OSCAR SO DULL

(Note: This will be the only Oscar piece that doesn't make the Union Station/trainwreck joke.)

Nobody told Reese Witherspoon that this wasn't an
Oscar show anyone wants to remember.

Judging by the looks of everybody at the Oscars, it seems like -- for the first time! -- the participants mirrored what viewers have felt for decades. Finally -- finally! -- they realize just how boring, empty, and archaic the whole farce really is. 

Under 10 million households watched the event on Sunday evening. One of them was mine, although I surrendered at 9:15, and likely would have done the same at 6:15 had I lived on the West Coast. That's anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes shorter than I usually last, depending on the host. 

Or Bob Hope when he was funny 75 years ago.

Wait, host? What host? Not this year because serious times call for even duller awards.  Funny guys like Billy Crystal, Steve Martin and even Jimmy Kimmel act as the representative of viewers who watch not to applaud but mock. 

The hosts aren't as vicious as the rest of us, of course, but even the gentlest of japes feel like hot pokers in the eyes of the entitled in the audience.

 Co-producer Steven Soderbergh promised the Oscars would look different.  As he explained, “It’s going to feel like a movie in that there’s an overarching theme that’s articulated in different ways throughout the show. So the presenters are essentially the storytellers for each chapter.”

Mission: Unnecessary

Well, it seemed like a movie, that's for sure, with its letterbox screen ratio, and a shot-on-film look. Unfortunately, Soderbergh didn't get the irony of a live broadcast appearing -- how you say -- not live.

Once you got past the first few minutes of thinking, Hey, this looks interesting, it became more like, This looks like a movie about a very dull awards ceremony. So at least Soderbergh got that right.

Jerry plays "Taps" to his Oscar-hosting
career.

You know how else Soderbergh & Co. made it look cinematic? It was too damn long! No host, no production numbers, no unfunny banter between presenters -- and it still ran almost 20 minutes over its allotted three-hours!

Oh, how I yearn for Oscarcast of 1959, which was condemned for running 20 minutes short of its two-hour -- TWO HOUR -- allotted airtime. Everybody blamed host Jerry Lewis, when they should have given him an award for it.

But this movie doesn't live in
anybody's memory.

To give the Oscars its paltry due, the affair is truly in a no-win situation. With movies like The Greatest Show on Earth, The Sound of Music, The English Patient, and Out of Africa winning Best Picture, the cry went out: "They always give the Oscar to the most popular, not the best!"

So when Oscar decides it's time to shake the dust from his tiny gold shoulders and go home with Birdman, Parasite, and this year, Nomadland, the complaint becomes, "Nobody heard of these movies!" In fact, they said that about all of the 2021 releases.  

Laugh it up, Glenn -- you're still gonna lose. Again.

However, the idea of holding the ceremony at Union Station (which, apparently by law, you can't mention without adding "art deco") was an excellent choice. Cozy, classy, different -- and did I mention art deco? Everything that the Oscars' usual home, the Dolby Theatre™, lacks. It'll be a shame when it likely returns next year. At least the homeless people won't have to "relocate" (as if they volunteered for the good for the industry) from there like they did Union Station. 

"Look, I'm hugging the black guy! And there's
a Chinese lady! Now will you watch?"

Oscar desperately wants to be relevant to the next generation of moviegoers -- the ones who support those "tentpole" movies, but whose idea of entertainment otherwise leans toward watching people play video games. 

 

 This leads to yet another irony of the newly-inclusive Academy Awards. Now that more non-white people are getting nominated -- the whole idea of which was to attract younger eyeballs -- the event's lowest-rated ratings ever confirm that the kids don't care.

This leads to a profound philosophical question: If Academy Awards are handed out in a theater and nobody watches, do they really exist?

 

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