From Reuters:
Rookie Oscar host Seth MacFarlane casually slung a string of zingers at some of Hollywood's biggest names, including a musical tribute to female frontal nudity in the movies, as he launched the Academy Awards show on Sunday on a decisively provocative note.From USA Today:
In an opening monologue and package of song-and-dance numbers obviously calculated to live up to, and even lampoon, his own reputation for pushing the boundaries of taste, MacFarlane put his biting, edgy brand of humor front and center.
...The edgy quotient quickly escalated as MacFarlane described another best-film candidate, "Django Unchained," as the slavery-era "story of a man fighting to get back his woman who has been subjected to unthinkable violence - or as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie."
Oscars fans have seen a lot over the years, but this may be the first time they've ever seen a host use the awards to audition for his own variety show.From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
That was what Seth MacFarlane was doing on ABC's Oscar broadcast Sunday, wasn't it? Because it's hard to imagine just what else he might have had in mind with that oddly awkward mix of monologue and music that opened the show and set the evening's why-am-I-here? tone.
Give this to MacFarlane: He threw everything he had at it. He dressed up like The Flying Nun. He played with sock puppets. He radiated charm, if not cool. And, of course, he told jokes, a tad nervously, perhaps, but he did manage to land a fair number of them. He even got Tommy Lee Jones to laugh at a joke about getting Tommy Lee Jones to laugh, which has to count for something. Oh, and he sang and danced. A lot.
...Awash in self-indulgence, neither he nor his 3-hour-and-35-minute show ever seemed to hit a comfortable, confident stride, which is a shame, because the broadcast had a lot of entertainment to offer. Indeed, as with the Grammys, the awards themselves sometimes seemed to be an afterthought. Heaven knows the show seemed to be in no particular hurry to get to them.
Seth MacFarlane brought unshakable self-confidence to the Academy Awards Sunday night, singing, dancing, making out (in a taped bit) with Sally Field and drawing occasional scowls and boos from the Hollywood A-list.From the Associated Press:
The creator of TV's "Family Guy" and writer-director of the movie "Ted" turned in a solid performance in an opening that hit as often as it missed.
MacFarlane seemed completely in command from the first moments, when he said, "And the quest to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh starts now." Jones, who had looked grim at the Golden Globes, laughed.
He ruffled feathers. He maybe even turned some viewers off.From the New York Daily News:
But it's likely no one turned off Seth MacFarlane.
Best-known until recently as the bad-boy creator and character voice behind "Family Guy" and last summer's hit film "Ted," MacFarlane seized the camera Sunday as host of ABC's Oscarcast and proved to its vast audience that he's a ridiculously versatile entertainer, a guy who can be as charming as he is famously irreverent, even polarizing.
Here's a guy who could toss off a joke Bob Hope might have delivered decades ago ("It's Sunday. Everybody's dressed up. This is like church - only with more people praying"), then carry off a deliberate groaner like his wisecrack that, while, an actor like Daniel Day-Lewis really captured Abraham Lincoln in his Oscar-winning performance, "I would argue that the actor who really got inside Abraham Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth."
...Especially on a night where everyone else seemed to be on their best behavior, MacFarlane's strategic misbehavior furnished welcome relief.
In interviews beforehand, he had spoken of his hope to strike a balance between respect for Hollywood and some necessary sass. Mission accomplished.
Leading-man handsome with a gleaming smile, he began the broadcast without a net and looking totally relaxed: Alone on the stage, he delivered a series of one-liners, most of which scored. (The Oscarcast was being watched by "close to a billion people worldwide," he intoned, "which is why Jodie Foster will be up here in a bit to ask for her privacy.")
Then he opened the door to his reputation for raunch with the appearance on a video screen of William Shatner as "Star Trek's" Captain Kirk, who had arrived from the future to scold MacFarland in advance for the hosting performance he was just starting.
"The show's a disaster," declared Shatner.
As evidence, he pointed to an "incredibly offensive song that upsets a lot of actresses in the audience."
With that, a pre-taped production number featured MacFarlane singing "We Saw Your Boobs," saluting a roster of actresses who have bared themselves in their films.
But then, in an effort to atone, MacFarlane sang a classy rendition of "The Way You Look Tonight" accompanied by Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum in dance.
Not good enough, said Shatner, who then revealed a video clip where MacFarlane, costumed in a Flying Nun habit, hit on Oscar nominee Sally Field in the green room.
Back and forth went the routine: Bad Seth and Good Seth. Both were very funny, stewarding a broadcast that never went askew.
Seth MacFarlane talked a little too much about Seth MacFarlane.Was MacFarlane the worst Oscar host ever?
He may have dealt a setback to Chris Brown's progress in anger management.
But he made Sunday's annual Academy Awards telecast into one of the best Oscar nights in years.
Yes, it helped that Sunday's winners were films that viewers might have actually seen and that First Lady Michelle Obama announced the best-picture champ.
It also helped that the evening's theme was musicals, since it's illegal not to love Catherine Zeta-Jones singing "All That Jazz" and Jennifer Hudson singing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going."
But MacFarlane was the engineer, and it's no coincidence Sunday's ride was a fine one.
No way.
That honor would go to David Letterman.
In short, MacFarlane could have been worse.
The show in general was disjointed and uneven and unnecessarily long.
It was short on emotion.
It was kind of awkward and joyless. Oh, and boring.
Someone explain to me why Michelle Obama announced Best Picture.
That was more outrageous than anything MacFarlane said or did.
