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Oscars draw more viewers and mixed reviews
2007-02-27
Daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres drew a million more U.S. TV viewers to the Oscars than last year's telecast, but some critics found her easy-going style too low-key for Hollywood's biggest night. The 79th annual Academy Awards show on Sunday, featuring big wins for Martin Scorsese's crime thriller "The Departed" and Al Gore's global warming documentary, averaged 39.9 million viewers for the ABC network, Nielsen Media Research reported on Monday. That's up from the 38.8 million who tuned in last year when another first-time Oscar host, political satirist Jon Stewart, presided over a ceremony in which the racial drama "Crash" won best picture over the gay-cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain." By comparison, the 2005 Academy Awards hosted by Chris Rock drew 41.5 million viewers. Observers predicted last year that a relative lack of star power and the darkly serious, art-house subject matter of nominated films, which also included "Capote" and "Munich," would dampen viewer interest in the Oscars. This year's Oscar contenders, as a group, fared better at the box office -- "Departed" was a bona fide hit grossing $132 million domestically -- and included comparatively uplifting films such as "Dreamgirls" and "Little Miss Sunshine." RELIVING THE MOMENT Tears welled in her eyes as DeGeneres, who has called hosting the Oscars a life-long dream come true, relived the moment on her own show "Ellen" on Monday, playing behind-the-scene clips taken of herself before Sunday night's telecast. "I'm crying for many reasons," she said, explaining that fatigue had made her emotional and seeing the footage stirred up feelings she had kept "in a little corner of me." "It was harder than I thought. And I was scared to death, and I didn't know how I would do," she recalled. "And it was an incredible experience." But critics were divided over whether her low-key, breezy daytime TV style, including several routines in which she ventured into the audience of the Kodak Theater to clown with the likes of Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood, was a suitable fit for the Oscars. Daily Variety's Brian Lowry wrote that DeGeneres' antics felt "a trifle small for the industry's biggest stage." "Unlike Jon Stewart or Chris Rock, DeGeneres' comedy is perfectly non-threatening, making her a safe choice, if a bland guide through the night's festivities," he added. The New York Times found her "cheeky but good-natured, far less barbed and sardonic" than either Stewart or Rock, but said her "aisle routine got a little old." Tom Shales of The Washington Post applauded DeGeneres as "crisp and unpretentious" but lamented that she lacked "the stature of the legendary hosts of the distant past -- namely Johnny Carson and Bob Hope." Seizing on an irony of DeGeneres' big Oscar moment, the Los Angeles Times noted that it came on the same network, ABC, where she made history as the first openly gay lead prime-time TV character and ultimately saw her show canceled amid recriminations that her comedy took a backseat to her sexuality.
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