was a brave choice for Best Picture, there was more worldwide buzz over the doctored Twitter photo of Leonardo DiCaprio on all fours on a shag carpet from The Wolf of Wall Street being high-heeled by a photoshopped image of the golden statue's torso cropped on top of Margot Robbie with the text reading "Give Leo" the Oscar.

And many felt American Hustle was shut out for reasons too lengthy and ridiculous to mention here.

On the bright side, legendary blogger Nikki Finke returned to Twitter for #NikkiSnarksOscars live slagging. A broken Twitter connection tossed everyone online into chaos, nevertheless, Finke's debut sans Deadline after the split was a welcome sign that at least Hollywood journalism is healthy. Hollywood coverage without Nikki Finke is like MGM without the Lion, or Universal without the Globe.

Next year, AMPAS will have to overhaul the entire show, including Exit Ellen Stage Left. Viewers love Ellen, but not in a halting, pizza-delivered, slightly glib Oscar ceremony when the rest of the world is at war in the Urkaine and nearly bankrupt as a country at home.

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