Oscar Telecast 2015

The blogosphere will be deluged today with everyone's thoughts on the Oscar telecast so why offer more commentary? Like we need more, right? So let me indulge myself anyway.

I'm not qualified to comment on couture so I'll stick to the show itself, which never seems to please anyone. Everyone offers their two cents on how to fix what most believe to be an excessively long show, but many tune in year after year whether the show is a winner or a dud. I must say I'm sick of hearing the grousing about the telecast. If it really bores, then don't watch; it's as simple as that. For as long as movies are relevant, the Oscars will always be eye-rolling experiences, so why bother griping?

But as Oscar telecasts go, I must say this was one of the worst in this century. I thought Seth MacFarlane's Oscar night was the worst of the lot until I watched last night's telecast. I think Neil Patrick Harris' turn as host will rank as low and for many reasons.

There seems to be a consensus about how good Harris is as an awards show host. His Tony Award hosting has been the talk of the entertainment world for some years so he would seem to be an obvious choice to host the Oscars, right? Well, last night left me wondering; does the Tony audience have lower standards or was last night an aberration for Harris?

I thought the show got off to a rousing start. I liked the opening song number, especially when Anna Kendrick joined Harris onstage. It got better when Jack Black, sitting in the audience, began singing as well, while taking some pokes at Hollywood's excesses in the process. I thought, great, if the rest of the show has the opening number's inspiration and humor, the evening should be a blast. Wrong. The rest of the telecast never matched the opening number's spirit.

I can't imagine anyone wanting to host the Oscars. It takes a special talent to keep a 3 and a half hour show moving along. Billy Crystal was almost incomparable in this regard. So, in some ways, I must not be too critical of any Host or Hostess' performance. But I have to also say that I think the Oscars are better with a comedian or comedienne as host or hostess. Harris lacks a comedian's ability to make a scripted joke seem off the cuff. He also lacks a comedian/comedienne's talent for making gags work.

Another gag that should have been amusing but came off as a desperate attempt at outlandish humor was Harris walking out on stage in his underwear. Somehow the stunt seemed tired; like he was clutching at comedy straws.

His Oscar prediction box, which he returned to all through the evening, wasn't clever or funny and it lacked a pay-off. And it didn't help that the contents were revealed near the end of the show (of course, when else could they be revealed?) when everyone (myself included) wanted the telecast to hurry to its exciting conclusion.

A gag he borrowed from Ellen DeGeneres; walking the aisles, went nowhere, especially when he stopped to ask Steve Carell what actor he would most like to meet. During the exchange, a long, awkward and strange pause ensued, which brought a quick death to what was supposed to be something improvisational.

Harris did take a few well-deserved jabs at the Academy for its lack of cultural sensitivity but too often he made jokes at inappropriate times and worse, ones that were mildly amusing at best.

One thing that's been a bother in the Oscar telecasts for years is how time is capriciously allotted to award recipients on stage. I can understand the winners in major categories not getting piped off stage but what about the Best Foreign Film recipient, Pawel Pawlikowski, who couldn't get another 10-15 seconds to offer extended thanks?

I liked Lady Gaga's tribute to The Sound of Music; songs she sang beautifully and the heartfelt embrace of Julie Andrews afterward. It was the one moment in the entire telecast that paid any kind of tribute to a film from the past. This has become a trend in recent years, where Hollywood film history is given short shrift.

The songs nominated didn't impress me, nor did the performances of said songs; even John Legend and Common were only mildly watchable.

The speeches were okay. But though I was pleased to see Patricia Arquette win Best Supporting Actress for Boyhood, her magic moment was marred by what I call Actor's Cause Syndrome, where the actor or actress can't merely offer thanks but must plug pet causes. It's one thing when an actor mentions the persistence of some physical affliction or world problem related to the subject their film addresses, such as Julianne Moore discussing Alzheimer's in her acceptance speech, but it's an entirely different thing when Arquette uses her moment to make a statement about several causes that had nothing to do with her role in Boyhood. Given the sad fact that Arquette will most likely never be on the Oscar stage again to receive an award (before Boyhood, I hadn't seen her in a movie in literally years), could she not not seize the moment to celebrate her acting achievement? After all, awards don't come around often, even for the most celebrated actors and actresses. And who can remember the causes anyway? I have trouble enough remembering the winners. Actors should learn something from legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who once scolded Vanessa Redgrave for turning the Oscar dais into a soapbox by saying (on the Oscar stage) "I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple "Thank you" would have sufficed."

The distribution of awards seemed to be proceed as I expected. I didn't have a problem with Birdman walking away with some of the top honors, including Best Picture and Director. Inarritu's film was outstanding and entirely deserving. I also had no problem with J.K. Simmons winning Best Supporting Actor. He distinguished himself for years as a character actor, so a win in an acting category was gratifying to see. I gasped when Eddie Redmayne beat out who I thought were superior performers but he does seem like a charming, unassuming fellow and one day he'll no doubt make me forget his performance in The Theory of Everything. But I'll say the award should have gone to Michael Keaton. I'm also pleased Julianne Moore won; I would have been disgusted had Rosamund Pike won for Gone Girl or Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything. I wish Foxcatcher had won one of the acting categories but I think it's safe to say the film scared the hell out of movie-goers and the Academy alike.

