87th Academy Awards: The Good, the Indifferent, the Bad, and the Ugly

Well, we're officially done with the Oscars for the year.  I will probably pipe in on Tuesday with some of the thoughts on the fashion, once I get to see all of the fashion, and we're six films away from the OVP write-ups where you'll get to know a bit more about what I would pick, but for now I'm going to just go with my reactions to the show itself.  I'll try to limit myself to no thoughts (one way or the other) on the winners as I am saving those for the OVP (it's always Oscar season at The Many Rantings of John) and because I've been discussing those for months.  As we do here, here's my Good, Indifferent, Bad, and Ugly of the 87th Academy Awards.

The Good

-Literally every year, the Oscar producers forget that rather than wanting to see the host or the fashion or even the winners, the audience really want to see movie stars in their natural habitat.  And every year my favorite moments are the off-the-cuff moments with celebrities.  Like Benedict Cumberbatch's brilliant reaction shots or Jessica Chastain cooing "Chivo" when Emmanuel Lubezki won or (my personal favorite, seen above) Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez reacting to the equal pay speech from Patricia Arquette in what has to be the most gif-able moment of the ceremony when they didn't know the camera was on-these are the best moments of the ceremony. Perhaps no one was better at this than Felicity Jones, who had a hot mic incident ("they've won a lot, haven't they?"), a Julie Andrews fan girl moment, and the random realization that she was applauding for herself.  Here's to hoping that Ms. Jones is invited back soon as either a presenter or a nominee, as she was the unsung MVP of last night's ceremony.

-I love when the Oscars get political.  Millions of people are watching, so it's time to have something to say, and boy did Hollywood have something to say.  From advocating for women's rights (Patricia Arquette may have brought a piece of paper with, but that's only because she had something to say, damn it haters!) to the brilliant calls for more mental and physical health awareness to calls for tolerance toward immigrants, it was a night of important messages and I was most pleased.  I also loved the trend of the documentary and short subject contenders who shut up the orchestra by starting to talk about something serious the second the music started, hence lengthening their speeches.  Just in general, 45 seconds isn't long enough-it's a long show, people can get used to it.  If you're desperate about people not being able to stay up late due to work the next day, put it on a Saturday or on HBO so you don't have to worry about commercials.

-Two truly random things I loved: one, the commercials were excellent this year.  For all of the talk about the Super Bowl being the crown jewel of advertising, the Oscars continually get innovative, oftentimes funny, and frequently moving commercials.  And this is officially bumped to this spot because after watching it four times I finally realized it was Robert Redford voicing that Comcast commercial (I could not place that voice for the life of me!).  Secondly, I skipped the red carpet this year, and loved it.  It was refreshing to see the gowns and outfits for the first time onstage and I didn't have to endure talented artists like Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep reduced to a designer label and inane questions about their dieting traditions.

-The interactive set was gorgeous-please keep this next year.

The Indifferent

-I loved the idea of interviewing the seat fillers (I actually think this could have been something that was done throughout the night), but the Steve Carell joke fell flat.  Perhaps Carell isn't a comedian who is funny off-the-cuff, but I feel like the punchline got botched and may have been better-served with a more improvisational personality like Will Ferrell.

-It was a smart decision to go with Travolta and Idina to present-it was a major moment last year, and trying to bottle car-crash lightning in a bottle a second time was worth the risk.  But what was with the face-holding John-seriously?  Couldn't they have just stuck with the easy but funny pablam instead?

-I am not going to get into the quality of the winners, but I will say that while Graham Moore's speech was nice for The Imitation Game and extremely moving and he's ridiculously adorable and I now have a crush on him and what is his Instagram account because there are like 40,000 Graham Moore's, I felt like it was the same one Dustin Lance Black did six years ago.  Why not try to stumble a new barrier for gay people rather than the tired "kid living with a dream one."  Perhaps want more realistic representations of gay people onscreen rather than gay-in-name-only performances like Benedict Cumberbatch in...oh, wait, I see the problem now.

