“The hills are alive with the sound of snoring...” Sorry, but that’s the best way to describe an excruciatingly long Oscars ceremony. What started off as a promising ceremony with Neil Patrick Harris at the helm crashed rather quickly, with boring one-liners and one running joke that will go down in Oscars infamy.
“Moving Pictures,” written by Frozen team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, got the ceremony off to a great start. The song paid tribute to the movies and featured neat bits from Anna Kendrick (who wore her Cinderella dress from Into The Woods) and Jack Black.
Once the Oscars had to actually get moving to present awards, the ceremony came down to a screeching halt. Harris occasionally popped in to deliver a terrible one-liner or mispronounce Chiwetel Ejiofor's name. He had one really awkward moment when he joked about the dress one of the winners for Best Documentary Short Subject wore right after she mentioned that she lost her son to suicide.
And then there was the awful running gag about Harris’ locked-up Oscar predictions. It was a neat magic trick... if it didn’t go on forever. The gag continued to make everyone sitting around Octavia Spencer uncomfortable. We had to see just how bored Robert Duvall was. Then, for the final twist of the knife, the joke didn’t “payoff” until just before Best Picture was announced. By then, it was already midnight on the East Coast.
Another thing that dragged the ceremony was the 50th anniversary celebration for The Sound of Music. Sure, Lady Gaga can sing, but it was really not what anyone wanted to hear that late at night. And Jennifer Hudson also had to sing a song after the “In Memoriam” segment, instead of during it. Why?
At least Harris’ Birdman parody came off well, but Sesame Street did it better.
There was one saving grace though. The acceptance speeches were completely wonderful, from J.K. Simmons reminding us to call our parents to Patricia Arquette calling for equal pay for women. Common and John Legend told everyone that Selma is still relevant. The best was Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski’s after Ida won Best Foreign Language film. He had something to say to his friends, family and fans back home and he wasn’t going to let annoying music stop him.
Graham Moore’s speech after winning Best Adapted Screenplay for The Imitation Game was also moving. He discussed a suicide attempt as a teenager and now he was accepting an Oscar.
The Academy needs to make a change at the producer level for next year. Three consecutive years of Neil Meron and Craig Zadan pushing musical numbers down our throats is enough. Musicals are great, but great musicals aren’t being made any longer. Rather than celebrate music, why not celebrate the legends who receive honorary Oscars every year? I’d watch that.
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com