With Billy Crystal back on board and a (relatively) brisk running time of just over three hours, the third Academy Awards show produced under Tom Sherak's tenure as AMPAS president was certainly the best-received of the three.
But while it avoided the critical brickbats leveled at last year's Anne Hathaway/James Franco mismatch, or to a lesser degree 2010's awkward Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin teaming, the show did strike some as too determined a return to old-fashioned, Oscar-style comfort food.
"[The show] played it safe by rolling out the same old tributes to old movies, which only created the impression that Hollywood's best days are behind it," wrote Tim Molloy at TheWrap.
Also read: Sacha Baron Cohen's Red Carpet Stunt Drew Worried Visit From Oscar Officials
Sherak, though, has always been a glass-half-full kind of guy, and TheWrap found him in a resolutely upbeat mood the day after the big show.
Between Billy Crystal hosting and the old-fashioned movie-theater look, there must have been a decision made this year that it's OK to play older and not worry too much about chasing a younger audience.
Yeah, I think that's a fair statement. Here's the thing, and this is what we deal with each year: We're never going to not be who we are as an organization. We are who we are. We have a history.
If you take a studio that's been around forever, what's the difference between that and an independent that's just started in the last five years? The difference isn't the people who are working there – they're as talented at the independent as at the studio. What makes it different is that the studio has a past, it has a present and you believe it will have a future.
I think the Academy is built on that. It has a tremendous foundation based on its brilliant history. It has a present that it's going through, as society changes and as the world changes. And you believe it's going to have a future.
You're not always sure what that future is. So to celebrate our past and deal with our present, that is who we are. We're never going to forget the past, and we don’t want to.
Now, having said that, we know we have to move forward. I totally get that. But we have to do that in a way that's smart for our organization.
Now that it's over, how do you feel about the show?
I feel really good. For one thing, our partners at ABC were happy.
Two, I thought that our producers and our host did a great job. That's why I thanked them. I thought they stayed very focused on what they wanted to do, which is talk about the movies in all of us. I think it felt like Billy was back home, and I felt very happy about that.
