On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Tom Wolper <twol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Gmail <dgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I'm out of the country so did not get to watch the show, but I did follow >> along on both the NY Times and NPR liveblogs, both of which were -- to put >> it mildly -- underwhelmed with MacFarlane. When they started fondly >> reminiscing about James Franco about ten minutes in, I knew things were >> bad. >> >> Linda Holmes' take: >> >> http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/02/25/172846842/the-oscars-broadcast-zooming-way-past-cheeky-to-land-squarely-on-crass?ft=1&f=93568166 >> > > I don't watch the ceremony so I usually refrain from commenting. It seems > to me that dumping on the Oscar host has become a ritual that takes place > on Monday morning every single year. Every year the previous evening's host > was the worst ever. > > There do seem to be a lot of people who watch just so they can take a dump on who ever hosts; OTOH, there are a number of hosts who seem to be "darlings" of those who generate the conventional wisdom (e.g. Crystal, Martin). I am not big fan of McFarlane, but it does seem peculiar to bash him for delivering exactly what he was asked for. If they want the collective Hollywood ass to be kissed, get Billy Crystal again. They asked SM because they wanted to increase their appeal to the younger demo (TVBTN reports last night's Oscar-cast had improved ratings in that demo, from 11.7 to 12.1, about a 3.5% increase). Frankly I think Levine's take was stuffy and self-important. Hosting the Oscars is not performing for the Queen. Most of the stuff I did not like were not because it was too offensive or adolescent, but too hack (I think it is time to stop making jokes about Mel Gibson, unless we are still telling jokes about how big Milton Berle's dick was). If anything McFarlane was surprisingly sophisticated; word is he thinks he is Frank Sinatra, and that vibe certainly permeated the show, and led to the other part that I did not like about his act, which was its self-indulgence. But the singing and dancing was relatively non-ironic (more self-conscious and self-congratulatory than ironic really), and most of the bits that had any real bite were clearly done with the consent and participation of the targets; I did read a piece this morning by a reporter ripping McFarlane for the boobs song, which noted (with shocking ignorance) that during the boob song ABC cut to reaction shots of actresses who were clearly offended (oh brother). -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
