All roads lead to the Oscars. After months of award shows, speeches, surprises, predictions, gowns and more, it all culminated in Hollywood’s most premier event, The Academy Awards, aka, The Oscars.
Hollywood’s oldest and grandest award show event, the Oscars are known for emotional wins and speeches, funny hosts, celebrating the film industry and being very long. And while this year’s show definitely nailed the long part, as well as emotional wins and speeches – the funny host part, not so much (more on that later).
In the end, turns out Academy voters really, really loved the tale of a washed up, once beloved superhero franchise actor, trying to make a comeback on Broadway. The story of an average American family told over the span of 12 years though, not so much. These are my picks for the best, worst and just plain awkward moments from Sunday’s telecast.
Good
Lady Gaga Shines – Reminding the world that underneath all the costumes, productions and glitter is a genuinely talented woman, Lady Gaga stunned in a gorgeous tribute celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Sound of Music. She looked stunning and her voice was stellar…amazing job. It was especially moving seeing how touched she was by the audience’s very appreciative reaction. The moment was perfectly capped off with Julie Andrew’s surprise appearance at the end, to present the award for Best Original Score.
A “Glorious” Night – There probably aren’t enough superlatives to sum up the brilliance of John Legend and Common’s powerfully moving performance of their Oscar nominated song Glory, from the film Selma. The only proof one needed to understand the power of the moment was the audience’s reaction after. Seeing Chris Pine in tears is not something you expect to see at the Oscars. Their amazing performance was only matched by their superbly profound acceptance speech. On a lighter note, was anyone else highly amused to learn that Common’s real name is Lonnie Lynn? Just me…
Cheers Eddie, J.K., Patricia and Julianne – I thought all the acting categories were well deserved. Full disclosure, there have definitely been many years where I have disagreed with one or two of the acting categories. That was not the case this year. I’d say the closest category was Best Actor. And while I definitely understand why many hoped to see Michael Keaton win, having been gone for a few years and being in the industry so long, having seen both performances, I do think Eddie was more deserving. It was also nice how truly humbled and excited they all were.
We Didn’t See That One Coming – Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the night was Graham Moore’s win for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Imitation Game. It probably should not have been a surprise because Moore did win the Writers’ Guild of America award for Adapted Screenplay, usually a great precursor for the Oscars. However, many experts predicted Damien Chazelle for Whiplash, and considering how the night started for Whiplash, it did seem very likely. So Moore’s win was something of a surprise and it was clear it was to him as well. He was however able to pull it together long enough to deliver one of the more moving speeches of the night, reminiscing on his suicide attempt when he was younger and encouraging all the “weird kids” to believe in themselves and embrace who they are.
A “Grand” Love Affair – The Grand Budapest Hotel may not have won the big prize of Best Picture, but the Academy definitely showed the film a lot of love, rewarding it with four awards including Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Original Score and Best Makeup and Hair. And it wasn’t the only film, while not winning the big prizes like Picture and Director, to still be rewarded multiple times. Whiplash, along with J.K. Simmons’ win for Best Supporting Actor, won Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing. It was nice, that despite the fact that it felt like Birdman cleaned up with Best Director, Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay wins, the voters found a way to spread the love around and reward almost all the Best Picture nominated films in some way.
Bad
The Host Without The Most – Oh poor Neil Patrick Harris. Bless his heart, I am sure he tried. In fact, there were many times where it was painfully obvious he was trying so very hard but it just did not work. Other than the opening song and dance number which was quite good, everything else was pretty much downhill. The jokes were painfully unfunny, the gags uninteresting and way too long. I mean seriously, who was the team who worked with him on this? A bad pun about eating Reese Witherspoon up with a spoon? I mean really…a kindergartener could have come up with something cleverer than that. You could tell that the audience was struggling to get into it but the best they could muster up was a few polite applause and laughter.
And It Keeps Going and Going and Going – This year’s telecast went over by almost an hour. That is simply inexcusable in my opinion. At the 3-hour mark of the telecast, six of the big awards had not been given out yet. They rehearse for months for this show, there is a dress rehearsal before the telecast for crying out loud. There is no excuse for the show going over this much. The producers need to do a better job of tightening things up. It also didn’t help that most of the show just felt like it was dragging, largely because of Neil Patrick Harris bombing as the host.
