Posted on 02/28/2005 7:43:50 AM PST by Borges
22 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Jamie Foxx weren't the only winners at the Academy Awards. Preliminary indications are it was a strong ratings performer for ABC.
The Oscars' 30.1 rating in Nielsen Media Research's 56 top markets was a slight 1 percent improvement over last year's comparable number, and the highest-rated Academy Awards in the metered markets since 2000. The rating is an estimate that nearly 33 million households were tuned in.
Nationwide viewership totals were to become available later Monday.
Last year's Oscars were seen by 43.5 million people, a sharp 32 percent increase over 2003. Considering the ominous signs of ratings declines for the Golden Globes and Grammys this year, the numbers left ABC executives pleased.
"Obviously, Chris Rock as host had an impact in the resurgence of the numbers," said Larry Hyams, vice president of audience analysis and research at ABC.
Backstage at the Oscars, Eastwood contemplated how deserving he was to come away with his second best-picture and directing triumph, this time for the boxing tale "Million Dollar Baby."
"There's a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven't," said Eastwood, whose film also earned Swank her second best-actress Oscar and Morgan Freeman (news) the supporting-actor prize. Humbly, Eastwood added, "You just do the best you can."
Other acting awards Sunday night went to performers in real-life roles, Foxx as lead actor for his uncanny emulation of Ray Charles in "Ray" and Cate Blanchett (news) for supporting actress as Katharine Hepburn (news), the love of Howard Hughes' life, in "The Aviator."
Eastwood's triumph meant fresh heartbreak for Martin Scorsese, whose Hughes epic "The Aviator" won the most awards with five but failed to bring him the directing Oscar that has eluded him throughout his distinguished career.
Scorsese, now a five-time loser, matched the record of Oscar futility held by a handful of legendary filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman, who also went 0-for-5 in the directing category.
Eastwood, who directed a segment of Scorsese's music-documentary TV series "The Blues," had kind words for his rival backstage.
"I was kind of a little disappointed when they started building a competition between Marty and me," Eastwood said. "I have the greatest respect for him and all the films he's done over the years."
Blanchett echoed Eastwood's praise.
"Certainly, working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it," Blanchett said.
The wins by Freeman and Foxx followed Denzel Washington and Halle Berry (news)'s triumph three years ago for "Training Day" and "Monster's Ball," the only other time blacks claimed two acting Oscars.
"In our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things," said Foxx, who throughout awards season has praised Washington and Berry as ambassadors for black actors. "Why not have something positive and stamp it with blackness?"
Producers of Sunday's show hoped the presence of first-time host Rock might boost ratings, particularly among younger viewers who may label the Oscars as too staid an affair. Rock had mocked the Oscars a bit beforehand, calling awards shows "idiotic," but he was on his best behavior.
He chided some celebrities by name and included one mild three-letter word, but his routine was fairly clean for the comedian known for a foul mouth in his standup act.
It was the second straight year an Eastwood film won two of the four acting Oscars, Swank as a tenacious fighter who rises to champion status before her life takes a cruel twist, Freeman as a worldly wise ex-boxer.
Last year, Eastwood's dark morality play "Mystic River" earned the lead-actor prize for Sean Penn and the supporting-actor award for Tim Robbins.
Freeman, who costarred in Eastwood's 1992 film "Unforgiven," said he is the sort of director who gives actors the freedom to cut loose and perform their own way. The Western was Eastwood's first Oscar win for best-picture and director.
"If he hires you, he hires you because he feels like you know what to do," Freeman said. "And he's very, very largely out of the way. He directs the picture, you do the acting. I love that, and I think that most of the people that he works with love that."
Swank once again beat out main rival Annette Bening (news), nominated for the theater farce "Being Julia." Bening had been the front-runner for "American Beauty" five years ago but lost to Swank.
With unremarkable career results since her first win, Swank had been in danger of becoming one of those actresses who fades from view after an Oscar success.
"The truth is, after 'Boys Don't Cry,' I realized how few and far between the great roles are," Swank said. "I am beyond thankful for finding 'Million Dollar Baby.'"
Eastwood, whose first credited screen role came in the 1955 Francis the Talking Mule flick "Francis in the Navy," has climbed in the ensuing half-century to the ranks of Billy Wilder, David Lean, Robert Wise and Steven Spielberg, other filmmakers who have won two or more directing Oscars.
Critics say Scorsese's best work is decades behind him, noting that recent epics such as "The Aviator" and "Gangs of New York" do not measure up to earlier masterpieces such as "Mean Streets" and "Raging Bull."
On the other hand, Eastwood has entered a late-career zenith, delivering complex character studies two years in a row that rank toward the top of his long resume as actor and director.
