All times central. The actual show is starting at 7:30 pm.
7:00- “Oh hi, Dakota Johnson. You just recently starred in Fifty Shades of Grey, in which you got very naked. Now, let’s ask your mother about it!”
7:15- “He would absolutely be blown away,” says Chris Kyle’s widow about how he would react if he were at the Oscars. It’s Taya with the first (unintentional) joke of the evening!
7:25-It’s Chris Evans. Speaking of, Snowpiercer should be nominated for everything.
7:34- “Hi, welcome to the 87th Annual–” *NPH gets his throat slashed by a box cutter*
7:35-Anna Kendrick makes anything better. Anyway, this is a pretty fun opening sequence complete with Stormtroopers, Jack Black doing whatever he wants, and, yet again, Anna Kendrick!
7:40- “American Sniper is responsible for over $300 million.” That hurts my ears.
7:42-As expected, J.K. Simmons takes it home for Best Supporting Actor. In my opinion, this was the best movie and performance of the year, and watching that “rushing or dragging” clip gave me chills yet again. Also, kudos to him for telling people to call their parents.
7:45-Pairing The Grand Budapest Hotel and American Sniper makes so much sense, guys. They both feature…people? And stuff? Oh, and we follow that up with Dakota Johnson and Maroon 5. It’s like an example of a show going downhill in 5 minutes.
8:00-The jokes…yikes…
8:02-So far, it’s been a perfect night in terms of winners. Go, GBH!
8:03- “No really, I can read!” -Channing Tatum. Also, how bout that Team Oscar, amirite? How diverse! So young! This is truly the future, ladies and gents. These Oscar voters get us!
8:05-Neil Patrick Harris looks like he’s standing next to James Franco.
8:10-So far, the Mad Men commercial has been the best part of the night. You guys, I’m so sad that it’s ending this year; it’ll be great.
8:13-HE KILLED THE MUSIC BY HIMSELF! YES!
8:20-“Everything is Awesome” is awesome, although anyone who hasn’t seen the movie must be wondering if they’re tripping at the moment. Once again, though, this year’s show continues its weird pairings by having Marion Cotillard introduce it.
8:28-On the one hand, I don’t want this show to last 50 hours, but on the other, it’s very entertaining watching people not give a crap about the music.
8:30-“Suicide”
*Music switches off*
I found that kind of hilarious, but also kind of sad. These people worked hard, and they deserve to thank people just as much as the “famous” ones. Stop cutting people off, Academy.
8:35- “Oh, NOW you like him.” Best NPH joke so far.
8:43-So, Neil Patrick Harris does a little Birdman sketch complete with underwear and Miles Teller drumming. I liked Miles Teller’s bit the best in that segment.
8:49-Dammit, American Sniper wins something.
8:55-Well deserved, Patricia Arquette. Yeah, taxpayers!
9:00-Robert Duvall has no idea what’s going on right now.
9:03-Not a huge fan of these performances. “Everything Is Awesome” was pretty fun and all, but everything else we’ve seen so far? A bunch of pop music simply meant to pad the already overlong show. Sigh.
9:04-Yay, Interstellar wins something! The visuals for this movie were truly astounding; just look at the docking scene or the wormhole scene for reference.
9:10-Kaguya deserved it.
9:13-Guys, if you want to stop the music from playing, mention something sad! Also, these NPH outros are awkward. “Lady Gaga…I hear she sings.” Yeah, Harris, she does; is that supposed to be a setup for a joke somehow? Or a joke in and of itself? Also: no one cares about your BOX, Harris. NO ONE.
9:17-Why isn’t the band playing Cheryl Boone Isaacs offstage?
9:22-Another Grand Budapest win!
9:25-Hey, Jessica Chastain! We all love you, Jessica. Also, Emmanuel Lubezki–who should’ve won for The Tree of Life and Children of Men–takes home the cinematography award, as expected. However, let’s not forget the other fantastic cinematography this year: Darius Khondji for The Immigrant, Robert Elswit for Nightcrawler, Daniel Landin for Under the Skin, and Bradford Young for A Most Violent Year.
9:35-First of all, Meryl Streep probably just won another award for her In Memoriam introduction. Second of all, that’s some beautiful artwork in the In Memoriam segment, but I kind of wish we still had clips. Also: no Joan Rivers.
9:41-Musical number #45. So, yeah, it was a pretty moving segment there, but I’m pretty sure they gave more screen time to Jennifer Hudson afterward than to the actual people who died. Once again, we needed clips.
9:45-The editing for the final sequence of Whiplash alone deserves its own award. Congrats, Tom Cross.
9:50-Okay, I thought Terrence Howard was about to talk about Selma there, not The Imitation Game. The latter wasn’t even a good movie.
9:54-Haven’t seen Citizenfour yet, but I really want to.
9:59-“Guys, if we give this a standing ovation, it’ll make up for the lack of Selma nominations!” But seriously, Selma deserves more than a Best Song win.
10:07-Common is a smooth speech-giver, I’ll give him that. Great speech. Also, the audience apparently loves incarceration.
10:16-I thought the Grammys were a few weeks ago. Enough with the music. Anyway, Gaga did a fine job; I was expecting her to bust out some Katy Perry Left Shark Shit during her performance, though.
10:25-Nice win for Desplat there, and for the right movie. I’m still a fan of Hans Zimmer, though; sure, the score could get intrusive sometimes, but man, that was some glorious music in Interstellar. Exhibit A: docking scene.
