85th Oscar Thoughts!

I'll do this like I did last year's and my rankings of the years prior. 

THE 85TH ACADEMY AWARDS OSCARS

Host: Seth MacFarlane

Winners: Argo, Ang Lee, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence, Christoph Waltz, Anne Hathaway

Notable Occurances:
+We are not to call them the 85th Academy Awards, just "The Oscars".
+The show aimed to celebrate the music in the movies, with performances from cast members of three popular musicals of the new millenium.
+Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep presented Daniel Day-Lewis with his third Oscar.
+Argo becomes the first Picture winner since Driving Miss Daisy to win without a directing nomination.
+Many of the top winners are previous winners, including directing winner Ang Lee who received a standing ovation.
+Jennifer Lawrence falls on the way up to accept her win.
+There was a tie, first time in 18 years, first time in a competitive category in 33 years. 
+A tribute to James Bond and his 50 years on the big screen.
+Michelle Obama presents Best Picture.


The Good:
+Ang Lee winning Director and the subsequent enthusiastic standing ovation was the best part of the night.
+Thank god for Jennifer Lawrence falling.  Though I'm not laughing at her misfortune, her grace after it and good humor shows was a fantastic gal she is.  (More on that later).
+The night opened with a surprise win for Christoph Waltz, which made me happy. 
+Channing Tatum and Charlize Theron's brief dance in the opening.
+MacFarlane's first joke about the night being a three hour quest to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh.
+Daniel Day-Lewis's speech was very funny.  Now, maybe someone can cast him in a comedy.

+Anne Hathaway became an Oscar winner.
+The fashions were mostly good.
+Jennifer Hudson killed her Dreamgirls number.....though still didn't deserve an Oscar.
+There was a nice amount of star power with presenters, and on the female side too.  I think, outside of maybe Julia Roberts, most of the biggest current actresses were present.
+Nicole Kidman's wonderful journey to becoming a complete human being by finally showing some humility with her "poor thing" reaction and presentation of her trifecta of Picture nominees.  I LOVE HER!  LOL.

+Adele winning.  She was one of the few people who seemed really happy that she won and moved.  That guy that won with her was hot!
+Sally Field in opening video, admitting that Anne will win.
+The decision to move the tech nominees to a box near the stage, getting them to the stage faster if they won.  I didn't pick up on this right away, but it's actually a smart, less-offensive way of saving time.
+Did Meryl Streep even open up the envelope to announce Daniel had won?  LOL, go Meryl. 
+The tie.  Oddly, it felt long in the making.  Why aren't there more ties at these things?
+Good to have Jack back.  He looked as crazy as ever. 
+When Shatner said "Why can't Tina and Amy host everything?" - the loud reaction from the crowd. 
(Honestly, I struggled to start The Good.  I'm glad there was more than I initially thought.)

The Bad:
I'll try to group these as best I can.

+The producers approach of turning it into a celebration of music.  Outside of the disappointing fact that Zeta-Jones was clearly lipsyncing, there wasn't anything terrible about the performance.  They were all fine.  Shirley Bassy and Barbra Streisand were good, but Bassy needed a better set.  And her performance just kind of ended with little fanfare.  I thought Adele was going to come out and perform after her, but she performed later.  When she did, she was almost drowned out by the orchestra (more on that later), which is a shame.  The salute to three recent musicals (Chicago, Dreamgirls and Les Miserables - but why not Moulin Rouge!, Once, or Sweeney Todd) didn't sound as terrible to me as it to others.  The execution was sloppy.  I thought they would bleed into each other, but there was footage of each movie shown while the stages were changed.  I'm sure there was a way this could've been made into one spectacular production, but that clearly wasn't the case.  Zeta-Jones, as mentioned above, wasn't performing live.  Hudson was great, but the set was weird.  Even weirder was the audience giving her a standing ovation despite knowing there another part coming.  Then, the cast of Les Miserables comes out, all looking like they are about to fight to the death in The Hunger Games.  Helena and Sacha looked particularly embarassed.  Russell, bless him, continues to try to sing despite not being able to.  Remember what happened last time Hugh and Anne sang at the Oscars?  How delightful that was!  How awful this was!  At least Eddie and Amanda seemed into it.  And why is Samantha Barks so god damn thin now?  She doesn't look right.  Furthermore, there were 5 nominated songs in Best Song category.  "Skyfall" was performed in its entirety.  The Ted song wasn't, neither was "Suddenly".  But, hey, at least they were attempted!  The Life of Pi and Chasing Ice songs just got clips.  Also, for Best Score - nothing special.  Are the producers not aware that's also movie music?  Leading into...

+The Jaws score cutting 3 (or 4?) winners off.  I heard some people say they liked this, and wondered why it hasn't been introduced before.  Uh, cause its fucking disrespectful.  We can have half-assed musical tributes to musicals that weren't very good to begin with, but a winner can't go on a few more seconds.  Especially, the visual effects winner (which yielded Nicole's now legendary "poor thing" reaction.)  who probably wanted to give a shoutout to the fact that their company is now bankrupt.  I don't mind playing up some music to let them know to start wrapping it the fuck up, but don't actually cut people off.  We know for a fact that the acting winners will be allowed to go on forever. 

