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Brooks Barnes: Traditionalists worried when the Academy hired the director Adam Shankman, a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance” on Fox, as a co-producer of this year’s Oscars. Visions of Debbie Allen’s disastrous interpretive dance number – remember that tap routine with “Schindler’s List” as the backdrop? – grew worse when Mr. Shankman started talking in interviews about the “aggressive” number he and eight assistant choreographers had cooked up. The world will soon judge how successful he was, but a glance at the official program indicates that he wasn’t kidding about the aggressive part. Listed are 36 “opening dancers” and 33 “score suite dancers,” including people who go by names like Ivan “Flipz” Velez and Daniel “Cloud” Campos.

NYtimes

 Worst "Couldn't They Have Just Shown Us the Dance Number from
'(500) Days of Summer' Instead?" Award: Legion of Extraordinary Dancers
Oscar
winners were warned to keep their speeches under 45 seconds. Apparently
the Academy used the extra time to present an extended -- boy, was it
extended -- dance montage to introduce ...the Oscar for best original
score. Michael Giacchino won the award for "Up." Giacchino mentioned in
his speech that being creative "is not a waste of time." Apparently
Giacchino was not paying attention to the Legion of Extraordinary
Dancers.
Yahoo.com

The big acrobatic dance number that accompanied the performance of the nominated music scores was, well, ambitious and seemed to be appreciated by the audience at the Kodak Theatre. They gave it a rousing ovation, but the number looked ho-hum and repetitive on a TV screen.

LAtimes.com

The idea to cut the best song nominees, the only legitimate variety show moment in an Oscar program, was a wrong call, as the numbers are often showcased by wonderful performers, as opposed to the middling dance numbers accompanying the musical score nominees. But then Adam Shankman is a choreographer, so I imagine it was self-serving.

huffingtonpost.com

Whatever time was thus saved was then wasted on a five-minute, Shankman-choreographed interpretive street dance number set to the five nominated scores, some of which was in shockingly bad taste (jumping around to the music of The Hurt Locker, a movie about life and death in Iraq, and doing "the robot" during the music of Up, at whose heart was the death of a beloved spouse). A better idea would have been to showcase the scores via clips, skip the dancing, and have the five songs performed live.

www.filmmusicsociety.org

And if the Academy could spare those crucial seconds, why not cut out the annual, awful production/dance number?

WSPA News Channel 7

Brooks Barnes: Traditionalists worried when the Academy hired the director Adam Shankman, a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance” on Fox, as a co-producer of this year’s Oscars. Visions of Debbie Allen’s disastrous interpretive dance number – remember that tap routine with “Schindler’s List” as the backdrop? – grew worse when Mr. Shankman started talking in interviews about the “aggressive” number he and eight assistant choreographers had cooked up. The world will soon judge how successful he was, but a glance at the official program indicates that he wasn’t kidding about the aggressive part. Listed are 36 “opening dancers” and 33 “score suite dancers,” including people who go by names like Ivan “Flipz” Velez and Daniel “Cloud” Campos.

NYtimes

 Worst "Couldn't They Have Just Shown Us the Dance Number from
'(500) Days of Summer' Instead?" Award: Legion of Extraordinary Dancers
Oscar
winners were warned to keep their speeches under 45 seconds. Apparently
the Academy used the extra time to present an extended -- boy, was it
extended -- dance montage to introduce ...the Oscar for best original
score. Michael Giacchino won the award for "Up." Giacchino mentioned in
his speech that being creative "is not a waste of time." Apparently
Giacchino was not paying attention to the Legion of Extraordinary
Dancers.
Yahoo.com

The big acrobatic dance number that accompanied the performance of the nominated music scores was, well, ambitious and seemed to be appreciated by the audience at the Kodak Theatre. They gave it a rousing ovation, but the number looked ho-hum and repetitive on a TV screen.

