Oscars 2007: Come back, Billy Crystal, all is forgiven!

Disclaimer: I have used an exclamation point in the post title in a desperate attempt to make this post sound exciting. It is not exciting. Let’s face it, there isn’t enough lipstick in the world to dress up the snoozing pig that was the 79^th Annual Oscar Telecast.

Not that Ellen DeGeneres wasn’t funny hosting the Oscars. She was funny. Funny in that self-deprecating, institution-deflating way that she has. And I’ll admit that I thought it was cute that she got Spielberg to take a picture of her with Eastwood "for her MySpace page." And okay, I’ll also admit that I perked up when they came back from commercial and she was vacuuming under the feet of all the front-rowers, and claiming not to have been told in advance that it was part of the hosting duties. But that was only because at least some kind of break-out from the stand, announce & accept routine was being attempted. Let’s face it people, when the most exciting part of the evening is when some dance troupe that veers dangerously close to mime is making clever shapes behind a scrim, your entertainment threshold has been set pitifully low. Like “Two and a Half Men” low.

But I should have known how the show was going to go, as soon as they employed that old chestnut of bringing out The Uplifting Black Church Choir. Look, the Grammy telecasts have been using The Uplifting Black Church Choir since the Eisenhower administration. It’s a sure way to signal to the non-whites in the audience that they are so down with them and their music and all. I mean, a way that’s short of actually playing any popular non-white music. And if you are an actual black performer on an award show, well, hang in there, and for pete’s sake don’t make any cracks about Jude Law. Also, if you are a black performer on an award show, employing The Uplifting Black Church Choir is an excellent way to signal to whitey that nothing too bad is going to happen to them by watching you. No black titties coming out or anything like that. Just black people churchifying and praying to lord to deliver them from white people, which white people don’t mind, because come on, it’s not like it’s ever going to happen.

So, I guess I must admit that this year really was the Oscars of Diversity, especially if you count British white people as diverse from American white people. Counting Penelope Cruz as Mexican also helps with the diversity angle, although from the look on Cruz’s face when DeGeneres referred to her that way, I don’t think she was so hip on the idea.

Since I’ve already made a “Two and a Half Men” joke, I’m not sure what else I can say about the mildly amusing song performed by John C. Reilly, Will Farrell, and Jack Black about the perils of being a comedian in the movies, and how it can hinder one’s ability to be taken seriously for awards. If they really wanted some advice in that area, all they had to do was ask Eddie Murphy right there in the second row, because I’m sure he’s figured out by now that if Norbit didn’t release the week after he won the Golden Globe, it would have been him standing up on that stage last night, instead of the mildly pissed-off-looking Alan Arkin. And if they ever do figure out how to successfully be both kinds of movie actors, I wish one of them would call Jim Carrey and clue that motherfucker in. Because that man SO wants an Oscar. Really, I can’t even look at him anymore, because he has that begging look in his eyes, like all the time. Like a pre-Braveheart Mel Gibson. It’s painful.

Okay, it was cute that Reilly, Farrell, and Black pretended that Helen Mirren would be the best take-home babe prize in the room, instead of the more believable (and completely Mexican-free!) choice of Penelope Cruz.

Come to think of it, though, Helen Mirren did look really hot. And not many women pushing seventy have a décolletage that stunning. In fact, the more I think about this, the more I think those three guys are of an age that they probably have some early formative memories of beating off to the scene of Helen Mirren as Morgana fucking her half-brother Arthur in Excaliber. That scene was really fucking sexy, especially for the time. Hell, I still think Mirren in Excaliber is the gold standard for hot babe in a fantasy film. I mean, if you don’t count Bowie in Labyrinth.

Speaking of fey British gods, I really really wanted O’Toole to win, and I think it was a pretty cruel joke to make such a big deal about how many times he’s lost, and how old he is, and then to give the award to yet another actor impersonating a real person. Can we call a moratorium on this, please?

Jennifer Hudson: I look hot, right?

Beyonce: Why did I let Jay-Z talk me into this dress? That fat girl looks hotter than me.
Girl on the right: Nobody knows who I am.

I heard the day before the Oscars that the book on Gore winning was 50-50, and it was 2-1 that if he did win, he was going to announce his candidacy. Which is, of course, ridiculous. As I said to Spooney when Gore and DiCaprio were doing their I-was-going-to-announce-but-I’ve -been-played-off-by-the-orchestra bit, Al Gore announcing on the Oscars would be a big, bright, shiny, new, gift-wrapped, tied-with-a-big-fucking-bow present to the right wing. I mean, come on. Hollywood’s candidate. We all know how that would play out, right?

Anyway, he’s not going to announce until Hilary tanks.

I guess there’s no point in rehashing every single boring moment of the night (Celine Dion, Michael Mann’s montage, Clint Eastwood’s Italian 101), although I thought all 3 Dreamgirls song nominees losing to that dreadfully literal Melissa Etheridge song was pretty fucking embarrassing. Let’s enjoy some of those Academy Award-winning lyrics, shall we?:

Now I am throwing off the carelessness of youth

To listen to AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

See how brilliantly she incorporates the title of the movie RIGHT INTO THE LYRICS? Wow! If only Melissa Etheridge would write more movie songs, we could look forward to:

Don’t ask us how we are, ‘cause we are fine.

We’re driving toward our LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.

Or:

A Scorsese film that finishes what it started?

Yes, his “first film with a plot” – that’s THE DEPARTED

Or:

Sure, I’m Japanese, but I’m more than I seem-a

I’m writing home some LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA.

If she gets busy, I think she could give Randy Newman another run for his money next year.