You have to give it up for James Franco’s weed dealer. He, not Franco may have been the most entertaining thing regarding this year’s Oscars.
I had high hopes. Franco, when he wants to be, can be a solid front person for a project. Anne Hathaway is someone who is eloquent, charming, can take the token Oscar-host song role easily and let’s be honest, I’d not kick her out of bed for eating sushi.
So where did it go wrong? It’s almost a thing where they were simply trying too hard to not be the wild and crazy kids that everyone thought they were going to be. Jon Stewart with a cup could have been agent provocateur in a better fashion than these two. Franco was visibly stoned, Hathaway couldn’t stop being the giddy school girl. She was endearing at points, he was looking like the question we were all asking. What is he/am I doing here?
As for the actual award winners? It’s a festival of obvious sailing a sea of bland, aka, no surprises here. The Oscars love a stiff British upper lip, so the King’s speech and related nominations were a guarantee. It would have taken an earthquake to prevent Natalie Portman for taking best actress and the Fighter, well, I think they just wanted to prevent Christian Bale from going crazy.