I was fuming with this year's show. All of its negative energy, particularly in the last stretch, was ruining the many great speeches and performed songs throughout it.
16-8. Again. I botched in the sound department, should have went with my real picks for a couple (Editing, Foreign Language Film, Live Action Short), and tumbled mightily during the last seven awards.
Poor Neil Patrick Harris. Undone by a terrible "comedic" writing staff. He started off great with a musical opener, composed by the Lopez siblings and featuring Anna Kendrick and Jack Black. Then one odd Oprah/box office joke later, he slowly started to fail. Not even a self-inflicted burn for his involvement in The Smurfs 2 helped. The running joke of his predictions box was unbelievably awful, especially with the final payoff. The Ellen-like aisle walk-downs were very iffy, best summed up with David Oyelowo's cringing expression and hand gesture. The brave Birdman parody fell a little flat. His overuse of puns was lame and proved disastrous after mocking a woman's ball-filled dress after dedicating her movie to her late son. He kept harping on the snubs, much to the dismay of many including the Selma people. I really don't want to chant "Don't Come Back!" to NPH; just fire the losers in the back.
The best thing to note during the pre-show festivities: the many awkward interviews with Dakota Johnson and Melanie Griffin. All of the media interviewers were basically Peter O'Toole in The Stunt Man, trying to creep out a mother and humiliate her daughter.
The so-called theme of the evening was "Moving Pictures". The generically phrased theme let to no further elaboration, not even a later montage. Instead, we just had another tribute to an old musical.
"The Actor goes to..." Lupita, no!
In case you forgot, in the first 22 minutes, only one award was handed out.
Maroon 5 had the first song performance slot and proceeded to stink up the joint, thanks to Adam Levine's incessant yowling and dreadful sound mixing.
There were many fantastic speeches tonight, lead off by Paweł Pawlikowski for his Best Foreign Language Film win. He defeated the orchestra!
With every reading of a Birdman nomination and its pretentiously long subtitle, I grew ever angry.
"Everything Is AWESOME!!!" was hard to top, until someone later challenged for the throne. You had Tegan & Sara and The Lonely Island bouncing around, literal lyrics, Will Arnett cameoing as Batman, Questlove and Mark Mothersbaugh popping in, confetti that would rain down later during other awards, and several audience members (including Oprah) getting the now sought-after Lego Oscars.
Best shot of the night: the lovely Emma Stone clutching a Lego Oscar, knowing that she has no chance to win but still wants to dream.
Patricia Arquette had no time for you, Ellar Coltrane. She had a rousing equal rights speech to deliver.
Rita Ora once again showed off her lack of overseas charisma, laming out the woefully generic tune "Beautiful". Even NPH had no love for it.
Wes Anderson is so, so happy when his crew rightfully win.
Where was Joan Rivers in the In Memoriam?
The mic stands could not stop moving around. How built these in?
Terence Howard, seizing his chance for a big display, went far too emotional reading off three of the Best Picture nominees.
As much as I loved "Everything Is AWESOME!!!" for waking up the program, Common and John Legend's "Glory" was the show-stopper. Oyelowo and Chris Pine were balling their eyes out.
Stop touching Idina Menzel's face, John Travolta!
Look, Lady Gaga did an amazing job with the extravagant number for the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music. Having Julie Andrews come out in the end was always nice. But still, this segment could have freed up a lot of time. At least it kept NPH off the stage.
Having Ben Affleck come out to hand Best Director was such a troll job. However, he then became a troll when he said that, "none of these movies were dull", before then reading off Foxcatcher.
And this is where I went crazy. Iñárritu was a bit expected but still made me furious. Then Redmayne beat out Keaton. And then, Birdman utterly defeated Boyhood for Best Picture. I was livid.
Also, what was with all of the spoilers for Gone Girl?
Foxcatcher was the only shut out. I can think of a couple other movies that should have joined it.
Last year, I said that the show-runners were so lucky that the song performances and some great speeches perked up the festivities at times. Guess what I have to say about this installment?
So there you have, a ceremony that will go down in some infamy and cause cinephiles to never forgive and forget.
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