Award Shows: 54th Grammy Awards

Best: David Seidler's Speech

"David Seidler opened his Best Screenplay acceptance speech with light cracks about his age and how daunting it is to deliver an impressive speech in a writing category, and then turned heartfelt as he touched upon his background as a stutterer, making The King's Speech a very personal project. It was moving without being schmaltzy, just the way we like our acceptance speeches."

 

Worst: The Best Picture Montage Bias

"For the third (third!) and final Best Picture montage of the night, the show decided to dub Colin Firth's big, final, triumphant speech scene from The King's Speech over clips of all the other nominees, allowing the movie that swept the night to overshadow even the mere images of the other nine films daring to be nominated. Come on, guys, can't you even pretend the other nominees have a fighting chance in hell?"

 

I've read this complaint elsewhere as well. I can understand the issue, but I dunno - I actually liked how well they made the scenes from the other films blend in with the speech being spoken over the top.

 

Best: Natalie Portman's Speech

"It was far too long, but at least she didn't pretend to be surprised. Plus, she acknowledged her fellow nominees gracefully, by saying she wished her award would be to work with them someday, and then she went out of her way to thank the Black Swan crew extensively. If you're going to talk forever, you better at least make what you have to say that classy, Oscar winners of the future."

 

Worst: The Taped Intro

"Hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco get edited into scenes of the Best Picture nominees so Hathaway can make hammy Black Swan jokes ("the dance of the brown duck"? Ugh) and Franco can... do a whole lot of nothing, not unlike he did for the rest of the show. For how fresh and youthful these two were supposed to be, this opening sketch was awfully stale and formulaic, and when Alec Baldwin has to show up to save your hosts with jokes about when he hosted last year, you kind of have to wonder why you even bothered with them in the first place."

 

Best: Trent Reznor, Oscar Winner

"Always nice to be weirded out by the idols of our youth winning stuffy awards we never in our lives pictured them winning."

 

Best "hilarious/awesome music award" since Streisand handed the award to Eminem.

 

Worst: Anne Hathaway

"And not just for the horrendously self-indulgent Les Mis parody -- for everything she did. From goofily gushing over Oprah and Sandra Bullock, to thinking that shimmying in her fringe dress counted as a comedy segment, to treating her hosting gig as her own personal open mic night, we imagine she's going to be regretting taking this gig for quite some time to come."

 

I thought Hathaway did about as well as could be expected considering the circumstances - she was pretty much left high and dry by Franco's bored presenting.

 

I also think she did what she could, as Franco was AWOL.

 

Best: Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law's Banter

"Like most people, we hate awards show banter, but when it involves Jude Law ribbing Robert Downey Jr. about his dodgy, possibly hooker-in-a-Batgirl-costume-filled past, we're inclined to change our minds -- and laugh our asses off. These guys for next year's hosts, please."

 

Worst: James Franco

"Can't remember the last time we saw a more unenthusiastic host of anything, let alone the Oscars. Franco disappeared from the show for huge chunks of time, and when he was on-stage, he resorted to juvenile humor such as dressing in drag and Beavis and Butthead-ing about how Winter's Bone sounds dirty. Hathaway was annoying, sure, but at least she was trying."

He had a 'get me out of here look in his eye', definitely.

 

He had a 'get me out of here look in his eye', definitely.

I don't know one person who watched the Oscars who didn't have the same opinion. He looked incredibly uncomfortable. I just roasted his new movie in the trailer park thread, god it was bad. His career is NOT on a roll.

 

Bored isn't the right word for Franco.

Baked, on the other hand...

 

I think any time you see the Academy try to be "young and hip" it backfires on them. I think Robert Downey Jr would be an excellent host especially since we are mentioning his presentation bit above.

 

Best: Billy Crystal and Bob Hope

"Sure, Billy Crystal showing up to tell some anecdotes about Bob Hope was random and pretty antiquated in its joke delivery, but after being subjected to the botched hosting duties of this Hathaway and Franco, we were longing for the old-fashioned competence of two of the ceremony's greatest former hosts. We don't necessarily need to be rolling in the aisles, but we do need to feel like there's an adult in charge, at least."

 

Worst: P.S. 22

"Nothing against the adorable kiddies, but tagging on a bunch a children singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" after the final award made no sense and was some really lame grandma-pandering on the part of the show's producers. What is this bush league crap, the Grammys? Get your act together, Oscars!?

 

I liked the singing, but I was surprised when they suddenly rocked up onto stage at the very end.

 

Worst: Gwyneth Paltrow

"When Jennifer Hudson was so busy holding back what looked like either laughter or vomit when introducing Gwyneth Paltrow's performance of her Best Song nominee for Country Strong, we were right there with JHud. The only good thing about that inept performance was that it finally marks the end of our long national nightmare of Gwyneth Paltrow's Country Strong promotional performances."

 

Best: Sandra Bullock Presenting

"She called Jeff Bridges "The Dude." She made fun of James Franco's General Hospital gig. She made a crack about the terrifying queen of England to Colin Firth. Is there anyone who can take such a boring presenting gig and turn it into such likable, effortlessly enjoyable entertainment? They oughta put that girl in rom-coms, we tell you."

 

The Tony Awards

 

9-11PM | MTV
2011 MTV Video Music Awards

"The success of the MTV Video Music Awards usually hinges on the performance of a single."

 

8-11PM | FOX
The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards

For only the 63rd time in history, the TV industry will gather to hand out shiny good job! trophies...

 

Steve Martin's advice to Eddie Murphy

 

9-11PM | SPIKE
Scream Awards 2011

"Transformers, Tron, Harry Potter, and Super 8 are all up for Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year. Suck on it, King's Speech!"