You may not hear much about it today, but there is a school of thought purporting to redeem terrible Academy Awards ceremonies. "I actually like it when it's bad," one of its proponents wrote last night. "I like it when it chunders on and on and lasts all night. I like it when they accept that they will never be cool and just embrace their uncoolness." I offer that as a preemptive palate cleanser in advance of these nine Oscarcast critics who definitely don't like it when it's bad.
9. "James Franco played a guy who cut off his own arm. Why couldn't he play a guy who likes Anne Hathaway?" -- Jeff Garlin, via Twitter
8. "Many claimed to find [Kirk] Douglas' pervy crypt-keeper act to be charming, but I don't buy it -- do I want to say bad things about a 94-year-old stroke victim (and a Hollywood legend to boot)? No. But somebody has to. Douglas had no business being out there, and his delayed reading of the winner's name was uncomfortable television of the highest order. Leave it to Leo -- who I must conclude is a big phony in light of her self-financed Oscar campaign -- to make matters worse by attempting to play along and, subsequently, dropping the F-bomb on the air. Simply awful television." -- Sean Stangland, Chicago Daily Herald
7. "It wasn't simply that Franco was baked or bored, or that his idiosyncratic blend of sincerity and authenticity are precisely out of sync with the combo demanded by the Bob Hope-Billy Crystal-Whoopi Goldberg Chair of American Toastmastership, although those are all plausible hypotheses. Franco was pissed. On a night when he could have been building a multimedia installation or running lines for General Hospital or getting busy with an NYU sophomore or working on a paper about Sir John Suckling, Franco had to hang out on a cold night in L.A. with all these dorks, presiding over a pseudo-event so miscellaneous it couldn't be rescued through meta-ness or reframing or any other kind of mental gamesmanship. Was this "performance art" like your GH gig, Jimmy? No, it wasn't, was it? It was just lame." -- Andrew O'Hehir, Salon
6. "[Billy Crystal] introduced a video projection of very-dead former host Bob Hope, and the desperation became too much to bear. I hope at least Hathaway or Franco was backstage somewhere and self-aware enough to realize they had been replaced by a dead man."-- Katey Rich, Cinema Blend
5. "As the pair admitted at the start of the ceremony, they were there to appeal to young people. Which ones? I'd like to meet the young people drawn to watch by this most anodyne of pairings. Meet them, and then punch them in the face and tell them to get a grip." -- Ed Cumming, The Telegraph
4. "WOW THIS OSCARS, JESUS H, HARD TO BE INVESTED IN MILLIONAIRE CULTURE PRODUCTS WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN TRY TO ENTERTAIN ME." -- Choire Sicha, The Awl
3. "This was the worst Oscarcast I've ever endured. It's time for the Board of Governors to have a long, sad talk with itself. At one point I tweeted: "If Bruce Vilanch is within 50 miles of the Kodak Pavilion, they should helicopter his ass backstage and put him to work." I was quickly put straight. Vilanch, the comedy writer responsible for countless great lines in Oscarcasts past, was a writer on this year's show. Since Franco and Hathaway lacked a single clever line, there must be an untold story." -- Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com
2. "So Anne Hathaway had something like 5 wardrobe changes so far, and she does the shimmy and thinks that'll amuse us. At this point, the only thing that'll amuse me after 2 hours of this tedium is if there's a public hanging onstage of the show's producers." -- Nikki Finke, Deadline
1. "10:48 The coming obits should include a mention of this show." -- David Edelstein, New York Magazine