Pre-Reviewing this Oscars

Gosh, how times flies.

In two days, the 87th Academy Awards will be upon us. You guys will see my review of the Oscars. Hopefully, it will not be as bland and self-important as last year's was (at least in the eyes of one user, who shall remain nameless). Since the internet is known for its me-me-me-ness, I have some thoughts regarding how this show will turn out.

1. Neil Patrick Harris could be either a hit or a you-know-what

When I first heard that Neil Patrick Harris was hosting, two things came to my mind, either he is going to do great or come off as another embarrassment. He has hosted the Tonys, Grammys, and Emmys, so he has experience. But it's one thing when you host a show with its fair share of exposure, but try hosting one that has the history of 40-odd million viewers watching. He will do fine. My feeling is he could be one of the best. The worst-case scenario is he can look back on this 10-15 years from now and say, "Wow! I hosted the Oscars and you know, I wasn't all that bad."

2. Is the Oscars becoming the Grammys?

Speaking of Neil, it was inevitable that they would bring some musical numbers here and there. It's not just Neil, but Craig Zadan and Neil Muron, producers of the Oscars since 2013 and notable musical producers as well. I will tell you, some, at least SOME, of them will be irritating and head-scratching odd. If they can manage with a few, we should be okay. But if it's going to turn into another Grammys......

3. Possible low viewer turnout?

I have a confession to make: I could not care less about the Best Pictures nominees this year. I don't know. Maybe it is because they were not that exciting. Or maybe it's because there was not something terribly memorable.

Don't get me wrong. we had some great movies. Boyhood, Birdman, The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel. But for some reason, these movies did not have the same vibe as last year's. You take movies like Gravity, which gave audiences the sensory feeling of being in space, or 12 Years a Slave with regards to slavery. 2013 was a thrilling year in movies. I somehow could not connect with the films of 2014.

Perhaps the viewers might agree. At the time of the announcement, prior to American Sniper, the rest of the nominees registered the least cumulative box office gross (of course, American Sniper out-grossed the heck out of its competitors). Whether the audiences were not interested or a simple case of been there-seen that already, the rest of the nominees could not gross over $100 million. American Sniper has done extraordinarily well but the rest failed to match that.

Nevertheless, I would love to be proven wrong. This show could outperform the ratings from last year (43 million viewers) or take a dip.

We shall see.

Navid Sitarian
February 20, 2015