10:30-1/10 done!
10:31-Loved Birdman, but the screenplay was its weakest aspect by far.
10:36-Upon hearing of The Imitation Game‘s win, Terrence Howard burst into tears.
10:39-Well, now that he’s mentioned the suicide attempt, the band definitely can’t play him off now. Aside from that, The Imitation Game does not deserve this at all.
10:43-Damn, I was hoping Linklater could win this one. Not surprising, though, considering Inarritu took home the DGA.
10:50-The movie was mediocre, but there is no denying that Redmayne was great. I’m not as happy for him as I should be, considering I really disliked the movie, but he still deserves it. That being said, this was Keaton’s, and I’m bummed he didn’t win it.
10:55-Julianne Moore wins, as expected. She was great, but let’s remember: Still Alice did not have this scene…
11:00-NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR BOX, NEIL PATRICK HARRIS. Not a good hosting job, that’s for sure.
11:05-Birdman wins. Here’s the thing: I loved the movie, but the Oscars were rewarding and not rewarding the wrong parts of it tonight. It gets the screenplay win and the director win, but Michael Keaton loses? A movie about actors gets no actor awards? It’s at least still better than your average Oscar winner–stuff like The Theory of Everything or The Imitation Game or American Sniper–and it’s still an excellent movie. I’m glad that the Best Picture winner was actually original, challenged its audiences, and featured a surreality that drew you in and kept you riveted. My personal pick was Whiplash, as you all know, but I’m happy for Birdman. I’m happy that the smaller, art-house movies this year won most of these awards rather than the big, Oscar-bait movies, and while there’s always something to be angry about, I take solace in the fact that Whiplash/Boyhood/Grand Budapest Hotel/Birdman dominated the awards conversation.
Now, time to prepare for the Birdman backlash! FOX News will be all over that immigration stuff tomorrow. Anyway, that wraps it up for 2014 in movies.
Polar Bears Watch TV 
Wonderful recap.
I too hoped Michael Keaton would win but the Academy went for the diseased roles.
Redmayne and Moore were excellent and likely deserved their wins. I can applaud them as winners.
Very pleased with Simmons winning.
Loved Gaga’s Sound of Music collection, Hudson’s song, and Glory. Not so crazy about the Everything is Awesome – IMO Opening song medley was terrific and the Adam Levine performed song from Begin Again was dreadful.
I thought NPH was far too tame – he did get off a few good ones but seemed so self-aware about having just launched a joke that killed..Any with absolute agreement – NPH predictions in the locked box added nothing to the show.
Yeah, Gaga’s performance was surprisingly good. Everything Is Awesome is a bit strange live for sure, and Maroon 5 is terrible.
Puns. Puns as far as the eye can see…
I do not and did not watch the Oscars. They for me are just the WORST. But I do love to see the gowns the next day! Lupita’s ScarJo’s and Rosamund Pike’s gowns for me were the best! Too bad you do not critique fashion as well Polarbear! 😉
I heard about the winners the next day, and I have to say that I am happy that J.K. Simmons won his but I really wanted Michael Keaton to win for Birdman because the man is totally underrated and very talented and really how many chances is he going to get like that to shine again and he was way nifty in Birdman!
Eddie Redmayne won… Quel Surprise… his win reminds me of the line that Eddie Murphy’s character says in the comedic film Bowfinger (one of my favourite comedies!) that to win an Oscar you have to play someone with a big disease or be mentally challenged, and if you are black to win an Oscar you have to play a slave so he tells his agent to get him a role to play “Buck the retarded slave” ( tasteless but on point). This is true of Redmayne playing Stephen Hawking, I in truth found that film rather twee and cliche but that is what wins. All I can say is I am so HAPPY the Cumberbatch did not win!! He is an okay actor not a great one and the Imitation Game was meh for me. I as I said preferred Derek Jacobi’s film about Alan Turing.
Selma won best song I see, it is a great and moving song but it is a lame consolation prize. So happy for Grand Budapest Hotel! I LOVE THAT FILM!!!
I see that the ratings went down and that NPH got meh reviews for his MCing. So happy that I watched The Walking Dead instead and Talking Dead afterwards.
You are a brave bear for sitting through that Oscar jank! 🙂
Thanks!
Haha, no problem! Yeah, it was a long long one, especially since they kept shoving in music performances at every chance they got.
And yeah, that award was Keaton’s. Redmayne did a fine job, but I agree; the movie was not good at all. That, The Imitation Game, and American Sniper were all bad and cliche and Oscar-baity, and I’m just happy those movies didn’t dominate. At the same time, I don’t know how you give Birdman all those awards, but don’t give Keaton it. He deserved it more than Redmayne for sure.
Oh and I was ever so happy that Bradley Cooper did not win! That would have been insufferable.
Michael Keaton should have won, really.
Aww… I liked NPH and his box… That came out way more suggestive than I meant.
Pretty solid coverage though (Respect for the Kaguya love, though I was still cheering for Dragons 2). Also, yeah, what the hell was with snubbing Joan Rivers in the memorial? I’ll cop to not particularly liking her that much, but she didn’t deserve a snub for the goddamn In Memoriam section!
Eh. Aside from that, I kind of enjoyed the ceremony. Maybe I just don’t have enough jaded cynicism about the Oscars yet.