Last year I had quite a bit to say about the Oscar show itself. This year? Eh, not so much. The show wasn’t very good in my opinion, but at the same time I don’t really blame that on Neil Patrick Harris, most anyone would have suffered with the material he was given. Granted, the overall night made it seem like Harris contributed far less to the show than Ellen DeGeneres did last year, or perhaps he just can’t deliver comedy as well as DeGeneres.
Many of Harris’s jokes fell dreadfully flat. His opening monologue played more like a eulogy to the Oscars and the industry as a whole rather than the comedic roasting it was meant to deliver, and it wasn’t only Harris. Jack Black‘s addition to the opening musical number was not only great, it was spot on. Liam Neeson even continued the trend as he introduced American Sniper and The Grand Budapest Hotel as Best Picture nominees with jabs at comic book and superhero movies. It was at this point we should have all realized Birdman was taking Best Picture.
Harris’s locking away of the night’s predictions and his consistent checking in with Octavia Spencer was annoying and proved to be a bust once all was revealed. John Travolta proved to be ever-so-creepy as he got touchy-feely with Idina Menzel following last year’s “Adele Dazeem” introduction, which he credited to being rushed on stage and the phonetic spelling of her name on the teleprompter last night on Jimmy Kimmel. He also apparently snuck a kiss on Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet, which didn’t, and isn’t going over too well.
I liked the performance of “Everything is Awesome” as well as “Glory” from Selma, a film it felt they wedged into the conversation whenever possible.
I thought Graham Moore‘s acceptance speech for The Imitation Game was excellent.
Thank you so much to the Academy and to Oprah for this. I need to shower my love and kisses on everyone who’s a part of our Imitation Game family. Morten, Nora, Ido, Teddy, Keira, Benedict, Billy, Alexandre, our entire cast, Maria, who’s back there somewhere. I love you guys so much. Thank you for this film. I’m so indebted to you for it. So, here’s the thing: Alan Turing never got to stand on a stage like this and look out at all of these disconcertingly attractive faces and I do. And that’s the most unfair thing I think I’ve ever heard. So, in this brief time here, what I want to use it to do is to say this: When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt like I did not belong. And now I’m standing here and, so, I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she’s weird or she’s different or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes, you do. I promise you do. You do. Stay weird. Stay different. And then when it’s your turn and you are standing on this stage, please pass the same message to the next person who comes along. Thank you so much.
Patricia Arquette got Meryl Streep out of her seat with her acceptance speech after winning Best Supporting Actress.
Okay, Jesus. Thank you to the Academy, to my beautiful, powerful nominees. To IFC, Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss, Cathleen Sutherland, Molly Madden, David DeCamillo, our whole cast and our crew. My Boyhood family, who I love and admire. Our brilliant director Richard Linklater. The impeccable Ethan Hawke. My lovelies, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater. Thomas and Paul, thank you for giving me my beautiful children. Enzo and Harlow, you’re the deepest people that I know. My friends who all work so hard to make this world a better place. To my parents, Rosanna, Richmond, Alexis and David. To my favorite painter in the world, Eric White, for the inspiration of living with a genius. To my heroes, volunteers and experts who have helped me bring ecological sanitation to the developing world with GiveLove.org. To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.
I also loved seeing Pawel Pawlikowski (Ida) power through his Best Foreign Language speech despite the band’s attempts to play him off was wonderful. He actually caused them to have to restart their song.
In terms of awards surprises, I was pleasantly surprised to see the love for Whiplash in Editing and with the film’s one sound award. I can’t say I was “shocked” to see Big Hero 6 win for Best Animated Feature, but I definitely thought it was going to be How to Train Your Dragon 2 all the way.
Eddie Redmayne‘s win for Best Actor wasn’t a surprise and as much as I agree he gave a great performance, I just don’t think there is anything that performance really accomplishes other than to say one person mimicked another successfully. I know, that’s just my perspective on it, but the Academy has awarded such performances for so long I just wish more original work would get recognized.
Otherwise, what else is there to say? I made it through the three-and-a-half-hour presentation much easier than I did the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards as the Oscars once again prove they’re putting on a show, good or bad, and the goal is to entertain as much as it is to hand out awards.
Ratings for the show, however, hit a four year low, but given the field of nominees is that really much of a surprise? It wasn’t exactly a mainstream selection this year, proven in the opening when Harris said how the eight Best Picture nominees grossed over $600 million domestically and how American Sniper alone counted for more than half of that. Maybe they can sneak Avengers: Age of Ultron into the Best Picture field next year and fix that problem.
If you haven’t seen the list of winners from last night’s awards you can find those right here. Otherwise, here’s a look at the animated title cards for last night’s Best Picture nominees and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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