OSCARS 2008 – ITS A WRAP!
by Kevin J. Walker, Film Critic walkernet@gmail.com
http://thewordnetpaper.tripod.com
It was time for Black folks to stop hogging all
the awards and let somebody else win for a change. Winners this year were people whose category was English as a Second Language,
if at all. France, Spain, Iran were in the house.
Ruby Dee was up for Best Supporting Actress for
playing Denzel Washington's accommodating mama in AMERICAN GANGSTER which was otherwise shut out of the acting awards. Had
she won at 83 she would have been the Academy's oldest recipient ever.
AUGUST
RUSH's "Raise It Up" was nominated for Best Song by creators Jamal Joseph, Charles
Mack, and Tevin Thomas which they performed for the ceremony in a rousing rhythmic display.
Incidentally, Charlize Theron is African
American. (South African native). Her accent is Gone, Baby Gone from all the American parts she's played, and unlike people
such as Sean Connery (Scotland), Eric Bana (Australia) Mel Gibson (Aus.) Nicole Kidman (Aus.) and Russell Crowe (Aus.) she
doesn't go home enough to recharge her linguistic skills to get her accent back. Countrywoman Cate Blanchett's is almost on
its way out. But I digress.
Daniel Day Louis won Best Actor for "THERE WILL
BE BLOOD." He finally got his head on straight after saying a few years ago he
wanted to retire and become a cobbler. This is his second win after "My Left Foot." He's kept his Brrritish occ-cent.
Javier Bardem won Best Supporting Actor for NO COUNTRY
FOR OLD MEN, a modern Western about a botched drug deal, a missing fortune, and a brutal mob enforcer played by Bardem. He
delivered his speech in Spanish, saying "This is for all of us!"
He brought his mother to the ceremonies. He's a
real man. He was the lead in "The Dancer Upstairs," about a Spanish counter terrorist operative on the trail of the country's
top killer.
This focus and preponderance of foreign born nominated,
obscure arty films and depressing subject matter may have depressed tune-ins for the show, the lowest rated Oscar show ever,
and a lame host from a tiny cable online community.
The budget movie houses have several of these films
since the timing drops them into their schedules when the nominations and ceremonies are underway. The bigger chains then
scramble to have them back.
Among the big films only "Juno" made any real money,
over $100 million largely from the youth appeal and positive Pro Life message of a teen who eschewed having an abortion and
chooses to give the baby up for adoption to Jennifer Garner and her husband.
GONE BABY GONE director Ben Affleck had his on fire
baby brother Casey as lead, but the most excellent film was shut out much as "American Gangster" in nominations. Casey did get nominated for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" starring Brad Pitt.
Amy Ryan was up for Best Supporting Actress as the Boston single mother whose young daughter's disappearance is being investigated
by Affleck, Monaghan, Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris.
OSCAR HOSTING WAS
WEAK
Jon Stewart wasn't bringing a lot of popularity
to the screen with him. Goatee Boys, TwentySomethings who get their news from his fake topical news show, and latte drinkers
on college campi don't count for much. But he got some points in.
Politics crept into Stewart's presentation when
he commented on the struggle for primacy between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with the barest connection to Hollywood.
"Usually, whenever there's a African American or
woman president a huge meteor is about to hit the Statue of Liberty" quipped Stewart in an unusually apt zinger. I'm thinking
Morgan Freeman in "Deep Impact."
The prolonged writers strike made it a chance there'd
be no awards show at all, like the Golden Globes, and many people were mentally divorced from the event. Then, there was the
subject matter which was murderous, gloomy and overtly arty and foreign based.
All combined meant no real reasons to tune in and
give almost four hours of one's life that couldn't be gotten back. I'll bet the show's organizers are rethinking how best
to woo Chris Rock back to do his host thing. Comedians have been the preferred host pool since Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal
and Steve Martin did such a good job in the 1980s. They followed with multiple hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock.
FILMS HONOURED
WHAT FEW PEOPLE SAW ON THEATRES
Denzel Washington capped off the show presenting
the Best Film award. He won the Best Actor Academy Award winner for "Training Day" in a year for what has been termed the
African-American Oscars for the tripartite wins that night (Halle Berry for "Monster's Ball;" Washington; and Sidney Poitier
for Lifetime Achievement).
"Thank God for teen pregnancy" in 'Juno'," which
this year passed for a Feel Good movie, quipped Seattle based conservative radio talk show host and critic Michael Medved
of this year's "empty" crop of gloomy and/or murderous movies: SWEENEY TODD; THERE WILL BE BLOOD – which wasn't a rip
off of the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises, but about a morally conflicted oil businessman of the late 1800s played by the victorious
Daniel Day Lewis.
"What is 'No Country For Old Men' about? That if
you come across $2 million dollars in the desert from a drug sale gone bad and a shootout, don't pick it up?" Medved asked.
