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February 28, 2005
Oscars Review
I contemplated doing a running commentary about the Oscars, but then I remembered that Steve Martin as host last year referred to Mickey Mouse as “one of our most beloved black actors” and decided my time was better spent lighting small animals on fire.
Thing about doing running commentaries is this: it’s really hard to come up with a good one if the event itself is mediocre. If it’s good, you can come up with lots of superlatives. If it’s bad, you’ve got tons of stuff to mock. If it’s the Source Awards, you can having a Running Stab Wound Count. But the Oscars…yea, just kinda there. You have to really, really stretch to come up with material about the “Best Sound Effects for a Costume” category.
I felt bad for all the people brought up in lumps. In a way, it was good, in that the show only last 15 hours instead of 27. But you can’t help but think they missed a golden opportunity with this type of lineup here. Multiple possibilities could have been explored to increase excitement and stimulate water cooler conversation the following day. For instance, after the winner was announced, the losers could have been shot, firing-squad style. Or the winner could have been determined by which team got to the Oscar-first, a la “The Amazing Race”. Or, at the very least, you could have secretly mic’d the losers and pipe them in bitching backstage while the winner gave his/her speech. Just offering a few ideas.
Chris Rock made a joke early on about how the Oscars are unique in that no one actually performs their trade at the show. After watching the collective performances of the nominees for “Best Song”, I wish the show has forbidden any and all performances. Any time you’re sitting at home wishing they’d gone with a Debbie Allen montage instead, you know you’ve hit a rough patch.
Jesum, did ANY good songs come out last year? I actually forgot that I liked “Accidentally in Love” when I watched Counting Crows butcher it. (By the way, that was Kid from Kid n’ Play fronting for CC. Can’t believe that singer is the guy who’s slept with half of Hollywood’s hottest. Just can’t.) And I love Beyoncé as much as any lower middle-classed Caucasian, but her three-way performance wasn’t exactly “Peter Sellers in ‘Strangelove’” in terms of quality. That being said, her hugging Andrew Lloyd Webber? Smokin’! Very Terrell Owens/Nichole Sheridan in terms of steaminess. I’m sure the FCC was barraged with calls.
(And don’t get me started on Santana, who clearly never heard the song he was improv’ing over before the actual performance. I would have respected him and Antonio more if they had stopped a few bars in and said, “Screw this, we’re playing ‘Oye Como Va’.”)
(Oh, and Josh Groban’s what happens when you chemically remove all the testosterone from David Duchovny. Just sayin’.)
(And at least no one found an excuse to have the Black Eyed Peas play “Let’s Get It Started” again…that song has reached “Macarena”/”Who Let The Dogs Out?” levels of exposure at this moment. It’s rendered people impotent. Stop playing the freakin’ song.)
I’m glad “Million Dollar Baby” cleaned up most of the non-technical awards. Always felt like “Aviator” versus “Baby” was a classic “cool, popular kids” and “the kids with a good personality” battle. Now, I haven’t seen “The Aviator”, but I’m not gonna let a little thing like that get in my way of making grand, sweeping statements about it. But I will say this: I’m rooting for the actress with Chad Lowe on her arm versus the one with supermodel Giselle on his. Just sayin’. It was like the greatest episode of “Made” never actually, um, made. Although when Swank started talking about being a girl from a trailer park, I thought she was giving her acceptance speech in character, which would have been insanely awkward.
I missed everything related to the red carpet, except the last 2 minutes in which Billy Bush promised that 50 statues were ready to be given out. Sounded like a threat. I’d already pummeled my liver throughout the weekend, and since booze is the only way I can get through Kathy Griffith asking child stars if they free-base, I opted to watch “Law and Order: NCIS’s Bachelorette’s Special Victim in Miami” instead. Pretty good show. Featured a detective with a canny ability to track down desperately single naval officers’ exes in tropical, burnt sienna-lit vistas. Good times.
The fact that I have to segue into other shows due to lack of memory of The Oscars says something, I think. Chris Rock may have not hurt the show, but he didn’t help it. Having Rock may have bumped ratings, but deadened the room—no one wanted to be caught on camera laughing at the expense of another actor, so his mean jokes fell largely flat in the room. Didn’t help that he was making jokes about “Boat Trip”. (If Jamie Foxx stars in "Boat Trip 2" in 2006, tho...until then, all "Boat Trip" jokes are forbidden in this land. I hath decreed. Minstrel, sing me a tune! No! Not you, Beyoncé!)
