85th Annual Academy Awards Recap

Last night's Oscars proved once again that the Oscars are exactly what they are: the Oscars. Nothing more, nothing less and likely never will be anything else. Seth MacFarlane as host was neither a success nor failure. He was there to fill space. He was energetic about being on stage and held a great charisma throughout but didn't commit to being a real host. He was a meta-host.

His 17-minute opening montage brought on a Star Trekked William Shatner from the future telling him he would be panned as the worst Oscar host in history in tomorrow's headlines. The self-referential moment to the skepticism around his hosting gig was a cop-out from him taking on his hosting duties 100 percent. Splashed in between, however, were fun dance routines by the inspired pairings of Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum and then Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe. And that "We Saw Your Boobs" number was playful enough.

Throughout the rest of the show, however, introducing presenters and cracking small jokes, MacFarlane fell flat. He tossed out jokes as if he was still testing them, and nothing stuck. And a crack about Rex Reed and Adele was borderline uncalled for, and this was followed by a series of repetitive jokes about how long the telecast was running. We get it. The Oscars are long and boring; stop pointing it out to us.

Meanwhile, the show actually ended right on time. Exactly three hours...plus 30 minutes. And it ended right after Ben Affleck gave a frantic but heartfelt acceptance speech on behalf of the widely expected best picture win for "Argo." This was preceded by Jack Nicholson appearing on stage to present the award, which has a fun side note all its own. The last time Nicholson presented the final award of the night was in 2005 for "Crash" when Ang Lee won best director for "Brokeback Mountain." That was the last time we've seen a best picture/director split as it happened again this year with Lee's director win for "Life of Pi" over Steven Spielberg for "Lincoln."

First lady Michelle Obama was the surprise presenter who appeared above Nicholson's head on a screen in a live stream from the White House. She gave a moving speech about importance of the arts before ripping open the envelope and revealing "Argo" as the winner.

All of this was a fantastic finish to the 85th Annual Academy Awards telecast. But no. Our host teamed up with a screeching Kristen Chenoweth to close out the show with a horrific musical number commending all the night's losers, a wholly unnecessary exercise in bad taste and ignorance after an otherwise very classy end to the evening.

With best picture, "Argo" also took awards for best editing and Chris Terrio's surprise win for best adapted screenplay over close competitors David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook" and Tony Kushner for "Lincoln." With a total of three awards, the film tied with "Les Miserables," which had wins including Anne Hathaway's predicted best supporting actress win along with best makeup/hairstyling and sound mixing.

"Life of Pi," however, walked away with the most awards of the night at four total. Along with Ang Lee's best director win, the film won best cinematography, visual effects and score. "Skyfall," "Django Unchained" and "Lincoln" all tied with two wins each.

"Silver Linings Playbook" got only one award, which went to Jennifer Lawrence for best actress. The humbled Oscar-winner took the stage in a flurry of an acceptance speech just after tripping on her way up the steps. Undeniably precious.

In a tribute to the 50th anniversary of James Bond, a montage was followed by a performance from the 76-year-old Shirley Bassey who belted out "Goldfinger." Adele later appeared to sing her Oscar-winning "Skyfall" for best original song, but unfortunately a sound issue muffled her performance. Her bubbly acceptance speech made up for it later, though.

Best sound editing marked the second award for "Skyfall," which it shared with "Zero Dark Thirty," that film's sole win of the night. The tie in the category marked only the sixth time a tie has ever happened in Oscar history.

Daniel Day-Lewis accepted his best actor win for "Lincoln" with a great speech we would know to come from the three-time Oscar-winning actor. The second win for "Lincoln" was for production design over expected front-runner "Anna Karenina." The latter won for best costume design. Disney's "Brave" took the award for best animated film over "Wreck-It Ralph" while "Amour" won best foreign language film and "Searching for Sugar Man" won best documentary.