I still think Interstellar, A Most Violent Year and Foxcatcher should have been nominated in the Best Picture category but fair is rare.

So Harris gave it the old college try but I can't say I want to see him back next year or any year after. Maybe the Oscars should try someone more unpredictable and dangerous, like Sarah Silverman.

Whatever or whomever, one thing that will never change is our capacity to gripe about the telecast. Let's face it, if the telecast were ever scrapped, the nation--and some portion of the world-- would be up in arms. So let it be dull or a disaster...it gives us all something to bitch about the next morning.

Gone Girl

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: David Fincher/Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Patrick Fugit and Kim Dickens

If you're like me, you may be one of five people in our solar system who hasn't read Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. It might not be surprising to learn a Yanomamo indian living within the densest tangles of the Amazon rainforest has read it. For us five who haven't, we have David Fincher's adaptation.

Fincher has a proven track record with the dark and edgy. But even the talent behind the terrific The Social Network and Zodiac can stumble into silliness, like the hard-to-take-seriously Fight Club and the pointless, time-wasting The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. So in which camp does Gone Girl lie? It pains me to say it's settled comfortably among the latter, which is too bad, considering the film version of the novel has been one of the most anticipated adaptations in recent memory.

How does the film go so wrong? For starters, the first half-hour to forty-five minutes contains the most unnatural sounding, glib dialogue I've heard in awhile. It doesn't help that Fincher can't get the actors to overcome the deficiencies. It also doesn't help that Rosamund Pike, who I assume was trying to lend her character an air of mystery, speaks in such a low, flat voice that not only sounded unnatural but was distracting. It's difficult to establish character when the main female protagonist's utterances calls to mind the Siri voice heard on electronic devices.

It seems almost superfluous to offer a movie synopsis when the plot is probably familiar to everyone in all hemispheres. It is also necessary to say very little because even a small helping of the plot will give most of the movie away.

Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a former journalist and college professor who finds himself unemployed and without prospects though he owns a bar which was financed with a chunk of his wife's trust fund. Nick's seemingly perfect mate is Amy (the lovely Rosamund Pike), whose parents are authors of a famous children's series.

When the story begins, we see Nick visiting his watering-hole, where his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) tends bar. As they banter and jive, Nick discusses his five-year anniversary with Amy before he returns home. Upon entering his house, he finds a living room table overturned and broken. Nick phones the police, who arrive soon after. Following Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) and her partner Jim Gilpin's (Patrick Fugit) investigation of the premises, Amy is presumed kidnapped. Among the clues left in the house is a white envelope that reads "clue 1" which Nick explains is part of an anniversary treasure hunt of sorts which was conceived by his wife. The white envelope is one of several the detectives and Nick will find over the course of the story. The envelopes will eventually incriminate him in some manner or another.

As the investigation unfolds, Amy's disappearance becomes fodder for the national media, particularly for tabloidy shows that devour sensational news stories. Initially supportive, the public begins to suspect Nick after a photo begins to circulate of himself posing with a poster of his wife; one that shows him grinning incongruently. Why anyone would be stupid enough to allow themselves to grin in such a situation and be photographed robs the plot of credibility and the film of some logic.

As the public turns against Nick and his guilt becomes a given in their perception, he is forced to hire a hot-shot lawyer who specializes in defending creeps and lowlifes named Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry). Unable to afford the $100,000 retainer fee, Bolt agrees to represent him anyway.

As the anti-Nick sentiment reaches a feverish pitch, evidence accumulates to warrant his arrest. But a dramatic plot-turn reveals his wife is alive and well and hardly the victim of a kidnapping. It becomes abundantly clear she is plotting Nick's downfall.

All through the film, we hear Amy's voice as she narrates a personal diary she keeps which will, like the white envelopes, incriminate Nick and is yet another carefully crafted scheme to ruin him. Amy's history of plotting against her boyfriends and lovers soon comes to light as Nick begins to doubt his wife's kidnapping. At this point in the film, Amy is no longer the victim but a cunning, conniving hellcat who will leave no vindictive stone unturned to send her husband behind bars or to the gallows.

I found her motives somewhat weak and unconvincing. Why she bears a passionate hatred for men seems a little vague and the psychological history that fuels her anger is feeble. I'm sure it comes across plausibly in the novel but Flynn's script doesn't address the issues cogently.

The movie gets better as the story progresses after the terrible dialogue exhausts itself. But it doesn't get much better; only more heated. Much rides on Rosamund Pike's performance, in which she plays a calculating, disturbed psychotic reasonably well but there is something almost vaudevillian about it as if it's all played for laughs. Maybe that's Fincher's intention.

Only the ending is a surprise, as we get some sense of the weird, psychological bond Amy and Nick share though it barely clears the logic crossbar.

