Nobody Hosted the Oscars. And They Did a Fine Job of It.

The New York Times

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Nobody Hosted the Oscars. And They Did a Fine Job of It.

This year the best moments didn’t come from the host, but from the award winners like Spike Lee, left, who upon winning his first competitive Oscar for the “BlacKkKlansman” adapted screenplay, leaped into the arms of Samuel L. Jackson.CreditChris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated Press

This year the best moments didn’t come from the host, but from the award winners like Spike Lee, left, who upon winning his first competitive Oscar for the “BlacKkKlansman” adapted screenplay, leaped into the arms of Samuel L. Jackson.CreditCreditChris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated Press

By James Poniewozik

·       Feb. 24, 2019

And the Oscar for best Academy Awards host goes to … nobody!

The original plan, of course, was for the comedian Kevin Hart to preside over Sunday night’s awards, until he was dropped for his history of homophobic tweets. So instead of a comedian delivering a monologue, there was a mini-medley from Queen — whose original singer, Freddie Mercury, was celebrated in “Bohemian Rhapsody” fronted by the former “American Idol” contestant Adam Lambert.

So began this hostless, in-a-hurry Oscars, itself a longtime institution moving forward and putting on a show without the public face it started with.

And as it turns out, Hart — or whoever might have replaced him — was hardly missed.

That the Oscars managed a watchable show, much less the brisk, entertaining one we got, was a surprise. The Academy spent months stumbling down a red carpet lined with rakes, deftly stepping on each one. Besides the Hart fiasco, it announced a new category for best popular picture, then retracted it. It shunted four awards to the commercial breaks, then un-shunted them.

 

The awards show was so in flux until the last minute that, when Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph took the stage — which was shaped, for some reason, like the cross-section of a baked alaska — it seemed that the Oscars might have pulled off a cloak-and-dagger feat, hiring a troika of surprise hosts.

“We are not your hosts,” Fey joked, “but we’re going to stand here a little too long so the people who get USA Today tomorrow will think that we hosted.”

No one got to stand anywhere too long at this Oscars, whose production Marie Kondo-ed the show to keep it to its allotted three hours for a change. (It still went a smidgen long.)

This Oscars marched at double-time, hustling from one segment to the next. It was like eating off a conveyor belt: Some delicious moments went past quick, but if the next bite wasn’t to your taste, another bite would be coming soon.

 

 A good Oscars host — Chris Rock, say — can puncture the bubble of rich-people self-congratulation. But the need for a host to “run” the show may be overrated. Most years, the hosts vanish for long stretches after the monologue, and the performance feels like stand-up interruptus.