February 28, 2005
Oscarzzzzz
What a bland awards ceremony that was. Maybe I'm just getting grumpy in my youngish-middle-age, but this year's Oscar ceremony was most notable for the absolute abscence of anything at all exciting/inspiring/surprising/disturbing.
Clint Eastwood won almost everything. The highly restrained Chris Rock attempted a couple of entirely generic Bush jokes. Jamie Foxx's tearful tribute to his grandmother notwithstandning, there were few truly great acceptance speeches. No profanity, no wardrobe malfunctions, no Roberto Benigni.
The only real high/lowlight came with the presentation of the Best Picture award as Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand clung to each other on stage. She: presbyopic. He: apparently drunk.
The Oscars sucked so much because they did restrain Chris Rock. His pre-show hype about saying the oscars is for gays made the producers cut his time. That leaves us with mildly entertaining celebreties handing out awards to their colleagues all night and stumbling over the teleprompter. The host is usually the best part of the show if they do it right, this year they didn't seem to.
Posted by: Tete Rouge at February 28, 2005 10:53 PMYeah, I agree. The host is in control: pacing, comic relief, etc.
There was an opportunity when Sean Penn got all feisty defending Jude Law, but Rock never really ran with that. I'm guessing he was also concerned about the time constraints. After his opening monologue, he seemed to be rushing through everything.
Posted by: Ken at March 1, 2005 08:42 AMI actually thought his quick intros of the presenters were pretty amusing. Come on. Oprah's favorite white man?
Also, you are forgetting Prince! Prince!! Best part of the evening.
Posted by: Hillary at March 1, 2005 09:34 AMYeah, but Rock needed to do more, I thought. Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. Maybe the Oscars are always that boring.
But oh yeah! Prince! And then Jorge Drexler genuflecting before him, because, well, he's Prince.
So next year: less Sean Penn, more Prince.
And Charlie Kaufman too. He was cute.
Posted by: Ken at March 1, 2005 10:06 AMOh, we can have Sean Penn. His irritable humorlessness is at least not devoid of personality. Also, we could bring back the dance numbers. It is not the fault of Chris Rock, as these Oscars were slightly less boring than last year's (at least this year, every hobbit in the world didn't get to stand up there and thank his mom). It is the fault of evil razor-scooter riding Gil Cates, who is choking the life out of the thing.
Posted by: Hillary at March 1, 2005 04:15 PMAlso, I don't want to imply that I could love Charlie Kaufman more than I already do, so let's just call it love confirmed.
Posted by: Hillary at March 1, 2005 04:16 PM"Oh, we can have Sean Penn. His irritable humorlessness is at least not devoid of personality."
good fucking call
i was just happy cate got an oscar, that lady's so sharp it cuts me in the liver just watching her on the screen, dreamysigh
p.s. can smokersphere enable html in the comments por favor?
Posted by: harmgasmic at March 2, 2005 10:50 PMditto the Cate comment.
w/r/t html:
your wish = my command.
thanks but so you totally missed the memo where it's clearly stipulated that you can't use the wish/command thing w/o including some sort of textual representation of the i dream of jeanie "doiiioooing" sound...
i'll forgive you for
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