Seth MacFarlane's perfromance from Sunday night's Oscars was expectantly mediocre, if not mostly uncomfortable. But had some high points.
While MacFarlane's shots at the best actors and films of the year were cruel and sometimes just wrong, it was nothing compared to a Ricky Gervais performance.
His introductory William Shatner skit could have been a bit smoother, but certainly not helpful, according to The Christian Science Monitor. The 39-year-old "Family Guy" creator appeared uncomfortable and his monologue to save himself from future critic reviews really didn't save him.
His clip on the Oscar-winning women who revealed their breasts had some women playing along with the part some sarcastically rolled their eyes and hid behind their hands. Until it came to the mention of Kate Winslet's name and her list of films, then the sound of laughter filled the room.
Several jokes were agreeable, when he said the academy wrongly snubbed Ben Affleck in the director's category for "Argo," which was about an undercover operation to save Americans in a hostage situation in Iran. "The story is so top secret," said MacFarlane, "that the film's director is unknown to the academy."
MacFarlane's crude remarks about "Django Unchained," and how it was about "the story of a man fighting to get back his woman, who's been subject to unthinkable violence," came with gasps from the audience when he added the movie compared to a Chris Brown and Rihanna date movie.
Many audience members couldn't help but cringed at his shot at Daniel Day-Lewis' performance in "Lincoln" when he asked he "If you bumped into Don Cheadle in the studio lot, would you try and free him?" because Day-Lewis stayed in character even after filming on the set.
But some of the nights best performances took away from what was disappointing.
The Huffington Post found the sock puppet reenactment of "Flight" funny. While taking a trip down memory lane with Catherine Zeta-Jones' performance in "All That Jazz" and Jennifer Hudson's "Dreamgirls," for which they both won Oscars, were definitely one of the Academy's proudest moments.
