I promise this is not The Awards Show Blog.
It's entirely coincidence that my last two blog dates have fallen on the night before major moments in the pop culture world -- the 54th Annual Grammy Awards Feb. 12, and the 84th Annual Academy Awards last night.
But seldom do these moments happen in our generation, when a majority of the country's (or even the world's) population can come together and stay connected to one thing at the same time. The awards show season is truly transcendent, and never have the Academy Awards made that more clear than in last night's broadcast.
Now, let me take a moment to say that I get embarrassingly over-emotional about pop culture. When Kim Jong-Il passed away, I retweeted the news and continued about my day. When Whitney Houston passed away? I texted my mom, dad and sister and proceeded to speak on the phone with each of them about the tragedy of it all (the jury is still out on whether I should be proud or ashamed of this quality).
But when something like the Academy Awards rolls around, I think my emotion is justified. When Octavia Spencer let the tears get the best of her during her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress ("The Help"), you could not help but recognize what this particular accolade means to the winners, and what it means to us. All of us love movies. They are what bring us together and give us common ground. They are so universal, in fact, that even A-list celebrities like Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell were seen getting excited at the memory of their first movie-watching experiences, in a montage of interviews played before and after last night's commercial breaks.
Perhaps that's the reason why the team behind the Oscars decided to go back to basics this year. It has been a rough few years for the awards, especially when it comes to appealing to the tweens and teens among us (the most recent ghastly memory featuring Anne Hathaway and James Franco, in an effort to be a young, hip hosting duo. Spoiler alert: they failed).
This year, though, it was simple. It was elegant. Billy Crystal was back to host for his ninth year. Though Crystal's jokes and skits may have missed the mark a few times, his presence on stage brought us a wave of nostalgia for Academy Awards of the past.
The rest of the ceremony, too, was able to say so much with so little. Esperanza Spalding's supremely moving performance of "What a Wonderful World" during the In Memoriam segment; Meryl Streep's gratitude to all of her coworkers and all of her friends during her acceptance for Best Actress ("The Iron Lady"); a silent film ("The Artist") snagging the award for Best Picture -- they are all wonderful examples of how, at long last, the Academy Awards have realized that less is more.
And now we can close the door on a successful awards show season, with a stronger sense of satisfaction than we've had in recent years.
(...ignoring that one moment when "Twilight" was included in an opening montage of iconic movie moments. I'm going to pretend it didn't happen and move on.)