Getting on with the Show - Oscars 2012

The Oscars show this year wasn't terribly interesting and it felt long as the hours drew on, but on the bright side, the jokes got better as the show progressed.

At the start of the show, I found Justin Bieber's appearance somewhat funny. It's been a while (yes, it's possible!) since I last saw or read anything about him, and it's still amusing to see Bieber Fever in action. Tom Cruise's appearance was a surprise but I don't know when he'll ever recover from his frenzied love declaration days. Probably never.

I wonder how these Oscar invites work. How is it that JLo has a front row seat when she's first and foremost a singer and hasn't acted in any movies for a while, while Natalie Portman has to sit in the second row, behind the Cloonio, such that everytime the camera panned to him (which was plenty), you see her laughing and adorably popping up next to him. 

I laughed out loud on the Melissa McCarthy skit with Bily Crystal - it was very apt, well-written and delivered with good comic timing. I can't say the same for the Bridesmaids entourage when they appeared on stage. I was getting excited to see them all together but their jokes and antics fell flat. This is why you leave the comic writing to SNL veterans.

Some other bright spots:

- Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy's win for Best Documentary Saving Face and her acceptance speech, which was articulate, salient and profiled the eloquence and struggles of women in Pakistan today.

- Christopher Guest and his usual comedic gang. I love Best in Show and it was good to see them all together again. Which reminds me that it's been too long since they did a show together and it's high time they got to it. I'll like to see Jane Lynch take a break from Glee and come back to the troops.

- Cirque du Soleil was amazing, I have never seen a Cirque performance and not enjoyed it. Although why they had to cut from the spectacular acrobatic work to show footage of the Cloon-master and his Keebs watching it baffles me.

- Emma Stone and Ben Stiller's segment was kind of funny. I wonder if she was doing a parody of Anne Hathaway, which would have been kind of a low-blow. For a young star like her, I think she commanded the crowd quite well, what with all the pressure from the A-listers out there who were probably not inclined to laugh at her jokes in the first place. 

- Billy Crystal's "What the Stars are Thinking" skit got some teeny laughs out of me. You can see he's warming up a bit more, and the stars looked suitably petrified when they realized they were the next ones up. And of course the stars all reacted accordingly, which is When in Doubt, Just Laugh.

And that's about it. Till the next Oscar season, here's the Oscars 2012 Winners List: