2015 Academy Awards

[Amaris]

Well, the dedication to The Sound of Music (and a wonderful performance by Lady Gaga) was due to its 50th anniversary, so I understood why they focused on it this year. Also, I'll take any chance I can get to see the lovely Julie Andrews.

 

[Relayer1]

Quite.

I'm not in favour of awards generally, and particularly ones where there's no attempt at impartiality as you actually have to 'campaign' to win. It does let the 'luvvies' show off for a bit though.

I've only seen one of the best picture nominees - Grand Budapest Hotel. It's another bloody Wes Anderson film...

 

[Claudia]

I think the problem with the Oscars is that there is rarely any surprise going into the show. Why don't they do just one show instead of all the different awards and be done with it if the same movies win anyway? Because, right now it's as though you only need to watch one anyway... and since the Oscars are at the end of award season, that doesn't really make for an exciting show, I guess.

 

[Timby]

I find it quite odd that Birdman is the best picture (of the nominees, it's easily my favorite, so I can't disagree with that), it basically followed a singular character around the entire film, and somehow that film doesn't get best actor? That movie falls apart without Keaton.

I thought NPH was uncharacteristically dull. I usually find him funny, charming, witty---but tonight, he was a big snooze.

The Academy Awards' most cherished tradition continues.

 

[Campe]

My take? I didn't love Birdman but I can live with it winning Best Picture. Linklater was robbed for Best Director though. I am fairly happy with the rest of the awards as they land. I was pleasantly surprised to see Imitation Game win Best Adapted (as well as Redmayne beating out Keaton) and had Simmons not won Best Supporting Actor, there would something terribly wrong with the world. I was very happy to see Whiplash (my personal fave of the nominees) and Grand Budapest get the awards they did.

Oh, and "Glory" is one hell of a song. Very stirring.

 

[J.T.B.]

I find it quite odd that Birdman is the best picture (of the nominees, it's easily my favorite, so I can't disagree with that), it basically followed a singular character around the entire film, and somehow that film doesn't get best actor? That movie falls apart without Keaton.

My thoughts as well. And actors voting for an actor playing an actor in a movie about acting, seems like a sure thing, right? But the day has not yet come when you can safely bet against the actor playing the character with the disability.

 

[Owain Taggart]

And I have to say that this was one of the worst shows they've had.

It went on FOREVER.

Yeah, I agree. And wasn't the Academy trying to trim down the fat a couple of years ago? I thought they had wanted to streamline things. I know they did at least one year, but it seems they've gone back in the other direction. And it seemed like there was far too much dead air.

Timby, from my point of view, the Academy was trying to be fair by giving awards out to movies that hadn't won much already that evening. By that point, Birdman had already won quite a few awards, so it seems fair to me that someone from a different movie won it. And he was quite deserving of it too.

 

[Campe]

It went on FOREVER.

Yeah, I agree. And wasn't the Academy trying to trim down the fat a couple of years ago? I thought they had wanted to streamline things. I know they did at least one year, but it seems they've gone back in the other direction. And it seemed like there was far too much dead air.

I loved the opening number and the Birdman/Whiplash bit but the NPH prediction case was a ridiculous joke that just went on too long.

 

[Mojochi]

What did Sean Penn say? Google somehow isn't telling me.

He asked "Who gave this son of a bitch a green card?" to the Birdman director (don't know his name).

Wow, that's pretty low. Did that happen as he was presenting? For some reason, on my screen, it cut right to the group on the stage receiving the award.

Penn paused for a length of time before reading the winner, getting a bit of a reaction from the crowd, made a funny face & then flippantly & satirically said it before announcing the winner. I didn't think it was that a big deal. He's known the guy personally for a dozen years. Clearly they have a mutual respect & people can go toss if it doesn't jive with they ideals

Yeah, NPH was a real drag. Labored through the bits. Didn't seem to find his place. Anybody else wonder for a minute who the hell Lonnie Lynn & John Stevens were, when Common & John Legend were accepting for best song?


Edit: BTW, is it at all possible for John Travolta to NOT be over the top creepy at these things? He's always made up like a bloated funeral cadaver & is constantly got the creep behavior dialed up to 11

 

[auntiehill]

^The ONE joke of NPH that actually made me laugh out loud was the "And Travolta has to return again next year to apologize for all the weird, creepy face-touching."

 

[Starbreaker]

The best part of the night was seeing Eddie take the best actor statue. You could tell he had no idea he was going to win. I've heard his performance called predictable by "critics", but I thought it was great.

