Worst reality show ever
The Oscars have historically been an amazing display of self-congratulatory nonsense, but I knew this year, in the midst of a war and global strife, they'd be especially pointless and nonsensical. In the grand scheme of things, we're talking about the most pointless display of public fawning and affection for people that already get far more than they deserve. It was a four hour trainwreck in slow motion, watching millionaires pat themselves on the back again and again. Needless to say, I enjoyed every single minute of its grotesque glory.
Some random thoughts throughout the night:
- Thanks to Billy Crystal's hosting of a few years back, Oscar night has pretty much been reduced to a glorifed Friar's Club Roast for Jack Nicolson. It was funny at first, but it's wearing thin. Write some new jokes people.
- 75 years of 5 hour shows = about 16 days of oscar presentations to date.
- I don't know about Nicole Kidman's new look. She looked like either a Don Johnson love interest from an episode of Miami Vice, or someone that popped out of a Nagel painting. She looked so 80s it hurt.
- Paul Simon's comb-forward 'do was looking pretty pathetic, he almost looks like Garfunkel now, though I liked his song. I loved the song for Frida, I thought the Chicago number was pretty good, U2 was so-so, but where was Eminem?
- The constant cutting-off of the short speeches got tiresome. It doesn't seem like the biggest source of fat on the evening's festivities are speeches. Can we have less retrospectives and less song-and-dance numbers? If the show was just about giving awards away, it could easily fit into 30 minutes. Look how short the list of winners is if you don't believe me.
- In most of the 75 year flashbacks of previous acting winners, you can often count the number of minorities shown winning on one hand. Sometimes on just a couple fingers. Sometimes on a single finger for a category.
- I didn't think Michael Moore would win because I didn't think anyone would let him onstage, but when he did win, he basically went on to do a parody of himself. I don't think I've ever seen a crowd turn from standing ovation to loud booing, and they did it in the span of 30 seconds. As much as I love his movies, books and tv shows, I'd say he deserved it. Let the 2000 election bruhaha go Michael. Really. Everyone else has moved on.
- In many ways, Adrien Brody communicated the same message as Michael Moore, but with style, dignity, and class. Though I expect he'll catch heat from conservatives for putting Allah and God in the same sentence. The lamest thing he said was that because he worked on a holocaust film he understood what war is really like, which is ridiculous in at least a dozen ways.
- I was joking with some folks earlier about doing a drinking game. Every time you hear the words "peace", "troops", or "pray" you were supposed to drink, but I was surprised that the acceptance speeches didn't feature those phrases more often. I guess the celebs got the message they weren't supposed to do that, even though the president of their organization got to.