The closest the show came to blows was the whole Sean Penn/Chris Rock weirdness over Jude Law. People who were surprised to learn (yet again) that Penn has no sense of humor should remember that he recently made a guest appearance on "Two and a Half Men." Case closed. Maybe if the Oscars liquored up the nominees like the Golden Globes, more drama/violence could have ensued. Like, we could have seen Kate Winslet rush Swank onstage during Swank's speech, and they would have gotten into a catfight, and Winslet would have spilled out of her dress, and…sorry, got a bit distracted there.
I think I’ll just save my running commentaries for the Video Music Awards and the Grammys for now. Twice a year seems enough. If you’d like to read a running commentary, though, another Ryan has it covered. (Note, the text is pretty safe, but some of his ads aren't...just a warning for you at-work types...)
What did y’all think of the Oscars?
Posted by Ryan McGee at February 28, 2005 10:11 AM
Comments
I'm kind of glad you didn't reprint any of my IM'd comments about Josh Groban, since GLAAD would be picketing my doorstep the second you hit "post" -- but MAN, what is WITH that guy?
Groban was here on Valentine's Day, so all the radio stations were running ads that implied you'd get lots of booty if you took your girlfriend to see Pansyboy... not true, my radio friends. Not true. I'd go Lysistrata on my boyfriend if he did something that awful!
Posted by: shannon at February 28, 2005 10:34 AM
I watched them with some friends who kept switching back and forth between the Oscars, that episode of "Buffy" where she comes back home after her little stint as a waitress, and some epsiode of "Angel" where (hot, hot, hot) Faith almost dies. Oh, and some show about golf. Yeah, it was weird. But not as weird as Antonio Banderas's hair. Yech.
Posted by: Jeanna at February 28, 2005 10:36 AM
I'm seriously disappointed with most of the winners this year. I like Hillary Swank but her performance was not Oscar worthy. It should have gone to Kate Winslet because she was great in Eternal Sunshine. Movie of the year should have gone to Finding Neverland or Sideways. Ray was a good movie, but not Best Picture. Million Dollar Baby had too much lacking to be best picture. I would have rather seen Clive Owen get Supporting Actor and Virginia Madsen get Supporting Actress. Finding Neverland should have received Best Art Direction and not Aviator. Puh-lease! Did the Academy not watch half of these films??? Jamie Foxx was the only real deserving winner.
I think the best song winner probably sounds a lot nicer when Santana and Antonio Banderas are not performing it. It would have been interesting to hear Beyonce sing it! And I don't like Beyonce's music at all, being the music snob that I am, but she didn't bother me.
Super Size Me was also shafted. Big time.
I guess it just goes to show it wasn't a very good movie year.
Posted by: Kim at February 28, 2005 02:01 PM
I loved Rock's Bush joke early on, and he had some good zingers in here and there. There were definately a lot of questionable choices and ommissions in the nominations. I haven't see "Million Dollar Baby" or "The Aviator", but the latter seemed to follow the formula for the sort of movie that normally wins, so I didn't want it to win. I posted some commentary on my journal (and linked to yours).
Posted by: Susan at February 28, 2005 05:58 PM
IMHO "supersize me" was dishonest filmmaking and I'm glad it didn't do better.
Last year I actually spent 2 weeks eating nothing but McDonald's food (long long story, and now you all think I'm a complete freak, but ANYhow).
I not only didn't come close to cardiac arrest/liver failure/scurvy but I actually lost a pound. That was because I retained that crazy little thing called "free will" wherein I chose the relatively healthier things on their menu and continued to get physical excercise.
I did however get rickets 9 months later, but that was due to something else entirely . . .
Posted by: Kristen at March 1, 2005 12:15 AM
The point of Super Size Me was to prove what will happen if you don't select the healthier choices on the menu and exhibit laziness. You probably lost a pound because you burned more than what you were eating. He did not exercise. He was nothing but a lump, which was the point. We're a lazy society and fast food does not help us, which was what he was trying to show. If you go to McDonalds' website, you can see just how disgusting the food really is. People are free to eat what they want, but I'm just saying if you wanted to gain weight from McDonalds you shouldn't have been physically active.
Posted by: Kim at March 1, 2005 12:20 PM