LAtimes.com

The idea to cut the best song nominees, the only legitimate variety show moment in an Oscar program, was a wrong call, as the numbers are often showcased by wonderful performers, as opposed to the middling dance numbers accompanying the musical score nominees. But then Adam Shankman is a choreographer, so I imagine it was self-serving.

huffingtonpost.com

Whatever time was thus saved was then wasted on a five-minute, Shankman-choreographed interpretive street dance number set to the five nominated scores, some of which was in shockingly bad taste (jumping around to the music of The Hurt Locker, a movie about life and death in Iraq, and doing "the robot" during the music of Up, at whose heart was the death of a beloved spouse). A better idea would have been to showcase the scores via clips, skip the dancing, and have the five songs performed live.

www.filmmusicsociety.org

Brooks Barnes: Traditionalists worried when the Academy hired the director Adam Shankman, a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance” on Fox, as a co-producer of this year’s Oscars. Visions of Debbie Allen’s disastrous interpretive dance number – remember that tap routine with “Schindler’s List” as the backdrop? – grew worse when Mr. Shankman started talking in interviews about the “aggressive” number he and eight assistant choreographers had cooked up. The world will soon judge how successful he was, but a glance at the official program indicates that he wasn’t kidding about the aggressive part. Listed are 36 “opening dancers” and 33 “score suite dancers,” including people who go by names like Ivan “Flipz” Velez and Daniel “Cloud” Campos.

NYtimes

 Worst "Couldn't They Have Just Shown Us the Dance Number from
'(500) Days of Summer' Instead?" Award: Legion of Extraordinary Dancers
Oscar
winners were warned to keep their speeches under 45 seconds. Apparently
the Academy used the extra time to present an extended -- boy, was it
extended -- dance montage to introduce ...the Oscar for best original
score. Michael Giacchino won the award for "Up." Giacchino mentioned in
his speech that being creative "is not a waste of time." Apparently
Giacchino was not paying attention to the Legion of Extraordinary
Dancers.
Yahoo.com

The big acrobatic dance number that accompanied the performance of the nominated music scores was, well, ambitious and seemed to be appreciated by the audience at the Kodak Theatre. They gave it a rousing ovation, but the number looked ho-hum and repetitive on a TV screen.

LAtimes.com

The idea to cut the best song nominees, the only legitimate variety show moment in an Oscar program, was a wrong call, as the numbers are often showcased by wonderful performers, as opposed to the middling dance numbers accompanying the musical score nominees. But then Adam Shankman is a choreographer, so I imagine it was self-serving.

huffingtonpost.com

Brooks Barnes: Traditionalists worried when the Academy hired the director Adam Shankman, a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance” on Fox, as a co-producer of this year’s Oscars. Visions of Debbie Allen’s disastrous interpretive dance number – remember that tap routine with “Schindler’s List” as the backdrop? – grew worse when Mr. Shankman started talking in interviews about the “aggressive” number he and eight assistant choreographers had cooked up. The world will soon judge how successful he was, but a glance at the official program indicates that he wasn’t kidding about the aggressive part. Listed are 36 “opening dancers” and 33 “score suite dancers,” including people who go by names like Ivan “Flipz” Velez and Daniel “Cloud” Campos.

NYtimes

 Worst "Couldn't They Have Just Shown Us the Dance Number from
'(500) Days of Summer' Instead?" Award: Legion of Extraordinary Dancers
Oscar
winners were warned to keep their speeches under 45 seconds. Apparently
the Academy used the extra time to present an extended -- boy, was it
extended -- dance montage to introduce ...the Oscar for best original
score. Michael Giacchino won the award for "Up." Giacchino mentioned in
his speech that being creative "is not a waste of time." Apparently
Giacchino was not paying attention to the Legion of Extraordinary
Dancers.
Yahoo.com

The big acrobatic dance number that accompanied the performance of the nominated music scores was, well, ambitious and seemed to be appreciated by the audience at the Kodak Theatre. They gave it a rousing ovation, but the number looked ho-hum and repetitive on a TV screen.

LAtimes.com