Oscar Postmortem Pt. 4: Telecast Highlights

I always record the Oscars so I can go back and rewatch it later the same week.

It's practically a necessity since I'm often so distracted with my prediction lists and my agony and ecstasy over the winners and losers and whatnot, that I miss some of the little moments that make this whole meat parade worthwhile!

There are still glimmers of fun left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as awards season. So allow me to parse through the 3+hour telecast and highlight the diamonds in the rough. And believe me, it was rough.

Things didn't start off so bad, though. Rather than force host Neil Patrick Harris to struggle through an opening monologue, they fed him one solid joke and then he was off to the races with his song-and-dance routine, "Moving Pictures".

This show got 99 problems, but graphic design ain't one!

Lovely sets and animated title cards.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 2: The Host, the Ratings, and the Real Problems

Every time the host is announced for the upcoming Oscars several months in advance, I traditionally write an opinion of the selection and what I hope it means for the show. But this past year, when word came that three-peat producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron had chosen ubiquitous awards show MC Neil Patrick Harris, I just couldn't be bothered. I've seen NPH absolutely crush it on the Tonys multiple times, 'cause the dude's got mad talent, but nothing about this decision excited me.

For years it had been thinly veiled, at best, how desperately Harris wanted to break away from the Emmy/Tony gigs and take on Hollywood's holy night.
He even got to do a random musical intro at the beginning of Adam Shankman's disastrous Oscar telecast in 2010. It stuck out like the sorest of many sore thumbs from that show, making it clear that despite his song-and-dance aptitude, he just isn't enough of a movie personality to fit in with this particular West coast crowd.

NPH at the Oscars in 2010: A bad omen of things to come.