The Departed Queen of Scotland Misses a Little Sunshine
Sorry Ellen. It’s the toughest gig in the entertainment world and, having seen him on stage a couple of weeks ago, I'm convinced that Billy Crystal is the only person in the world who can host the Oscars.
    It still amazes me that so many rich and smart people can get together and fall so short of the mark. You need the shmaltz of somebody who’s hoofed around the floorboards and understands that Catskills is not a feline training school.
    Let’s face it, if the Jews were really running Hollywood Jerry Seinfeld will get the gig the next year. Seinfeld was the only person on stage last night who was both funny and edgy (and original).
    Give Jerry a call next year and while you guys are at it find a gig for Larry David in writing or direction . . .  then again Larry could be the right guy for the gig. He was there in the bleachers, they cut to a reaction shot of Larry while Al Gore was making his acceptance speech for Supersize Me.
    Leo DiCaprio — who’s actually turned out to be a very decent actor; thanks, no doubt, to his time under Woody Allen’s tutelage — strolled out arm in arm with Al Gore. The segment went nowhere and did nothing. It was as if the producers needed to get Big Al on stage just in case Inconvenient Truth didn’t get up for best documentary.
     Though it won, he should not have been on the stage . . . the writers and producers create documentaries. Narrators only show up because of their celebrity, ability to read autocue and/or deliver great pieces straight down the barrel of the camera. Big Al has a solid batting average of 0.333 in this respect. 
    Big Al was roundly (no pun intended) applauded for his 30 year commitment to the cause of global warming. That means in the mid 1970s — five years before Brezniev died; and eight years before he stepped down as Soviet Premier — when the USSR had tens of thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at the west, Al was saying: “Forget the Commies, that weather guy says it’s getting hot in Florida!”
    It’s a testament to Al’s persistence that after eight years being a heartbeat away from the Presidency and then through an entire Primary and Presidential campaign he couldn’t get enough Americans to listen to him on global warming. If only he had talked about it.
     Clint Eastwood was Clint Eastwood — a feat which in itself is worthy of an Oscar. His presentation of an Honorary Oscar to Ennio Morricone, for a lifetime of brilliant film scores, came neither from the autocue or a team of writers; it came from the heart — no less a heart than Eastwood’s. If there were more Clint Eastwood’s in Hollywood this would greatly devalue the one we’ve got . . . so one is more than enough.
    Iwo Jima picked up a sound editing statue but, Hollywood being what it is, it was Marty Scorsese’s time as Best Director. And you can’t really begrudge him the Oscar. If you thumb through the past thirty years of Marty's projects he's never really produced any sizeable crap —in itself worthy of recognition.     
    Helen Mirren, yet another celebrated Hollywood Queen, was no surprise. My heart said give Peter O’Toole Best Actor but it is an award for the best performance, not one for a great actor who’s missed out eight times over forty years and is running out of time. Forty five years ago at these very awards is when O'Toole should have been recognized for Lawrence. Forest Whitaker — who was nothing before Eastwood molded him in Bird — was the pick of the actors and the Academy’s pick as well. He gets the prize for best acceptance speech. Heartfelt grace and humility will win every time.
    The 79th Academy Awards are sure to be remembered by history as the 79th time Hollywood folks got together to slap themselves on the back and pretend that pretending to be somebody else is the least pretentious way to make a life for one’s self.
     As usual the show was long. Too long. How long? After the fourth hour they had to add more people to the dead people montage. 
    All that said, Hollywood is a great microcosm for life. No matter the antics and loony ravings and publicist-staged sideshows of its players, if you can look back on the last eight decades of cinema and say you’ve never been touched and provoked and amused and entertained by celluloid then you indeed are the great pretender.