OSCARS TELECAST 2014

 

I must admit that by the time the Oscars finally rolled around this year, I was burnt-out on movies…and award shows. I had been chosen to be on the Screen Actors Guild Nominating Committee last April, so I’ve been living it for almost a year now. Outside of two reviews I wrote last week, all my movie critiques had finished being published almost two months before! And now they seem like things from a distant past.

So, this year, I had to practically force myself to watch the Oscar proceedings. But I did, so now it’s time to weigh-in on them. Here we go, in the order that they happened. (And, in keeping with the theme of the evening, let me use one of all of our favorite movie lines: fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!)

[Note: This is the review of only the telecast this time. I was too busy working on the write-ups of the Oscars suites to pay much attention to the arrivals shows, so I’ll watch them today and review them tomorrow.]

There is no happier nominee that June Squibb. Her enthusiasm is great to see.

Great opening by host Ellen DeGeneres.

Great set (that subtly changed throughout the evening.)

Anne Hathaway was trying not to be so phony, but that was phony in itself.

I’m so happy that Jared Leto won! And what a perfect, well thought-out and delivered speech.

Laura Dern inherited her father’s yellow teeth.

Jim Carrey looks good.

Chris Hemsworth‘s wife may be even more gorgeous than he is!

I’m so glad Pharrell dressed-up for his performance. (Said sarcastically because it’s the same outfit prototype he wore to the Grammys, which is not only a stupid thing to do, but it’s a bad outfit to begin with!)

Jamie Foxx was a creep to insert himself into the Happy number. He ruined that poor little girl’s solo flip.

Despite that, it was a good number, with the famous audience women dancing.

Mr. X joked that he thought costume winner Catherine Martin was Lady Gaga!!!

Jared’s mother is beautiful. I’m so glad he said she was a teen mom because I thought she looked very young.

I hoped that was Michael Fassbender‘s mother and not his wife or girlfriend. [It was. Whew.]

Harrison Ford is so not fun. How bored must Calista Flockhart be on a daily basis?

Funny–of the college kids who won the chance to be there, the Arab girl had the best dress!

The older I get, the more I respect the choice of facial plastic surgery, (even though so far, it’s not for me.) But Kim Novak took it way too far. Maybe she should have worked on her awful hair instead. She’s a year younger than my good friend, Angie Dickinson, but looks, and seems, twenty years older.

Sally Field looked good for her, dress- and hair-wise. She still has the same face, just older and wrinkled.

[I wrote this one as the evening wore on…and on:] Totally unnecessary time-wasters: clips of random animation, film clips of stories about real people, film clips of super-heroes (or whatever that bit was supposed to be,) and most of all, Ellen’s dumb pizza bit, that I’m sure everyone saw coming! And the clips had nothing to do with this year. But watch–they’ll screw a lot of people out of being in the In Memorium section because of time!

Emma Watson needs a bra. That was a horrible look.

I’m glad that Zac Efron was there because I actually really like him. But he said “aspiration” instead of “inspiration.”

Karen Oh‘s number from Her was brutal, and not worthy to be on the Oscars.

Ellen started out really funny, but at this point, her last two bits were stupid. (Sitting in Zac Efron’s seat, then sitting on the stage with a guitar just to announce the next two presenters.)

That was the best Kate Hudson ever looked. And so nice that Goldie is so proud of her from the audience.

If you’re wondering why Jason Sudekis seemed so happy to be announcing Helium as the winner in the Shorts category, it’s because it was the only name he could pronounce!

The Helium producer’s wife had the second best dress of the night. (Read on for my winner.)

That was an excellent speech from the producer of the best Documentary Short, The Lady in Number 6.

Another stupid joke from Ellen; she asked Pharrell, “Happy?” I bet he’s never heard that one before!!!

And the pizza joke was so stupid. Even though I could see she’d bring out pizzas soon, why make everyone aware that they’re hungry, so they can obsess over it, rather than enjoying the show. (More on it in a sec.)

I’m so glad they stood up for Darlene Love.

I am more than pissed that they didn’t present the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on-air, especially because it went to Angelina Jolie!!! She’s the kindest person in the entire world, and I would have loved to hear her whole speech, (rather than a clip of it from last Fall!) When she appeared on the telecast later on, she had to share her ovation with Sidney Poitier, and it would have been nice to see it for just her. This, to me, is the most important award, and since it’s been given just thirty-five times in eighty-six years, it’s very special. They missed the boat on this one, big-time. I’d like to know whose decision this was! (By the way, even as a little girl, I’d wait for this one, because kindness was always important to me.)