+The reason the orchestra drowned out Adele and was so fucking loud with the Jaws score was because they were offsite.  Umm, did it not occur to anyone that this would come back and bite them in the ass? 

+The opening.  I'll leave it separate from the rest of MacFarlane.  But it dragged on and on and on and on and on.  And outside of maybe 2 half-laughs at the beginning wasn't funny at all.  Radcliffe and Gordon-Levitt were wasted.  Yes, Seth can sing decently, but his dancing looked robotic.  The William Shatner thing might have worked at the Emmy's, but here it was a fucking mess.  I wouldn't be surprised if the opening was still going on at the Dolby Theatre.

+MacFarlane.  Look, I really wanted to like him.  I don't, I never did.  But, for the Oscars, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  I didn't want a bad show, I never do.  Ugh, whatever.  I'm pretty much done with him.  I'm 99% certain he'll never do this again after most of the reviews.  I know he made a point (that we all knew) when he said no matter what he'd get panned.  That, however, doesn't make your jokes any funnier.  I don't want to waste much time going on about how most of his material felt oddly dated, fell flat with the audience there (the joke about getting inside Abraham Lincoln's head was probably the low point), and was wildly misogynistic.  There's a difference between being edgy and being tasteless.  I think all of this also proves how Sacha Baron Cohen would not be a good choice for the Oscars, either.  They are both way too divisive.  You need someone who the room likes and will root for.  That's why Amy and Tina worked so well at the Globes.  Well, that and they are actually funny, also not one trick ponies.  I'd take James Franco over him. 

+Outside of the host, everyone else was also not funny.  Remember last year when Emma Stone came out with Stiller and knocked her presentation out of the park?  Well, I guess the producers and host weren't giving that chance.  Only The Avengers cast and Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy were given material that was supposed to be funny.  The Avengers just came off as awkward and "what is happening?"  How do you get Robert Downey Jr and Samuel L. Jackson to fuck up on stage?  Both are naturals.  McCarthy and Rudd just seemed stranded.  They are two naturals, skilled at improv.  They looked so alone.  I think those were the only attempts at humor. 

+The Chicago cast reunion was campy, at best.  Richard Gere looked like a zombie, everyone was surprised Renee Zellweger was still alive, Catherine Zeta-Jones looks like a Beverly Hills housewife from the 1980's.  Queen Latifah was fine.  Best of all, the crowd seemed to not give two shits about them.  It was like "Wow, you got the cast of Chicago together!  Cuz their all so busy!"  This may have provided the night's best moment of unintentional humor when Gere held the envelope up to Renee to announce the winner and she just stood there.  So, now there's an internet meme about Renee not being able to read.  See, Seth!  There's such a thing as untintentional funny that is actually unintentional.  And it's funny.  Not trying to be so unfunny that it's funny.

+John Travolta introduced the musical package by saying "I've got a big treat for you."  I'm pretty sure that made everyone's palms sweat in terror for a few seconds.  Why is Travolta still invited to this?  It's not bad enough he looks like a wax museum version of himself, I doubt anyone in the room takes him seriously anymore. 

+The acting clips were fine.  The presentations of everything else sucked ass.  For several of the categories, it was basically just an image from the film with the name of the nominee and film.  That's it?  I FUCKING HATE THAT.  I miss Laura Ziskin.  At least she cared.

+I must be the only person that didn't like the Michelle Obama surprise.  It just felt like the Oscars trying to trump the Globes getting Clinton.  AND I LOVE MICHELLE OBAMA!  For a few seconds, I really thought Jack was going to introduce a film legend we haven't seen in a while.  Renee Zellweger? 

+Joaquin Phoenix's reaction.  Yes, it was hilarious.  Honestly though, given the shit I have had to hear thrown at Anne Hathaway, I really think he tries even harder at seeming disinterested.  We get it, you don't want to be there.  We get it, you're an "actor" and the world is bullshit.  Harvey must have his actors under some kind of contract to attend these things. 

+Liam Neeson, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman each presenting three Best Picture nominees.  LIKE WTF???  Ugh, so fucking dumb. 

+The producers and the director of the show deserve some shit.  First off, the show was horribly directed.  Like, some of the worst directing for an award show I've ever seen.  I get these things are hard to pace and it's hard to film stuff live.  This was just so inept.  There were several times when I thought the cameraman was about to drop the camera.  Whenever Seth was on stage, there was just a shot of him doing his material.  No crowd reactions.  There were some at first - Kerry Washington whenever Django won.  That was it.  Everyone must have been at the bar.  When there was a shot of the crowd, it was random people.  Like, Movie Star is giving her speech, let's show the costume designer's first cousin sitting with a screenwriter's brother-in-law.  I think I saw Amy Ryan twice.  This is the same director who now has done the past three shows.  Most of which have been limp and lifeless. 



That's it for that.

Now, as for Miss Lawrence, she gave us this.  In a matter of seconds, she proves to be more industry friendly and quick-witted than any Oscar host in recent memory.  Maybe her and Emma Stone can host next year.


Seriously, how awesome is she! 

She had two bearded hotties come to her rescue, three if we count Jean Dujardin reaching out for her from stage.  Why can't Bradley, Hugh and Jean come to my rescue?



Be back tomorrow with Best & Worst Dressed.