My Take on the 87th Annual Academy Awards

[Disclaimer: I haven’t seen any Best Picture nominees.  In fact, the only movie I’ve seen that was nominated for anything was Unbroken.  I’ll be DVRing Citizenfour tonight on HBO, but who knows when I’ll get to it.]

I don’t know that it was the worst Oscars broadcast ever, but it’s the one I have least enjoyed watching, and that includes when James Franco and Anne Hathaway co-hosted.

I really like Neil Patrick Harris, but watching him last night was like watching a penguin run the 50-yard dash.

That said, the opening number was spectacular.

I’m glad that I no longer have to worry about getting The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game mixed up.

Jonathan Kimble (J.K.) Simmons: I’ve enjoyed him in everything he’s been in that I’ve seen and am glad he finally got his recognition.  However, if you own a Farmers Policy, don’t be surprised if your premium jumps significantly next month.

Eddie Redmayne: Probably could have won his award just from the preview of Theory alone.  That said, with Birdman getting the love that it did, I’m sure Michael Keaton felt a lot like Bill Murray did when he didn’t win for Lost in Translation.  I wouldn’t blame him. And by the way…

…When did Birdman or: (How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) get the additional parenthetical title?  I guess Birdman (The Desolation of Smaug) was too confusing.

John Travolta: Thanks for being a good sport, but leave the awkward touching to Biden.

Do you think Richard Linklater got any sleep last night?

Could they have used a more unflattering picture of Robin Williams during the “In Memoriam” segment?

Breaking news: Meryl Streep was just nominated again for rolling out of bed this morning.

Cheryl Boone Isaacs: Great speech, but you will forever be known as “The Dick Poop Lady.”

I’m glad Lonnie “Common” Lynn and John “Legend” Stephens won for “Glory” (Seriously, did “Everything is Awesome” even stand a chance?).  However, I still think Adele should have won again for Skyfall.

The correct pronuciation of “Oyelowo” is kwuh-ven-zhuh-nay.

Although I can get annoyed with awards shows, I still love movies and look forward to watching both the winners and non-winners that were nominated this year.

Best in “Show?”

As usual, here is my take on last night’s Oscars™.  Whether you agree or not, I’d be interested in hearing what you think.

I have a feeling that Barkhad Abdi and Bruce Dern won’t be nominated again for best anything.  I was hoping at least one of them would pull off the upset, but that seldom happens with “sympathy nominees.”

I really like Ellen DeGeneres, but I was hoping that she would push her game a little bit and not rely so much on audience bits.  I was rather disappointed.  If I produced the show, I would be reluctant to ask her back after that one.

During Jared Leto’s acceptance speech, it quickly became apparent that winners either weren’t going to be played off or they weren’t going to be played off if they were saying something important.  I got really worried about that, but it ended up working out OK.  Everyone pretty much kept it running relatively smoothly.

I didn’t get the Kim Novak thing at all.  It’ll be interesting to see what The Soup does with her this week.

I’m surprised U2 hasn’t completed the EGOT yet.  Come to think of it, they haven’t won the Pomme d’Or or the James Beard Award either.

New rule: If you get 2 Oscar™ wins, your name gets taken out of the pool for future nominations.  If you have 2 awards, everyone already knows how good you are, and it really doesn’t matter what you do after that.

Maybe John Travolta was still basking in Adele’s win for Best Song from last year.  Nah, there’s no way around that one.  Even if someone had pulled a Ron Burgundy with the teleprompter, he should have practiced saying “Idina Menzel.”

And speaking of:

I’m not a professional singer or voice coach, but even I could tell that she had a rough night.  I felt for her.

I haven’t seen 12 Years A Slave or Dallas Buyers Club, but I feel like Chiwetel should have walked away with the hardware for Best Actor [I have now seen both and feel the same way].  The Best Picture win makes up for it, though.  Sort of.

I kind of got where Matthew McConaughey was trying to go with his acceptance speech, but I think it ultimately backfired on him.

I like Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams, but I need a break from them.  Needless to say, it may be a while before I watch American Hustle.

I’d like to see more black people win for something other than playing a slave, servant, etc.

At the end of the day (or night, as it were), there is really no telling who was actually the “best” in a given category, and I think the same holds true every year.  Even David Edelstein—movie critic David Edelstein—argues that the Academy Awards are “a game” and that winners are not necessarily the ones most deserving.  It’s kind of like the reality show The Taste.  The winner of that show admitted that she was not the best chef in the competition, but she won because she stayed till the end and had the best final round against chefs who were better than her.  It didn’t necessarily make her the best chef of the competition, but she bested the others when it mattered.  So go the Academy Awards.

Despite the self-congratulatory nature of these awards, I always look forward to watching them, and my interest in film gets rekindled even further with each year that goes by.  I have ideas for screenplays and documentaries, and I always spend the Monday after the Oscars™ thinking, “Could I make something that might one day be nominated or—perhaps—even win?”  Hey, if Bad Grandpa can get nominated for something, then maybe there is hope.