14 DAY TRIAL // Neil Patrick Harris hosted the Oscars 2015 last night, and despite kicking off the ceremony on a high note (literally, because he turned his opening monolog into a musical number), he hit several bumps through the night, mostly with jokes that fell flat with the audience.
Whether too repetitive or out of place, not all the gags were funny. The skit that had him show up on stage in nothing but his underwear, as part of a “Birdman” tribute, fell in the former category: this simply didn’t feel like the right place to do such a number.
“Birdman” won Best Picture and Best Director (and a couple of other awards), so it’s not like it wasn’t a movie that couldn’t resonate with the industry people gathered at the Dolby Theater. Even so, the Oscars are pretentious and “serious,” and this felt like an obvious grab for ratings and laughs. And rushed too, to boot.
Then, there’s this: a “Birdman” parody as aide in hosting duties had been done just 24 hours before, at the Independent Spirit Awards 2015. And it’d been done much, much better.
You can see Neil Patrick Harris’ skit in the first video below, while Fred Armisen and Kristen Bell’s opening sequence at the Independent Spirit Awards is the second one. Harris’ pales by comparison, wouldn’t you say?
