MONDAY EVENING QUARTERBACKING THE 2015 OSCARS

The Host

The Oscars were back to the nostalgic big Broadway vibe and yet seemed, compared to the extravagant 1990's era, surprisingly contained… Neil Patrick Harris did a pretty good job… He doesn’t have much of a singing voice, though, for his showman persona, but the jokes were all right, and he wasn't trying too hard...

JK Simmons was a humble class act actor, the real deal, especially compared to Best Supporting Actress winner Patricia Arquette, who should have been really brave – instead of lecturing the entire country during her frantic drive-by takeover, why not bite the hand that’s feeding her the venue to raise hell in the first place? Aim that awkwardly screeching bitterness at Hollywood… She looked like a disheveled vampire doll left in a bucket of soggy flour... And what the hell was Meryl "Millions A Film” Streep cheering her on concerning the subject of underpaid women? Lord, the blatant hypocrisy in that town...

Nails On Chalkboard

During the memorial, Robin Williams shown in the middle, one of many, was weak… He should have been last, like Philip Seymour Hoffman... You know, Best for Last...

The Top Actor winners were, for the most part, predictable… If THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING centered more on the harsh transitional realities of scientific genius Stephen Hawking’s debilitating disease, Eddie Redmayne's performance would be completely warranted, no questions asked… Yet the movie itself rushed through what would make the role Oscar-worthy, instead celebrating Hawking's electronic “sermons," which did most of the work: like Mercedes McCambridge in THE EXORCIST...

Loser

The other contender, Michael Keaton, was good in BIRDMAN but not entirely convincing, and his frantic turn often felt like a performance – he and Edward Norton both… And the two top awards flanking his loss... Best Picture and Best Director (both surprises)...  had to be a letdown; but as mentioned in the pre-Oscar post, a nomination is comeback enough for a man formerly stuck in Straight-to-DVD purgatory…And Julianne Moore should have won an Emmy instead: her disease-of-the-week had Lifetime Channel written all over it...

As for Sean Penn’s snarky "Green Card" quip during the Best Director presentation: it seems they bring the Malibu-raised rebel on that lighted stage to be a controversial mouthpiece pitbull for the muzzled poodles to secretly admire...

Ironically, it was the director and starlet from THE INDIAN RUNNER, an obscure 1991 counter-culture melodrama starring David Morse, Viggo Mortensen and Patricia Arquette, who provided the two “shock” moments...

The Jack

That's if you don’t count Neil’s audience-jab concerning “snubbed” Martin Luther King Jr. actor David Oyelowo; who himself reluctantly took part in bashing the disastrous ANNIE reboot… Glad someone mentioned it…

And last but not least, always the big question, who should host next year? Well Neil’s opening act was passable… a sort of mockery of its own lavishness… but the “villain” of the production, turning a mediocre song into a bonafide skit, really made the number shine… And Jack Black can act, sing, and do both at the same time, and he’s really funny to boot… How about it, Hollywood, give Mr. Toad a chance! At this point, Oscar could use another wild ride.