A last-minute addition to the Oscar race, "Million Dollar Baby" did not even begin shooting until June and had been scheduled for release in 2005 until distributor Warner Bros. took a look at an early cut and scrambled to release it in December.
At 74, Eastwood became the oldest directing winner ever. Eastwood joked that it was a sign "we're taking over. The (American Association of Retired Persons) and me."
He said he had great respect for many young directors such as Alexander Payne, who shared the adapted-screenplay Oscar for the wine-country ramble "Sideways," which also had a best-picture nomination.
"There's a lot of young guys coming along, but I'd like to say to the various financiers, don't forget the senior guys. The senior guys and gals are there, willing to do their best work for you."
43.5 million viewers (approximately). Isn't that just about the "legal" amount of people who voted for Kerry?
Just a thought.
(Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News.")
I hope this doesn't encourage them to ask Chris Rock back again. He positively stunk.
It doesn't mean they KEPT this audience for the duration. Many probably left after the "monologue".
I wonder what critics the author is talking about? Gangs of NY was a much better film than "Mean Streets". Danial Day Lewis' acting in Gangs was every bit a good as DiNiro's in Raging Bull, also. I thought Gangs was a very underrated picture.
Kinda like Rock's opening?
I agree about Chris Rock. I generally find him funny, but I thought he was pretty flat last night. The Bush jokes really didn't bother me since I've learned to expect them whenever Hollywood and politics intersect. I just think I've seen Rock funnier. Maybe I just think the efforts of other hosts pale beside the good work Billy Crystal did on the Oscars when he hosted.
"I thought Gangs was a very underrated picture."
I did too but was a litte rubbed at a couple of obvious PC inserted things.
1.)One of the dance hall "girls" was a guy with a 5 o'clock shadow. Homosexuality and gender ambiguity were openly accepted in the 1860's in the Five Points, evidently.
2.)A black guy was a member of the Dead Rabbits. Yeah, right.
The acting and overall portrayal was awesome, however.
I thought this would be a really low ratings night for Oscar. But looking back, the normal winner on Sunday nights, Fox, just showed "Independence Day" for the 100,000th time. No wonder people tuned in to the Academy Awards.
With all due respect, the "artists" you defend are the ones who started it.
They're the ones who take taxpayer money to put scrap metal piles in front of our public buildings and call it "sculpture." They're the ones who use taxpayer funds to show photos of crucifixes in jars of urine and pictures of the Virgin Mary made from elephant sh!t in the museums. They're the ones who took federal money given to schools for the "arts" and used it to encourage kids to send Christmas ornaments made out of sex toys to the White House so Hillary Clinton could display them on the Christmas tree.
And when we object to this abuse of taxpayer funds, they call us uncultured rubes, ignorant hicks, hayseeds, Bible bangers and Nazis.
They're the ones who turn out "music" that encourages drug use, violence toward women and the murder of police officers. Lest we forget, the music industry gave its highest honor this year to a gang of no-talent smack-heads (Green Day) whose "accomplishment" was nothing more than putting 45 minutes or so of non-stop Bush bashing and America bashing on a CD and selling it to their fellow pierced-scrotum losers nodding off in front of MTV.
And when we object to this coarsening of our culture and debasing of our incredibly rich, incredibly unique musical heritage, they call us uncultured rubes, ignorant hicks, hayseeds, Bible bangers and Nazis.
They're the ones who churn out movies made by scriptwriters who can't write, directed by directors who can't direct and played on screen by actors who can't act. The only thing they can do is relentlessly shove their far left agenda down our throats, promoting open public flaunting of homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, pedophilia and complete centralized government control of every single aspect of our lives (not theirs, of course, they're above that) outside the bedroom.
Many of us can remember a time when Hollywood made truly great movies, some that we even disagreed with but still recognized as good films. Films that served a purpose other than openly mocking us and all our values. And when we lament the passing of that era and express our disgust at the communist sewage flowing out of Hollyweird these days, we're called uncultured rubes, ignorant hicks, hayseeds, Bible bangers and Nazis.
The "Arts" community has shown us all too often just how much contempt and scorn and hatred they have for us. So please spare me your sanctimonious hand-wringing over us giving back to them what they give to us.
Gee, that many. Wow.
(snicker)
I agree. I generally find Chris Rock funny, but this performance was a dud. And he was lame compared to David Letterman who had the best line on the Sarandon/Robbins duo. Letterman said, essentially, "Here they come and they're sure to be pissed off about something, so get ready." This was by far the best intro I ever heard at the Oscars.
Rock was pretty bad. I meant the movies themselves though.
I didn't watch it.
I saw the list of winners and my reaction was: "Yawn..."
And you can quote me on that. :>)
I'm not talking about goverment-funded 'art'. There are lots of good movies.
It appeared to me you were commenting on a post that was remarking upon the purported audience size.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.