Academy Awards

Unless you are a Beyonce fan the Oscar show might have been a bit dull. One Beyonce number would have been more than enough for me. I’m a huge Chris Rock fan and Chris Rock gave it a good try but Oscar isn’t his milieu. ABC censors had obviously sucked the yolk out of his comedy egg and also put a piece of tape on Robin William’s planned attack on the Reverend James Dobson. Robin pulled off the tape and did part of his routine anyway, arguing that many cartoon characters are gay playing off the recent religious right attack on PBS and Sponge Bob. And Chris did his best with a kind of funny riff on George Bush, The Gap and Banana Republic. There just wasn’t any excitement to the show. It was too controlled in the effort to keep it from going forty minutes over (I think they were only fifteen minutes over this time). Actually, the most interesting part of the evening was the staging of certain awards to eliminate the downtime involved in having, for instance, the winner for Best Short Subject make their way from the back of the auditorium. In this year’s Oscar edition a celebrity walked to a spot in the back of the auditorium where nominees were seated in aisle seats so the camera could pan quickly down as the nominations were read. For other awards, all nominees appeared on stage and the winner had only to take a few steps forward to pick up their statue. This gave every nominee, not just the big names, a chance to get their mug on TV. I have no judgment to make on the winners as we only saw The Aviator and Supersize me among nominated films in all categories. That being said, if Scorcese loses too many more of these things he could disappear completely. He was looking even shorter than last time. Clint Eastwood brought his 96 year old mom (she looked good) to the affair to signal that he’s just getting started. If he really made the movie in thirty-seven days then he deserves the award for best Director. Annette Benning looked like she had been slugged in the stomach...again.
Jamie Foxx ought to give all the Oscar acceptance speeches though the best one was the Spanish guy who sang his Best Song song instead of speechifying. I vote to get rid of the Best Song Oscar because they are mostly crappy and from cartoons to boot. The dresses were beautiful. There is a rumor that Austin Scarlet designed them all. Barbra should remember to bring her glasses. And, can someone tell Sean Penn to get over himself? As for me, if I ever kick this flu bug I’m going to quit watching so much TV...and go to a movie.

Comments

[sally]

hi, i'm sarah's dinger's mom.
on monday's daily show with jon stewart, he did tell sean penn to get over himself, and it was great!

[Ed]

I, for one, am happy that the network toned down Chris Rock and Robin Williams.

Again, the market speaks: Previous nonsensical political screeds, offcolor humor and guttersnipe behavior was received with low audience ratings and volumes of complaints. Sponsors balked (their customers - the market - spoke) and the network cleaned house. Why indeed would they go back to a failed formula? To piss people off and lose money?

If you want to see Chris Rock's foul-mouthed rants and Robin Williams' angry toilet humor, then you will have to rightly go to HBO.