Review- The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

While waiting for some of the summer's more hotly touted blockbusters to reveal themselves, now is the time to take in some counter-programming.

“Everything will be alright in the end. And if everything is not alright, it is not yet the end,” ensures Dev Patel as the exuberant young manager of the titular hotel in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. There must be a kernel of truth there, because this movie was not alright, and I consequently felt like it would never end.

Rango triumphs at Annie Awards

To the Annies' credit, they did a not-so-bad job of spreading the wealth at their annual awards. The Dreamworks-dominated voting body turned out to be more of a non-factor, chalking up only two wins for Kung Fu Panda 2 and nothing for Puss in Boots. Rango took five awards, including Best Animated Feature and Best Writing. Tintin, Rio, Winnie the Pooh, and Arthur Christmas also walked away with hardware in hand.

For kicks, I actually watched the show on live stream, and Oh. My. Lord. What an unmitigated train-wreck. Host Patton Oswalt was clearly having much more fun than anyone else in the room (he did confess to being "so high right now" at one point, but we'll never know if that was just his tongue in his cheek, or a concealed bag of weed). To be fair, he does seem unshakably at home on the stage, and with a bit more structure, I think he'd make a killer awards show host.

Structure, however, was in short supply at this affair. Bill Nighy was announced winner of the award for voice acting, only to walk out of the hall and never return! Tweets abound that he was in the bathroom at the time. True or not, he certainly wasn't in the room, leaving presenters Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall clumsily killing time while everyone waited. They eventually moved on, as Nighy made no appearance. Funnier still, the award was for Arthur Christmas, but they played the theme music from the PBS children's cartoon series Arthur.

I thought things couldn't possibly get more awkward than that, but the next presenter proceeded to read the winner for Best Preschool TV Program from the wrong envelope! This led to a confusing delay that was both hilarious and excruciating, while Patton himself marched out on stage to sort things out. Co-presenter Jason Marsden, meanwhile, delighted in photographing the awkward situation with his iPhone.

These are only the highlights from a shoddily put together evening. The whole thing kinda makes me appreciate the oft-maligned Oscars a little more. I may have high-standard complaints about the show every year, but at least it's done professionally.

Anyway, full list of feature film winners after the cut.