985 And the Winner Is...

985 And the Winner Is....

Not us, that’s for sure.  Oscar night has come and gone for another year.  Mercifully.  The program was the least boring in recent years, at least for the first couple of hours.  After that, even the most die-hard Scorsese fans’ eyes glazed over.  Next year, ABC should do with this show what it does with its other unwanted and unnecessary dogs like Monday Night Football and move it to ESPN.  

Some thoughts:

Timing Is Everything:  Has this show ever ended on time?  It certainly didn’t this past weekend, breaking the second cardinal rule of television:  “Get on, Get off.”

The Commercials: The best:  a series of JC Penney spots with Ellen DeGeneres.  Super Bowl caliber.  Runner up: Hyundai, selling its luxury models. The rest:  the current ad for Ford has been shown so many times in so many places that it’s going to have a reverse effect.  Ditto the imbecile spots for AT&T’s 4G smart phones.  Dumb.

Billy Crystal:  Demonstrated that in addition to not being funny, he can’t sing or dance. Two good one liners, though: he welcomed us to the “Chapter Eleven Theater,” and later said something along the lines of “In economic times like these it’s always encouraging to see millionaires giving each other gold statues.”  That’s not an exact quote.

James Earl Jones: He’s won before, and he’s been nominated nearly a dozen times.  But he’s 81, time may be running out, so they gave him an Oscar just for being James Earl Jones.  Bravo.  He’s earned it.

The Minor Awards:  Pretty interesting because they take you behind the scenes and show you about stuff like makeup and lighting, cameras, animation techniques, writing, art direction, sound mixing, costumes, editing, and special effects -- you know, the stuff that makes you watch the films which themselves often seem like afterthoughts.

The Presenters:  For the most part, dummies displaying full blown dumbness.  The best: Michael Douglas, Ben Stiller and Morgan Freeman.  The worst:  Anyone who had anything to do with “Bridesmaids.”  Special mentions:  Jennifer Lopez (yech!) and Miss Piggy (whoever’s doing her voice these days just doesn’t get it right.)

Cirque du Soleil: Breathtaking.  Gorgeous.  Completely unnecessary.

The Obits:  Breathtaking.  Gorgeous.  Completely necessary.

Mid-level Awards: Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer, thumbs up (but see note above on Timing.)  Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer, thumbs neither up nor down (yawn.)

Major Awards: Best Actress, Meryl Streep. (What, again?) Best Actor: Jean Dujardin (It’ll be a long while before we see him again.  Thank goodness. And see note above on Timing.)

Major Disappointment:  “The Help” didn’t win best picture.  So much for the Golden Globes as predictors of the Academy Awards.  This may be the only movie in ages that actually MEANS something.  So, naturally, it lost.

Majorest Award:  Best Picture, “The Artist.”  A nonsensical, pretentious semi-silent piece of boring banality and Hollywood over-hype at its absolute worst, right up there with “Godzilla,” “Bitter Rice,” “Doctor Doolittle,” “Grease,” “Song of the South” and “The Clam That Ate Pittsburgh.”


Shrapnel:


--Bowling for Ernie.  He’s a Wal-Mart greeter and they’ve moved him and all of the rest of them from near the door to the middle of the floor where they stick up like bowling pins and have no real function.  Makes you want to bring a ball into the store and practice … or better yet, find one in the store and try it out.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
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