I really liked Kim Dickens performance as the tough cop and Tyler Perry in the lawyer role. It's nice to see him play something other than Medea and play it well.

It is interesting to note that apart from Tanner Bolt, all the people who impact Nick's life are women: the lead investigator, the two T.V. personalities who interview Nick, his sister who runs his bar, his mistress and Amy herself. What kind of statement are Flynn--and indirectly Fincher--making about women in society? Is it some kind of message about the transfer of power between the sexes? Nick appears as mostly passive next to the various female personalities. All the women challenge or threaten him at some point in the film, which is also quite interesting. Even the redneck couple who menace and rob Amy are exhorted to do so by the woman, who freely admits her culpability; the husband is merely an instrument. Nick's puzzling decision at the film's end suggests his wife holds a greater influence over him than we're led to believe.

The film didn't leave me with a feeling of unease the way Zodiac or The Social Network did. It made me chuckle derisively a bit and I shook my head, feeling a little perplexed but it elicited little else. If it isn't a good film, at least the ending avoids a happy, blandly conventional resolution.

Flynn has little to worry about; failed adaptations never reflect negatively on the novels. Gone Girl book sales should be remain fairly robust. Maybe I'll give the book a try. Maybe I'll ask the Yanomamo indians if they've seen the movie.

A Million Ways to Die in the West

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Neil Patrick Harris, and Wes Studi

One wouldn't see Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West for the sweeping vistas or characters with contradictions and dark, ulterior motives usually found in John Ford westerns. But if you happened to be looking for a film that lampoons westerns with crudely-served scatalogical humor, or skewers the prevailing myths of the old west in the same manner, then A Million Ways to Die in the West is what you're looking for.

From an original script by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, A Million Ways to Die in the West tells a revisionist, deconstructive story of the west that is gleefully anachronistic. One knows what one is in for with Seth MacFarlane, particularly from the theatrical trailer, so no illusions about sophisticated humor, please.

Set in Arizona in the 1880s', Seth MacFarlane plays a cowardly sheep-farmer named Albert who detests everything about living in the frontier and says so in a soliloquy itemizing the kind of things that can kill you in the west in a way that is more perspective-from-the-future. It is a running gag in the film that Albert is a terrible sheep-farmer, as his herd is usually scattered all about, including the roof of his home.

Albert is in love with his sweetheart Louise (Amanda Seyfried) but the relationship sours when she grows tired of his character flaws and his inability to be a competent sheep-farmer. She falls in love with the town dandy, Foy (Neil Patrick Harris) who owns a shop that serves men with mustaches. Albert's lack of facial hair is a subtle jab at his lack of masculinity, which Foy exploits one day when Albert wanders in the mustache shop. MacFarlane always cuts a strange figure in movies with his bizarre, blemishless, alabaster complexion but it serves him well here; his smooth skin a comic reminder that a hairless face is something to be avoided in the frontier west

Unable to win Louise back, Albert is helped by a tough, tall, beautiful blonde named Anna who enters the town to rescue her brother from the jailhouse. Anna is married to the most ruthless, intimidating gunfighter named Clinch (Liam Neeson) who discovers his wife has kissed Albert, which leads to a High Noon-like confrontation later in the story. In the meantime, Anna helps Albert to overcome his love for Louise.

The story is secondary, most of the time, to the sight gags and jokes about the old west and the culture. One of them-and an amusing one-is the talk about having one's picture taken and how noone is supposed to smile. Albert shares a story about how he heard someone in Texas actually smiled during a photo, which seems outlandish and unbelievable to Anna and Albert. Another involves Albert's best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi), a morally upstanding young man who refuses to bed his fiancee Ruth (Sarah Silverman) before their wedding though she is a town prostitute who is visited at least ten times a day by clients--a fact known to everyone and Edward alike. It is quite funny to listen to Edward and Ruth talk wholesomely about saving themselves for marriage then hear her called gruffly by a saloon patron upstairs for sex, to which she promptly and dutifully complies; leaving Edward sitting pathetically at the table. The jokes are hit and miss and for the latter half of the movie, the story's almost serious narrative kills the momentum of the comedy as if MacFarlane forgot the movie is supposed to be a raunchy farce.

A Million Ways to Die in the West has its inspired moments but they seem too scarce. I'm not averse to humor dealing with bodily functions but films like MacFarlane's seem to use it as a crutch; betraying the famine of ideas that must have beset the screenwriting. A scene involving a duel between Foy and Albert, which ends up with the former defecating in the street seems borrowed by scores of gross-out comedies, including the recent Bridesmaids.

The cast rides along with the raunch and silliness. Sarah Silverman is quite amusing, as is Wes Studi's Cochise and Neil Patrick Harris with his foppish, annoying, handlebar mustache.

The film does have its John Ford, sweeping vistas of the desert southwest, which are breathtaking and unusual for a farce like MacFarlane's.

It made me chuckle at times but not enough. The film is one more missed opportunity but I've seen worse, which isn't exactly olympian praise but hardly a categorical dismissal. I'd like to see him try again, but next time remember to be more generous doling out the gags.