Best supporting actor went to Christoph Waltz for "Django Unchained" while Quentin Tarantino took the award for best original screenplay over Mark Boal's "Zero Dark Thirty" who took home the WGA last weekend.

The telecast's theme was the movie musical as the night paid tribute to the past decade's musicals, of which there were apparently only two. Jennifer Hudson performed her show-stopping number from 2006's "Dreamgirls" unleashing her voice which felt even more seasoned than when she originally sang the tune. Catherine Zeta-Jones, on the other hand, lip-synced her way through a rendition of "All that Jazz" from 2002's best picture winner "Chicago."

The live singing redux of "One Day More" from "Les Miserables" was a musical highlight of the night bringing the cast all together again. The academy producers were clearly salivating over the idea of a nominated musical to revolve the night's theme around. The reliance on the returning cast of "Chicago" sure was heavy-handed, and one couldn't help but wonder why Renee Zellweger was acting like that?

Perhaps the most bizarre moment of the night was somebody's apparent decision to make the cut-off music of acceptance speeches to be the "Jaws" theme. Talk about campy and tasteless.

What's really left of last night's telecast is a feeling of deflated hopelessness for the Oscars to never be truly exciting again. Maybe we really do just need Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host everything from now on. Lord knows that joke was required to be made last night, too -- and so early on, yeesh.

But hey, at least it truly was a great year in film, an unexpected awards race for most of the way and a night that closed on FLOTUS nailing best dressed without even being there and a tearful, choked up Ben Affleck getting the acknowledgement he deserves. I'm going with pretending that last musical number didn't happen. I think it's really for the best.

TED Review

Seth MacFarlane, creator of the Fox animated mega-hit "Family Guy," enters the realm of filmmaking with his first feature debut, "Ted," which turns out to be a live-action "Family Guy." It's defiantly what you expect going into it. The same trademark MacFarlane humor with wisecracking pop culture references, unabashed vulgarity, sexual raunch, joyous political incorrectness and random cameos from celebrities who really have no business showing up. These cameos are actually pretty great, though, so keep your eyes peeled. MacFarlane co-stars in the movie he wrote and directed providing the voice of the fun-loving, foul-mouthed teddy bear come-to-life, Ted, who even makes the joke that his voice doesn't sound THAT much like Peter Griffin's. Spoiler alert: it does.

On one fateful Christmas morning, young John Bennett receives an enormous stuffed teddy bear. He's thrilled with the present but also wishes the bear could come to life and be a true friend forever. Wish granted. The now walking, talking bear becomes an overnight sensation, a celebrity appearing on the likes of the Johnny Carson show. But just as the narrator explains, giving examples like Frankie Muniz and Corey Feldman, all fame eventually fades. Years pass, and the now 35-year-old John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) has lived with Ted as a roommate and best friend his whole life sitting on the couch watching TV, getting high and prolonging adolescence.

Against all odds, John has an extremely attractive and successful girlfriend of four years. Her name is Lori Collins (Mila Kunis), and while she has put up with Ted all this time, a new point has been reached where she wants Ted to finally move out. That way, Lori and John can finally take their relationship to the next level.  This immediately turns the plot into a bromance vs. romance dynamic, which has been explored countless times in comedies before. The one-note joke of the buddy of this particular buddy movie being a stuffed bear does last but not forever. Eventually the material wears thin as do the laughs. A creepy father (Giovanni Ribisi) and his chubby son start stalking Ted and attempt to kidnap him, creating wild tonal shifts into a cheap thriller.

And yet thank goodness for the always surprising and talented Mark Wahlberg who plays the ideal lovable slacker with his Bostonian drawl he does so well. Kunis, likewise, is cute as a caring and concerned girlfriend who does her very best to play this relationship straight when there's a teddy bear in the mix. As hard as they try, though, Seth MacFarlane's "Ted" isn't nearly as funny as it should be. And what, pray tell, is his crazy, fan boy-like obsession with the 1980 sci-flick "Flash Gordon," which he relentlessly refers to throughout the movie's entirety?