Ewan McGregor looked like a little old man, sort-of like Greg Allman now.

When I saw the Italian guy who won for best Foreign Language Film, I said to Mr. X, “So, Andy Kaufman is alive!”

I love Italians!!!

What an odd presentation from U2.

Liza Minnelli is a trip and a half.

I’ve always told everyone that Angelina is fun, and she proved it by happily jumping into the big selfie.

I love the sparkly theatre boxes!

How gorgeous is Angelina???

Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron…now that’s a gorgeous presenting team.

Sound is the main reason I love seeing movies in theaters, so I always view those as important awards.

Alfonso Cuaron has a pretty wife.

As an actress who’s worked on films and TV shows, (and therefore have been a part of the film-making process,) I’m still in awe of the fact that films get made in the first place. They’re really often gargantuan undertakings.

Christoph Waltz had a peppy walk. I’m glad there was finally someone who wasn’t wasting any time!

Why did Liza have to hug Lupita Nyong’o when she won? Weird.

I’m not really sure Lupita deserved the win, though. As I was watching the film, I never once thought, “This performance is amazing,” as I did for so many others this year. This is one of the few awards I didn’t have a definite opinion about. I really thought Jennifer Lawrence was the best, but she just won last year, and no one wants to give two awards in a row to a twenty-three-year-old! The voters also may have thought they’d look racist if they didn’t give it to Lupita. Or they think that somehow they’re making up for slavery by giving it to her character in the film.

I don’t know if I just don’t like her because when I heard her speak at a private event last year I thought she was full of herself, or if I just didn’t think her performance was the best.

But she did give a good speech, mainly the part about knowing that her good fortune is coming on the backs of others’ horrible fortune. (I just totally paraphrased it.)

The pizza bit was so stupid. I saw it coming from the minute she mentioned it, (see a few comments ago,) but trust me, as a veteran of awards shows, no one wants to eat during the Oscars, (even though many did seem game last night.) Who wanted to mess-up their make-up, and, even worse, their borrowed wardrobe?! Stylists and designers must have been having heart attacks, worrying about grease stains! And talk about your crumbs! Oysh, to it all. (And it was totally rude to the majority of audience members who didn’t get any, and had to smell it for the rest of the night!)

And no one would have even needed a snack if they had just cut this stupid bit and made the show that much shorter!!!

Kudos to Sidney Poitier for being too dignified for this inane bit. And Leonardo DiCaprio, too. Hey, Ellen, thanks for wasting our time with this one!!! And it’s rude to the next person on stage. (It was only the President of the Academy, so I guess Ellen just didn’t care.)

Mr. X keeps griping that they call it the “Oscars” now, rather than the real name, the Academy Awards. I’m with him on this one, as, apparently, is Jimmy Kimmel.

I’m so pissed that Gravity kept winning. The tedious film was nothing but excellent 3-D effects.

It was mean of the producers to pair Gabourey Sidibe with Anna Kendrick, so the former could look even more obese than usual. Why doesn’t she lose weight already, if not for more career opportunities, then for her health?! I can’t breathe when I see her.

Okay, Gravity is now The Emperor’s New Clothes of the movie biz. I seriously don’t know one person. who liked it! We didn’t hate it, it’s just nothing. But I guess no one in the Academy wants to be the first to admit that. What sheep!

The one person they played off is Alfonso Cuaron, the director of Gravity! How rude.

How awful did Whoopi Goldberg look??? But that’s redundant. I so can’t stand her. And what was her stupid joke about it being Sunset Boulevard in there? Does that mean she’s saying everyone there is old??? That’s not true at all; the business has gotten really young. But even if the old part was true, how rude of her to say it. Has she looked in the mirror lately??? Apparently not because she’d puke as much as I do when I see her.

And she intro-ed Judy Garland’s son as “the amazing Joey Luft.” Is she insane??? How phony can you get?

Even her speech is affected.

They had Liza there, so why would they have Pink sing Over The Rainbow??? What stupid planning. It would have been historic to have Liza do it. Or even Lorna Luft, who was also in attendance. At least have an Oscar winner sing it, like perhaps Jennifer Hudson. Pink was an odd choice.

And speaking of Pink–why feature your boobs when they’re hanging? So many others do it, too.

Jennifer Garner: Best…dress… ever! (It looked good when still, but in motion, it could not be beat.)  It’s exactly my kind of gown.

How fabulous is Bette Midler?! I love that woman. What a performer. And those subtle hand movements she did were was stunning.

Bette and Glenn Close were both dressed so appropriately for the occasion of them doing the In Memoriam segment, so big props to them.