 

[Campe]

The best part of the night was seeing Eddie take the best actor statue. You could tell he had no idea he was going to win. I've heard his performance called predictable by "critics", but I thought it was great.

Predictable? Wow. I thought it was the only good part about a paint-by-the-numbers biopic. It should never have been nominated for Best Picture.

 

[Claudia]

The best part of the night was seeing Eddie take the best actor statue. You could tell he had no idea he was going to win.

Well, it wasn't my favoured outcome, but his joy seemed definitely genuine, I loved that. But to say that he had no idea he was going to win - after winning every other award there is? Sorry, but that doesn't seem very credible. *g*

 

[Timby]

Predictable? Wow. I thought it was the only good part about a paint-by-the-numbers biopic. It should never have been nominated for Best Picture.

Both it and The Imitation Game are the definition of paint-by-numbers biopics. They followed the formula exactly. Neither was particularly great or even good; just about the only thing I remember from The Imitation Game is that they pull a Poochie on Turing at the very end.

 

[Owain Taggart]

It went on FOREVER.

Yeah, I agree. And wasn't the Academy trying to trim down the fat a couple of years ago? I thought they had wanted to streamline things. I know they did at least one year, but it seems they've gone back in the other direction. And it seemed like there was far too much dead air.

I loved the opening number and the Birdman/Whiplash bit but the NPH prediction case was a ridiculous joke that just went on too long.

Yeah, definitely agree. And actually, I never got to see the payoff to that since my feed got blacked out during Julianne Moore's speech, only to resume right as the Birdman crew were accepting for Best Picture. So, big meh there.

Penn paused for a length of time before reading the winner, getting a bit of a reaction from the crowd, made a funny face & then flippantly & satirically said it before announcing the winner. I didn't think it was that a big deal. He's known the guy personally for a dozen years. Clearly they have a mutual respect & people can go toss if it doesn't jive with they ideals

Ok, yeah, I could see how that would be mistaken for a mean-spirited dig at the director, given that most people watching likely wouldn't know their relationship. So, kind of risky to be making a comment like that. But maybe it's kind of the reaction he wanted.

Edit: BTW, is it at all possible for John Travolta to NOT be over the top creepy at these things? He's always made up like a bloated funeral cadaver & is constantly got the creep behavior dialed up to 11

Yeah, enough with the face touching, Travolta. You could tell she was quite uncomfortable.

 

[Mojochi]

Wait a minute...... No honorary award this year? Given how dull everyone thought the show was, might've been worth the effort. I mean you had Julie Andrews right there on your stage. If that's not a class act deserving of overall career recognition, then I don't know what is.

I missed the early portion of the show because I was watching The Walking Dead. Did they even have anybody else from the "Classic" Hollywood era appear? Seems like there was a ton of young fluff like Chris Pratt & a bunch of youngsters I've never heard of.

But hey... speaking of Julie Andrews, maybe you could have her present it to Dick Van Dyke. That dude's like 90 this year. Running out of time to properly recognize his enormous contribution.

C'mon. It seems pretty lame to skip a year given how many of that classic era are in their final years & how few of them are left at all

 

[Mojochi]

 

[EnriqueH]

Neil Patrick Harris...I'm not ready to blame him, so I'm going to blame the writers. He had the WORST material ever for a host. The jokes were HORRIBLE.

The suit case thing and having that black actress keeping an eye on it? That was painful all the way around. Just embarrassing.

NPH was giving it his all, but the material was the worst ever for an Oscar host in the 25+ years I've been watching the ceremony religiously. (Worst hosts ever were Anne Hathaway and James Franco.)

I also didn't feel comfortable with the whole "Oscars so white" and race issue this year. I'm not sure where that was coming from. Was it because Selma wasn't nominated for more?

None of the movies I saw were mindblowing either. I can usually find a truly kickass movie every year, but not this year. To be fair, I didn't get around to watching Birdman, Boyhood or Selma.

 

[Mojochi]

I haven't seen any of them. I've had numerous people tell me that none of them are all that much to rave about. The ultimate truth is that no matter how poor the quality of movies ever gets in a year, they'll still nominate & they'll still act as if it's all stellar. That's the show

 

[EnriqueH]

I find that Oscar movie nominees can sometimes get a bum rap because I find that most of the nominated films *ARE* excellent.

This year, I wasn't really blown away.

Whiplash and Grand Budapest Hotel were my favorites and were excellent, but they also didn't scream "The Godfather" or "Rocky" (though in all fairness very few do).