OSCARS BECOMING
ENTERTAINMENT WORLD'S SUPERBOWL
Prince had a jamming post-Oscar party in the Hollywood
Hills. Of course, many people have to with a lot less.
I've been to Oscar viewing parties, both sanctioned
and not. (They'll send lawyers after you, if they can catch you. Smart ones don't advertise it, but people know. There actually
is a law that you can't show broadcasts of sports or movies even for free without an Exhibitors license. Around the Superbowl
is when you hear of that. So, all those patio and lawn parties with the projection TVs or flat panels might get you a terse
letter.
Usually they don't bother, they're too busy trying
to close down the bitTorent movie downloaders who are doing for feature films what happened to the CD and music sales! More
on that in the Technical articles, and the evolving Web ver.2.0
The Oscar ritual is becoming a growing type of cultural
Superbowl. Instead of just a night, it starts days before with gatherings and fittings and parties and sightings. It seems
to be evolving much as Halloween has, which has long been snatched from the kiddies and now is the second most expensive holiday
season.
The Superbowl and Academy Award seasons fill the
void of the long period of drought between the end of the month long Thanksgiving and Solstice season and the growing March
17th multi-day bacchanalia of St. Patrick's Day.
The Spring Equinox celebration we call Easter, from
its older name of Ishtar, from Persia and thereabouts, would be the next one after that. Go read about the Real Reasons For
Tha Seasons.
ABC knows how to use what they have. They front
loaded their Oscar pre, post and next day God Morning America shows to boost their lineups. Barbara Roberts had her customary
interviews; Jimmy Kimmel Live's late night show and his foul-mouthed girlfriend the comic and cable show star Sarah Silverman
had dueling ribald cuckold videos.
"I'm wearing 'JC Pen-ay' – from the after 5 section," quipped GMA co-host Robin Roberts as she reclined on the loungers on
the Oscar set the next day. Really? Are they from the same line as Tar-Zhay? (Target!)
Roberts kept her hair on this time, but is as prone
to take it off if it gets uncomfortable or in the way. When she did her runway model dare a few weeks ago she doffed the hairpiece
she wears while she undergoing her chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer.
I had a lady friend whose head was close shaven.
I liked it a lot, because she had the head shape for it. When she grew her hair back I didn't like it as much, although she
had ear lobe-length hair when I met her. But I digress.
Since ABC was the sponsoring station, they had access
to all the good stuff, while the other networks' news shows used the after ceremony setup where they let people blab on and
on, with the photogenic back drop. This way there's no nagging music-hook about to usher you off the stage while you're thanking
the nanny and the gardener, et cetera while the show drags into the night.
ABC also used the opportunity to push "Pushing Daisies"
co star and Broadway singer Kristin Chenowith, who does some on the limits pushing show about her pie shoppe partner who has
the power of resurrection over anything dead. You have to be there. It will be covered in TeleViews. It also stars Chi McBride,
and Ellen Green who does her own singing. You know her as Seymour's boo from "Little Shop of Horrors."
DIABLO CODY –
THIS IS WHY SOME WOMEN SHOULDN'T GET TATS
Diablo Cody, tatted up best Screenwriter for "Juno,"
was a refreshing departure from the cutesy gown wearing chicks in the ceremonies and red carpet. She didn't even bother putting
makeup on that thing on her right arm nor wear a single sleeve over it, as some did. Screw 'em she seemed to say. Hers was
at the upper limit of respectability and almost looked like some wayward jewelry.
This is why smart women who plan on going nice places
someday don't get large red/blue/green obtrusive tattoos. They don't go well with gowns, although Tractor Pull Redneck chicks
don't think they'll ever have to care. Or apparently Mary J. Blige who had them on both arms, looking like a Thug Babe who
wandered into the ceremonies on her way to a Gangsta Rap concert in the same building.
Blige's tat wasn't a li'l one like Viveca Fox's
either, a little fox on her left upper arm which was even in "Independence Day." (I looked at her a lot. The Late Bloomer
from Chicago had a shake dancer scene, not to speak of her humorous amorous scenes in the hilarious "Booty Call" with "Ray"
Best Actor winner Jamie Foxx.
Cody also seemed a little like the character Juno,
and thanked her parents who loved her "just the way I am." She probably has an interesting history which we will no doubt
be exposed to. It turns out that she went to high school in Chicago Land area. She was always adventurous, her friends said
of the former stripper and exotic dancer. We could tell that from Cody's dress, with a slit so high up her thigh you could
almost see her Burning Bush!
We'll know much more of her; winning Oscars will
do that to/for you, as well as pumping up the receipts of a movie that is still in theatres. Watch your papers for the ads,
with the little man statuettes marking them as something you want to see. – kjw
NEXT: The fashions, the mistakes. What Would Joan
Say?
walkernet@gmail.com
http://thewordnetpaper.tripod.com
