My complaint about last night’s Grammys, apart from the music, was the In Memoriam segment. The dead took a backseat, literally, to the living. Most of the time, the camera focused on the musicians who were playing, ostensibly, in homage to the deceased, while the faces of the deceased, much of the time, appeared on a wall behind the musicians. Often, I had to squint to read their names and identities. The Academy Awards, lately, has been doing something similar, distracting from the moving montage of the departed – especially moving at the Oscars because the photos are often stills from movies – with lavish, and lavishly shot, musical numbers. Why not tone down the performances and let the dead have their day?
