Oscar, Oscar!

I’ve been writing this post-Oscar rant for about 7 or 8 years now, but, being movie-mad since I was just an itty-bitty ranter, I’ve been watching the Oscars for a long time. I’m not quite old enough to remember Barbra Streisand’s “hello gorgeous” acceptance attire of a see-through pantsuit, but I do remember the Streaker (70s slang for hairy man—they were ALWAYS hairy—running around in the buff) and David Niven’s quip about the man’s “shortcomings.” I remember John Wayne browbeating the entire lefty-liberal-commie-pinko audience into standing at the end of the show and belting out “God Bless America.” I remember Rob Lowe, fresh from a sex-tape scandal (back before sex-tape scandals were necessary celeb resume material), singing with Snow White in an Oscars opening number. I remember political jabs too numerous to go into now. And I remember Joan Rivers!

Now, that is no more. The Oscars have become totally mainstream—and boring. Joan and her snark has been banned from the red carpet, the over-the-top production numbers have been axed, John Wayne is long dead (good thing, I guess; Brokeback Mountain would’ve killed him) and the political rhetoric has become as spicy as a Taco Bell burrito (but still gives you gas!).

But still, there was some fun to be had, so here we go, the Best & Worst of the 76th Academy Awards:

Preshow: I’ll just skip the uber-dull preshow, except to say I was disappointed not to see Army Archerd on the red carpet. I'd hoped for a glimpse of the gossip maven to see if the embalming has held up or if he needs to visit the local taxidermist for a touch up.

Best Opening Ever: Not to dis Billy Crystal, his opening skits were always brilliant, but the Academy going to all past hosts and being turned down, even by Mr. Movie-Phone guy, and having to “settle” for Jon Stewart was hi-larious.

Best use of film clip montage: A hilarious compilation of “homoerotic” clips from westerns, including men admiring each other’s guns, some serious horse love, and G. Peck’s response to C. Heston asking him if he’d come to say goodbye: “This room's not big enough for what I want to do to you…”

Worst use of film clip montage: By the time they got to the 15th montage sequence, A Salute to Bond Girls, even a film buff like me was exhausted.

Best Presenters: Ben Stiller (visual effects) in a green unitard, thinking he was invisible to the audience and Will Ferrel & Steve Carrell (make-up) in the worst abuse of face paint since Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”

Worst Presenters: Everyone else. They stuck to the script and put me to sleep. And I didn’t wake up until…

Best acceptance speech: A tie! George Clooney’s pithy comments made me cry “Best speech of the night” and it looked like I was dismally correct until 3-6 Mafia won for Best Song, “It’s hard out here for a pimp.” As Mafia members stormed the stage I was shaken from a sound sleep and the sight of all that bling made me wonder if I’d slept until June and was tuned into the MTV-music awards.

Least Animated Acceptance: The winner for Animated Short. You just won an Oscar, dude, put a little 3-6 Mafia enthusiasm into your speech. Dull—and one of the longest speeches of the night.

Best “Isn’t he dead?” moment: Any time the camera flashed to my man Mickey Rooney, stuck in the 85th row, right behind the nominees for lighting design. When is the Academy going to wake up and give Mickey his due? Probably when the answer to “Isn’t he dead?” is yes—and he gets the most applause during the annual “dead-o-meter.”

Best performance by an actress claiming Judi Dench took her eye out in a bar fight: The old broad in the eye-patch in the spoof on campaign commercials. The fake commercials showed how vicious the Oscar campaigning got this year, and the highlight of that funny sketch was the regal old birds claiming Judi Dench ain’t no dame.

Best Impression of an Olympic Figure Skater: Jennifer Garner, whose slip-slide across the stage was a spot-on imitation of Sasha Cohen

Best channeling of Truman Capote: Ha! Thought I was gonna say Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, didn’t ya? But no; the award goes to the designers, whose insistence on stuffing their celebs clients into black or white gowns made me think they were trying to recreate Capote’s infamous 60s Black & White ball. Keeping with the boring theme, there was so much black (okay, Felicity Huffman called hers “steel”) and white (okay, Nicole Kidman called hers “pale gold”) in that auditorium I was begging Ted Turner to come in and colorize.

Best Imitation of Oscar: Now this was a tricky category, since so many of Hollywood’s string-bean thin ladies were vying for the nod. With their slinky white, excuse me, pale gold gowns almost indistinguishable from their tanning-booth pale gold glowing skin, Jessica Alba, Nicole Kidman, and Uma Thurman (who looked as if she’d blow-dried her hair by hanging out the window of a speeding car) were dead ringers for the golden guy.

Worst “I forgot my glasses” moment: The still fabulous Lauren Bacall, the only star whose black outfit did not beg to be colorized, had trouble reading her intro to the film noir montage. I hoped she’d just give up on the script and say, “Screw it, take a look at these classics—I’m in half of them and I look fabulous!”

Best Accessory: A tie! Literally. The Wallace & Gromit Producers wore big, nay, gigantic bow ties—and had a couple of spares they immediately popped onto their Oscars. Oh, too cute.

Worst Accessory: What the hell was that on Charlize Theron’s shoulder? At first I thought a tarantula had dropped down from the rafters and was about to do her in and geez, wouldn’t that perk things up? But then I realized it was a bow. A honking big, ugly bow, confirming my suspicion that the 80s are, like, totally back. And while I’m on the subject of couture—why is it the winner for best costume design always wears the most hideous outfit? Just asking.

And finally, Most Embalmed-Looking: I thought for a minute Dustin Hoffman had stolen the crown, but then I remembered he’s always looked embalmed, even in his Graduate days. Mickey Rooney, whose been around long enough to warrant embalming, was ten times more animated than all those young, vacant, lumpkin nominees combined. So it goes to Jack Nicholson, whose smirk has been permanently plastered on his puss. Is it me or does anyone else think he’s morphing into the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters?

I’ll leave you with lessons learned from this year’s snorer: 1. When in doubt, put your money on the documentary short that focuses on WWII; it always wins. 2. Jon Stewart makes a decent host. 3. John Travolta can’t say the word “memoirs;” murmurs, mummers, and mallo-mars, yes, but memoirs? Not so much. 4. Robert Altman deserved his Honorary Oscar, but has anyone even seen an Altman film? They’re always crying about Oscars' low ratings—next time they should give the Honorary to someone people actually know. Celebrate the Steve Guttenberg oeuvre and I guarantee Sweeps style ratings. 4. Facial hair is back in a big way, giving me creepy flashbacks to the 70s when all the guys in my neighborhood had beards and ‘staches and afros, even the white guys and even the white guy with the carroty-red hair and geez, was that scary.

Also scary is the way I’ve been running on. So I’ll just shut up now. Good night and good luck!

Janet - no power in the 'verse can stop me!