The Bad

-I haven't really been discussing Neil Patrick Harris too much because, well, it was just okay.  There were some lines that were absolutely aces (the best being the JK Simmons/Farmers Insurance jingle and the brilliant Birdman/Whiplash parody), but by-and-large it was slightly underwhelming.  A lot of energy got sucked out of the room when Harris got too schmaltzy in the opening with a poorly-timed musical number that was identical in spirit to one he did at the Tony Awards a few years back (the music was too fast to catch all of the jokes...and there weren't enough jokes to begin with), and in hindsight they should have gone with a monologue, as so much of Hollywood got left on the table this past year (did anyone even bring up Sony/The Interview?!?).

-I ask this every single year, but can we cut the In Memoriam song number?  Jennifer Hudson is a brilliant vocalist and frequently the best reason to watch an awards show, but honestly it was such a yawn and this has never been a particularly stirring addition to the ceremony.  I'm fine with the show being super long, but if there's a portion of it begging to get cut, it's not the Shorts categories-it's the In Memoriam song.

-Speaking of musical performances, as wonderful as Common and John Legend were, it felt a little bit too weighted to them.  Everyone and his mother knew they were winning that Oscar, but couldn't they have made it a little bit more suspenseful.  It felt like they spent all of the budget on that number and "Everything is Awesome" and left the other three songs to sort of rot there.  Even the camera and sound crews felt like they sort of forgot how to do their jobs during Tim McGraw's weird constant wide shots and Adam Levine's vocals getting drowned out by the instruments.  Admittedly Legend and Common may have been the only ones to show up to rehearsals (we're dealing with temperamental stars here), but it felt like the TLC wasn't properly spread.

The Ugly

-Neil Patrick Harris, as I mentioned above, was uneven, but one bit clearly was a dud: the idiotic ballot prediction schtick.  This was wrong for a number of reasons.  For starters, it felt like Octavia Spencer, who is frequently very funny in interviews, was caught off-guard by it and she probably should have been looped in beforehand to maybe nail a joke or two.  Secondly, it was the only moment in the film where Harris's famous gravitation toward narcissism in his humor (my chief worry when he was selected) was indulged (most of the audience probably isn't aware of his penchant for magic, both at the show and at home).  And the jokes were kind of duds (plus, he does this every year at the Tonys, so it's tired for awards show hounds).

-While I can't recall a particularly strong presenter (am I blanking here, or was there someone who was particularly funny-the show seriously needed a Will Ferrell or Kristin Wiig or Bette Midler to show up), the worst was Terence Howard.  My brother postulated that perhaps the teleprompter broke (which I hope someone can confirm as that would bump this up to merely bad), but if it wasn't then Howard needs to keep it together.  Presenters are not supposed to have favorites when they are giving out awards, and he clearly felt less enthused about Whiplash than The Imitation Game and Selma.  It was one of those truly cringe-worthy TV moments.

-Did they really play The Bodyguard theme for Viola Davis?  Really?!?

-I am sure I'm going to be in the minority here as she sounded great, but what was the point of the Lady Gaga tribute?  She has no real connection to the movies and isn't what you'd call a particularly popular singer at the moment (her star has fallen enough that she probably couldn't get a solo performance at the Grammys at this point), so why was she called upon for The Sound of Music tribute?  Get someone like Anna Kendrick or Anne Hathaway or Emily Blunt (or hell, all three) to do it-someone who is actually a vibrant musical force in movies today.  And speaking of The Sound of Music...

-Why bring out Sean Penn to present Best Picture when Julie Andrews is clearly who should have done it?  She's better at presenting, she has the Best Picture history thing, and she doesn't feel the need to make presenting about herself (Penn is a brilliant, talented actor but he's a narcissist and a curmudgeon as a celebrity, whereas Julie Andrews is practically perfect in every way).  Is it so wrong to have a woman present Best Picture?!?  Seriously Academy, a 50th Anniversary and a beloved Oscar winner is right there for the taking-what more do you need?!?

And those are my thoughts on last night-what are yours?  Share them below in the comments!