For weeks, reporters have been laying odds on whether Seth MacFarlane would lay an egg as the Oscar night host.
MacFarlane made the prerequisite soft-boiled jokes before inviting William Shatner/Captain Kirk to come from the future and warn him he was about to become the worst Oscars host in history.
To avoid this, he would show us what our host was about to do wrong – and then tell him to do something different.
Basically, it allowed MacFarlane to let fly with his usual juvenile humour and then wiped the slate clean with a “thankfully, that didn’t happen.” At one point, he claimed he’d be happy to be considered “mediocre” in his hosting duties.
Congrats, Seth. Job well done.
Ironically after weeks of worry, MacFarlane was the least of the show’s problems. Between the stars, the media and the show itself, it was not Hollywood’s shining moment.
Personally, I only care about a handful of the awards. And they all seem to occur in the first and last half hours. All the other categories are important to the films, no doubt. But without any designer gowns or diamonds, there wasn’t much reason to watch people I didn’t recognize.
Of course, the producers knew this. That’s why Jennifer Aniston or even the cast of The Avengers are hauled out to announce these no-name awards. It’s the old bait and switch: Come for Charlize Theron and instead, get the geek squad and a stumbling speech about their special effects team.
And that’s how they kept us there for more than three and a half hours – when the nomination announcements only took 10 minutes.
But then, the show is for the stars, not the viewers. However, the “stars” had some questionable inclusions.
What was Beverly Hills Housewife Brandi-my-dress-is-cutting-my-breasts-in-half-Glanville doing on the red carpet for the movie industry?
Kristen Stewart was a pro, limping across the stage on a wounded foot. But the bratty teen re-emerged as she delivered her lines with a bored tone of someone reading off an eye chart?
And where were the ushers when Jennifer Lawrence did a near face-plant? Everyone in Hollywood knows that couture is a perfect example of immovable object meeting irresistible force.
Those dresses are extremely restrictive and built to keep women away from the bathroom and the buffet table. So a gent waiting at the bottom of the stairs to offer a lady his hand isn’t just a good idea. It’s a necessity.
As for the media? Some idiot later asked Lawrence why she fell. She answered, “Have you seen my dress?”
But general stupidity is better than the grunt from The Onion who showed no decency and zero professionalism when he sent a tweet calling nine-year-old nominee Quvenzhané Wallis the C-word. As a joke. Once again, proving that Twitter is creating a population without impulse control.
No, this year’s Oscars had bigger problems than its host. Shatner begged MacFarlane to keep it classy.
Too bad others weren’t listening.
