The St. Oscar's Day Massacre

[This is the first of a series]

LOOOOOOOORD……that was painful!

And so the 78th Academy Awards have come and gone. There are probably lots of ways I could sum things up but, in every scenario, the words “worst” and “ever” come to mind.

Mind you, the name of the Best Picture is the perfect symbolic metaphor for both the awards show and Hollywood’s box office in 2005 – “Crash”.

At the time of publication, I haven’t seen the ratings numbers yet but I have to assume they were abysmal. Let’s use this entry to talk about the show itself.

I’m not going to gloat about the prediction that Jon Stewart would be an absolute disaster but, man, I felt sorry for that guy. I mean….he didn’t even reach the STAGE yet before having to put up with a preview trailer/skit having to do with every past host still alive “joking” about why they couldn’t do the task this year. Heck, if you’re already treating your host as Option #9, you might as well dress him up in an American flag and a George W. and drive him down an arterial road in Baghdad without the bulletproof vest. Then he’s forced to read jokes that are completely out of his style of delivery and the result is a guy who’s going to get the biggest lynching this side of David Letterman even though, like Letterman, kicking his ass to the curb for good is a case of outrageous misjudgment.

Here are the guys who really need to go and go fast:

1) Bruce Villanch. He’s the head writer and has been for years. Good pal of previously overrated hosts Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg. Known for developing “material” that is cutting edge enough to supposedly amuse viewers while keeping the egos in the crowd at bay. Somehow he’s managed to convince every host of the last ten years, except Chris Rock, to roll along with his “wit” and it’ll all be fine. I’ll guess he can pull this off because the hosts know he’s fat and gay – what? You thought the 1,642 “Gay Cowboy” Brokeback Mountain Jokes ™, 1,640 of which have already been in the mainstream since the date of release were just a coincidence? - so if nobody gets on his case, nobody will get on theirs. You could cherry pick through every monologue he’s written and notice one is no different than the other. Two or three political jokes, one mention of the President of the United States by name, then a cherry-picking of about 6-8 celebrities in the audience and some kind of joke about them (although “safe” stuff instead of something like Jennifer Aniston not bringing Vince Vaughan because he hasn’t taken off enough pounds following her Zone Diet to squeeze into the seat). Of course, intersperse a few seconds of facial show-offs with one or two of them then bring on the introduction of the presenter for the Best Supporting Actor/Actress category (it rotates each year.)

2) Gil Cates. Executive Producer. If his style was any blander, he’d be a chef in a “trendy” Toronto restaurant. He’s somehow been locked into the job because he’s been able to speed up the broadcasts by putting outside but non-obnoxious pressure on winners to limit their speech time. Mind you, he picks and chooses and, more times than not, does a piss-poor job of it. He uses the same methodology year after year – if winner makes a passionate reference to mom or dad, extra time; if he mentions production people who may never hear their names in front of an audience of almost a billion people again, drop the mike and blast the music. This year he added the absolute peak of obnoxious obtrusiveness by actually playing the music DURING the speeches! Oh yes – but he cut it off for Reese Witherspoon because the cute young All-American girl brings ratings sizzle for the network. Then he brought it back for the producers of “Crash”. Why? You’re already late thanks to useless drivel such as the “tribute” to film noirs – a good chuck of which were kind of dicey examples of the genre – and the re-institution of those monotonous grand stage productions of the Best Song nominees (which was just as stupid now as they were in the 70’s and 80’s.) If the viewers were already bored, trust me Gil – they turned the channel long by then. The Best Picture is THE big award of the night so who gives a rat’s ass about how long the producers want to talk?!?!? Maybe they would have added something interest about the state of race relations – the theme of the film – which the viewing audience could relate to but we’ll never find that out will we? And don’t get me started on Cates’ work on that pre-show.

Oh, lest I forgot – what kind of amateurs did they hire for this production? Were the TelePrompter operators on dope or is Lauren Bacall just naturally blind? And who the hell is “Will Farrell”? Did somebody in graphics do spell-checking by just going “uh, the Saturday Night Live guy – his name rhymes with (Steve) Carell, right?”

If ABC really wants ratings out of this, maybe they oughta just turn over the whole production to the South Park guys…

TAGS: Stewart Academy Awards Crash Villanch Cates Witherspoon

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