No Love For Boyhood – I will be honest, I was not as wowed as the voters clearly seemed to be by Birdman. That being said, I wasn’t overly wowed by Boyhood either. However, I am little disappointed for Richard Linklater and if I were a voting member of the Academy, would have given him the vote for Best Director. While the story of Boyhood was not the most original, I do think the film itself was. Telling the story of an American family over 12 years, using the same actors, particularly the young actor who grew from young boy, to teenager to young man, was an impressive feat and something we’d never seen before. And for an award show that celebrates achievement in film-making, I just wished that effort had been more rewarded.
Everything Is NOT So Awesome – Um, what in the hell was that hot mess? I get that it was for The Lego Movie so Tegan and Sara likely went for something kitschy, cute and fun but this was not cute and fun, it was just screechy and kind of a mess. They should have looked to Pharrell on how one writes a fun, cute song for an animated film. His performance of Happy at last year’s telecast was awesome. This performance was not on any level. Okay…the lego Oscar statues were kind of cute.
The Montage Was Enough – Okay, so full disclosure, I’m not the biggest Jennifer Hudson fan. Something about her singing always feels like she’s rushing and comes across a bit manic in my opinion. But I swear this isn’t bias on my side when I say I just didn’t see the point of her performance. In my opinion, if they wanted a musical tribute to those the industry lost this year, the producers should have had Jennifer sing while the montage was being shown. Having her come out after the montage was over, with a song that was quite boring in my opinion, was just a time waster in a show that was already running far too long.
And for the Awkward…
Wait, Which Award Show Is This? – So on the awkward scale, I’d put this at a low, but Lupita Nyong’o’s slip when presenting Best Supporting Actor was particularly memorable because she’d stated, less than hour prior, on the red carpet, that she was completely relaxed and calm this year because she wasn’t nominated and had nothing to worry about. And yet, right out of the gate, the first award of the night, she refers to the Oscar as an Actor (the term for the SAG award), before correcting herself. Maybe she wasn’t so relaxed after all.
So Many Feelings…Too Many – I guess Terrance Howard was very, very moved by Selma? Listen, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for being moved by art and expressing that. However, Howard’s somewhat over the top reaction in introducing the film as one of the eight nominated films for Best Picture, just felt a little exaggerated and a bit self-serving. Not to mention the hysterics seemed to clearly confuse the audience, which only added to awkwardness of the moment.
Why So Creepy – That is the question I ask about John Travolta. Seriously, when did he get so uncomfortably weird? The Academy producers naturally riffed on the big Adele Dazeem flop by Travolta during last year’s telecast, when he introduced Idina Menzel to perform the Oscar nominated song Let It Go. Idina herself was there, a good laugh was had and all John Travolta had to do was come out and play along and act endearingly abashed by the whole incident. He did, in the first moments after he walked out. And then it got strangely creepy and weird, when he all of a sudden intimately grabbed Idina’s chin and spoke to her in this creepy, condescending voice one would use for a five year old. Idina to her credit played along but it was an uncomfortably weird moment by a man who seems to be getting stranger and stranger. The awful hair piece does not help either.
And Finally, The Fashion…
There is no bigger award show when it comes to the fashion and seeing what stops celebrities pull out. This year’s fashion was okay but perhaps as a sign of things to come with the show itself, nothing truly wowed in my opinion. It was a lot of safe, elegant gowns but nothing truly out of this world stunning. However, there were still a few that I loved. As for the bad, even that was fairly subdued, but there were a few who managed to stand out in all the wrong ways.
Images courtesy Google Images
Good
After many fails throughout the awards season, Rosamund Pike finally got it so right on Oscars night in this gorgeous red Givenchy number. The dress fit like it was absolutely made and tailored for her every curve.
That’s how you look stunning, elegant and sexy at 65 at the Oscars, all while being age appropriate. I loved everything about this look. The mix of masculine with the jacket and sexy with the sleek skirt was absolute perfection.
This was a fairly simple look but what made it work so well for me was the expert tailoring. The fit is just gorgeous and hugs every curve on Reese and it is slick, sophisticated and she looks gorgeous. That’s a win in my book.
Bad (Or as I like to call it…WHY)
You know what bugs me about this and other out there looks by Jared Leto, is that I’m convinced he does it deliberately because he knows how gorgeous he is. And so he figures he’ll mess with his looks as much as possible, wear the dumbest stuff because at the end of the day, he’ll still be one of the most beautiful men at the awards. And sadly…it’s true. Even a stupid prom looking blue suit can’t ruin his looks.
Well she still has to be her. While she kept it classic for her performance later that night, Gaga delivered typical Gaga on the red carpet. Now the dress itself is not so bad. A bit too boxy and geometrical for my taste but not awful. It’s the large, red rubber gloves that totally throws me off. I mean was she planning on washing some toilet bowls later…WTH?
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