How do you follow an awards ceremony that was the best-received show the Academy has staged in years?
With more of the same.
The second Governors Awards, which took place Saturday night at the grand ballroom at the Hollywood & Highland center, was indeed more of what made last year’s inaugural ceremony such a favorite with AMPAS members.
It had more speeches. More toasts. More stars from current Oscar-contending movies. More of a crush in the ballroom, though event co-producer Sid Ganis said the crowd would be help at about 550, the same as last year.
And, oh yes, it took more time to hand out the four honorary awards to Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Eli Wallach and Kevin Brownlow than it did to bestow four awards last year.
(Left: Brownlow, Coppola and Wallach.)
That first show, which honored Roger Corman, Gordon Willis, Lauren Bacall and John Calley, took about two-and-a-half hours, plus an hour of cocktails before the dinner ceremony began.
Saturday’s show stretched a full hour more than that, giving it a total length that surpassed the longest Academy Awards telecast.
But one of the charms of the Governors Awards is that it’s not televised, and that nobody’s trying to rush the winners offstage. If Francis Coppola wants to ramble and admit that he hadn’t prepared a speech to accept the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, that’s okay.
If the Academy opts to use count ‘em, seven different members of the Board of Governors to speak glowingly of the absent Godard before running Jon Bloom's sly film package saluting the director, nobody’s going to tune out.
If Tony Bennett decides before the show that he wants to not only perform “Watch What Happens” for his friend Wallach, but also to add a second song, “Maybe This Time” from “Cabaret” – well, who’s going to turn down the chance to hear another Tony Bennett song?
So the Governors Awards was loose, collegial and rambling – and if it wasn’t quite as emotional or as fresh as last year’s show, it’s still the friendliest, most low-pressure awards show on the Academy’s calendar.
Of course, the studios clearly took notice of the popularity of last year’s show. The star quotient was higher this year, and nearly every movie in the Oscar race had some representatives at the event: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer from “The Social Network,” director Tom Hooper from “The King’s Speech,” Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman from “Black Swan,” director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla Anderson from “Toy Story 3,” director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu from “Biutiful,” director Lisa Cholodenko from “The Kids Are All Right,” actress Melissa Leo from “The Fighter” ...
In fact, Leo said during the pre-show cocktail reception that she’d been a prime lobbyist for Eli Wallach’s honorary Oscar, organizing a letter-writing campaign at the suggestion of friend and AMPAS board member Sid Ganis.