That was the best that segment was ever done.

Goldie Hawn and I have something in common, beside not believing in marriage. We don’t want to be old. So, I understand her wanting to hide her face behind her hair. But someone get that woman a hairbrush!

John Travolta called Idina Menzel…”Adele Dazim!!!” OMG! And right after an intro that included “the ones and only.” He scrunched-up his eyes because he couldn’t see it on the teleprompter, so he just made-up something else. But wasn’t there a rehearsal? Didn’t he meet her? Has he never heard of her? Mr. X said his wig was probably on too tight.

I knew the producers would have Ellen correct it after, and it was good that she said it twice, but it should have been a funny bit for her. She and the writers had plenty of time to come up with something during the long song.

I’m so glad they didn’t rudely cut winners’ speeches off this year.

Jamie Foxx is an ass. Period. Too bad being roomies with the nice lead singer of Rascal Flatts didn’t rub off on him.

The little bit nerdy music guy from Gravity seemed nice.

The best speech of the night came from the duo who won for the song from Frozen. And I’m so happy for them to have beaten out U2 and Pharrell. And for the male of the couple to become the newest, and youngest, person to have accomplished winning the EGOT. (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.)

Hey, you prompter readers–wear your glasses!!

Penelope Cruz–Oh My God. She’s so Gorgeous! She’s like a modern-day Audrey Hepburn.

Spike Jonze has a horrible voice. And gave a dumb speech. How did a writer give such a bad speech? And how did his screenplay (for Her) win to begin with?

Angelina Jolie is the most beautiful person, in every way.

That was an believably ridiculous win for Alfonso Cuaron for directing Gravity. As Mr. X said, that’s not directing, that’s computer stuff. (Only he worded it it a million times better than I just did!)

When you have amazing directing efforts from Martin Scorsese and David O. Russell, this is a travesty. I would have even been okay if Steve McQueen had taken it.

Scorsese’s wife had the same pissed expression when he didn’t win that I had sitting on my couch. It was downright disturbing.

Cate Blanchett didn’t deserve to win, but thank God it wasn’t Sandra Bullock, who shouldn’t have even been nominated. The only one who deserved to win Best Actress this year was Judi Dench. But we all knew the Academy voters weren’t smart enough for that.

But at least Cate looked great…for her. I loved that her earrings shone blue and pink when she moved her head. (I’m sure no one else noticed that. Or cared!)

Thank God Matthew McConaughey won! [Note: This is what I wrote in my review of Dallas Buyers Club, on October 15: “I can tell you right now that I’m planning to nominate Matthew McConaughey for Best Actor without even seeing all the rest of this year’s crop; I can’t imagine that anyone’s performance will beat his. Nor should it. As much as it was hard to even look at him in this film, I was riveted to the screen the entire time.”]

I feel terrible for Leo, who really deserved it, too, for his best performance since the amazing one in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, but we’re all sure he’ll win one day, knock on wood. I don’t think Matthew will have many other opportunities. I just don’t want Leonardo to become a casualty, ala Peter O’Toole, while others win with their once-in-their-lifetime performances.

Matthew gave an excellent, well thought-out and delivered speech, but it was too controlled for me. And I really thought he was going to say what he was “chasing” was to be as good as his fellow nominees, not his future self!!! What was up with that?!

The men were so much better than the women this year. By far!

Why would they give Will Smith the honor of announcing Best Film??? That’s supposed to go to some real biggie, like Robert DeNiro or Meryl Streep! At the very least, it should have been Ben Affleck, whose film, Argo, won last year, and whose wife was at the show all night.

And why was Will wearing an ascot??? He’s so creepy.

12 Years a Slave winning Best Picture was a shock to me. (And to a lot of others, as well, I think.) I think the voters just didn’t want to be called racists if they didn’t vote for it. But the award is supposed to be for the best film, not the most horrible story. I saw them all and the two best were, by far, The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle. Period. [Note: I did have a feeling Slave might win, so I forced myself to make it my last review of the season just a few days ago.]

The one reason I’m happy that Slave won is that now Brad Pitt, the main producer of it, has an Oscar to match Angelina’s. That might make them an even happier couple, if that’s even possible.

The show went more than a half hour over the allotted time. That’s insane. There was so much that could have been easily cut-out. (See my comments on “totally unnecessary time-wasters” above.) It’s just rude to everyone concerned. Now they’ll go back to rudely playing winners off next year, rather than just eliminating the real culprits of time-wasting!)

That’s it for the telecast. Tomorrow, I’ll review the Oscar arrivals. That’s when the real snark comes out!