2013 Oscar Awards

Seth MacFarlane adding much needed something into the Academy Awards

He Said: Alright, not bad, not great

How sad it is that we have only watched 3 best picture movies over the past year. But we are hopeful to watch a ton more now that we have moved and don't have as busy of lives, and I am not trying to fix and paint the house at the same time as having a very busy and awful job and then busy and sleep-deprived with a newborn baby and then busy with finding a new job and moving. Now with that out of the way, on with the big shoe.

If you read my last year's post it will likely be just as disjointed since I just write down an interesting thought or thing on the show while it happens. Seth MacFarlane is hosting, here's hoping he brings some good writers and youthfulness and actual comedy to the scene, scathing comedy is the hope and hopefullyhe and his comedy are not dumbed down and censored for the non-family guy audience. I think this was a rather bold choice for host sincce he is well known for making fun of anything and everything, but really the Oscar's and all the famous people take themselves way too seriously. This reminds me of how I felt about Ryan Seacrest last year, way too serious and pompous and it took a little fun from Sacha Baron Cohen to liven things up. Now what would it take for him to host, or perhaps one of his characters? Now that would be something to see!

Argo appears to be the lead runner for best picture, but no particular movie looks to dominate the majority of the categories like in most previous years where one film stands out in best picture, actors, directing, writing, etc. The only real nominee that I have seen was Django Unchained, and yes it was a good fun movie although it was about 1 hour too long and it was draggy here and there. I have no idea how it got nominated for best picture. I love Tarantino movies, but this is certainly not his best work and his acting in his bit role was worse than he has ever done (which really is quite an achievement unto itself) and the accent he puts on, its so bad he shouldn't even have tried. That all being said, I think Christoph Walz did a great acting job in this one (as well as his previous Tarantino film, Inglorious Basterds) so here's hoping for him this year, but all the men in the supporting actor category are solid great actors so I don't think there would be any complaints no matter who wins this one.

On the red carpet, George Clooney was looking like a younger Sean Connery and he was being either sarcastic or pissy when approached and just told the interviewer to “go talk to her” indicating his

female companion and how they only ever want to talk about is dresses and jewels, etc.

What is with the awful hair that Anne Hathaway had? She looked like something from the late 70s or a wee boy. Then she had a dress that had similar breast and nipple emphasis like that Madonna pointed bra from way back when.

Finally starting with the actual show:

MacFarlane started off pretty good, some nice laughs and pick on people jokes but then comes the whole Captain Kirk thing and I did not see that coming. This was odd and added some humour but in retrospect definitely in the realm and wheelhouse of Seth MacFarlane's work.

We discovered that Seth MacFarlane can sing (most of us knew that already), that lady singing the Goldfinger song cannot, she should just quite. She got a standing ovation. Why? Must be a historical thing to honour the old and weary, but sometimes they are old and weary for a reason.

Boring movie musicals, blah blah blah. And Anne Hathaway still looks like a boy.

Jennifer Garner is so unattractive, deep sunken eyes, and a thin skeletor face then she added in that weird purple dress with the huge thing on the back that as my wife pointed out looks like her ass is pregnant.

Was Kristen Stewart high? At the very least she was awkward as a presenter.

Another year, and another round of dead people, although this year no one really big and famous died, but there were some surprises for me as usual with Michael Clarke Duncan having died as well as Ray Bradbury. Then the weird Barbara Streisand song at the end there. Way too much singing for my likes in this year's Oscars.

Overall no real surprises on winners, although it was interesting that no single film dominated the Oscars this year, it was all really spread out. Perhaps this is a sign of a really good movie year with many strong films. Seems like Life of Pi got the most wins, but nothing in any real category except for director, although we all know Ben Affleck got shunned for that one, maybe next time for him. Then the odd part with Michelle Obama leading in the best picture winner with her somewhat political statements there, that didn't seem to fit at all, although it was better than looking at and listening to the suddenly very old Jack Nicholson. His oldness combined with Dustin Hoffman's oldness and Robert de Niro's oldness just really hit me this year with how old these guys are getting which is really sad that a whole generation of great actors are pretty much done.

Overall, Seth MacFarlane was adequate, he censored himself quite a bit I think but what can you do. I think he was the first host to not only be the host but also a presenter (Ted) and a nominee (a song in Ted) and it would have been great if he won just to see what his speech would have been like. In retrospect with it being a celebration of musicals in the movies it does make sense to have him as a host as he is very musical with all the shows and movies that he does, but perhaps we could have had a more seasoned, albeit less funny, host in Neil Patrick Harris.

This year was slightly better than last year, but still a stinker and nothing as good as the great run in the early 90s with Whoopie and Billy Crystal. Although as we saw last year, Billy Crystal's time in comedy has come and unfortunately gone. Here's hoping for some good stuff for next year and now it is time for me to start watching more movies and add Argo to the every growing list.

Addition:

After listening to and reading various comments and stories from the media on the Oscars, I cannot understand why they feel the show was a “train wreck,” “the worst Oscar's ever,” “worst host ever.” I mean come on and look at the history of this show, there have been way way worse hosts and much more weird and boring shows than this one, especially more recently. Look at last year's show with Billy Crystal, the one with Anne Hathaway and James Franco (the absolute worst ever), the Hugh Jackman show, the David Letterman show, and even the Ellen Degeneres show. Admittedly I enjoyed the Ellen show, but it seemed like the audience and the media just didn't get it and I think that happened again this year.

I also forgot to mention the oddity of the tie for best sound editing. Okay, not a major category but interesting that it is only the sixth tie ever in the history of the Oscars, I figured there would be some sort of tie breaking procedure but apparently not.

Some pundits and media types thought it was filled with unpredictable winners, whereas I thought they weren't too many surprises. Some people were shocked that Spielberg didn't win, that Argo won best picture over Lincoln, Walz was a long shot, Life of Pi winning as many awards as it did as a surprise. Well this is how I see it, and keep in mind I am just a guy who is no hollywood movie type, I haven't seen most of the movies I just base it upon the buzz leading up to the oscars, other awards, reviews, friends. So Argo was a bit of a surprise but it won in the Golden Globes so it was headed in that direction. Walz like I said already did a great job in this and his previous Tarantino film and all the men in the supporting actor category are great actors so no big surprise there either. Ang Lee did a great job as usual making a gorgeous looking movie and based on a book that we all thought would be so hard to translate to the screen. The best actress award seemed up for grabs as well with no particular person way out in front for that one. So overall no great huge shocks in my opinion.

Lastly, again MacFarlane did a fine job, it wasn't as awful as the stuck up pundits are saying (heck even my wife thought some of his stuff was really funny and she HATES his stuff with a captial HATE). So not great, but certainly not awful or worst ever.

She Said: Nothing

Verdict: The Academy was right for the most part except leaving Affleck off the nominee list, the show was okay, much better than last year but nothing great, and looking forward to seeing Argo when it hits our list.