REV: Oscars Mop-up

Okay, i'm feeling a bit smug right now. I SORTA nailed the Oscars tonight, and am flabbergasted that i did. More on that later.

First some other details -- i thought it was the most enjoyable Oscars program in a long, long time, though there have been other fine, if long, shows. It never dragged, Chris Rock was funny (vicious, but funny) the music (with a notable exception) very good, and the show just fun to watch. Beyonce and Josh Groban were as tight as whatever that band was was sloppy and 3/4 shy of on-pitch. This much we know, there was no lip-synching at this awards show. And Santana!

Rock was every bit as dangerous as he was billed. Make no mistake -- Rock is dangerous not for the words he uses, but how he uses the words. He wasn't hardly clean, but certainly avoided the censors. I'm sure some FCC wag and a couple of congressman will take him/them to task over it, but he skirted the letter of the law ever so finely, saving the great big one for the very last. One has to wonder if the Academy wasn't part and parcel of the setup, considering who presented the Best Picture award. All right, i don't have to wonder -- they set it up -- but gave the old "No One Under 14" warning first. Hoo-boy. And was Dusty rusty or . . .

I can just picture two guys behind the button on the five-second delay doing double-takes:

"Did he say it?"

"I don't think he said IT, but it sounded like it."

"Can we bleep it if it's not it?"

"[Five seconds up]"

"Oh well."

And am i not mistaken that the only thing bleeped was in a pre-recorded film clip, and the word bleeped was one Rock had already used in his opening monologue without getting bleeped?

Choice!

I'm pretty down on cussing. But you can count me downer with censors.

Some of Rock's targets were a bit ruthlessly savaged -- Jude Law in particular -- though Sean Penn's annual version of the knight in shining armor was kinda whiny and pompous. Rock did play up race in some targeted and biting ways. Some of it i'm not sure how to take, but i'm sure others will weigh in on it soon. I know this, he is a sharp archer.

Despite Rock's digs, the haul by African-American actors was most impressive. In the only non-win by a major African-American nominee -- Don Cheadle for Hotel Rwanda -- he was beaten by another black man [okay, somehow i got gender-centric here and now i realize that Sophie Okonedo also didn't win -- perhaps my blindness in thinking Cate Blanchett was spectacular . . .]. The sweetest justice done was that these were not token wins -- the best men, period, won for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor in a roomful of excellent actors and performances.

A year ago, my good friend Greg Moses wrote somewhat despairingly in The Texas Civil Rights Review and Counterpunch about the lack of color on display at the Oscars.

[See: http://www.texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=101 and http://www.texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=102 ]

Who's to know who might have read that fine essay in the Academy, but some possible mitigations might have been more demeaning than helpful. Perhaps some evidence of an attempt to balance the program better, ala Moses' plea, was the use of P. Diddy and Prince as presenters. Both wise choices, yet a bit obvious since they made bigger hay in their heyday as musicians/fashion designers than actors. Beyonce singing three of the five nominated best songs was a tad odd as well. Are there no other singers out there who could perform a couple of these? Not that she did them poorly, she was superb, but next to her the band from hell (who were those guys? [Aaaaargh! Adam Duritz -- a guy whose voice i have admired -- & Counting Crows -- a band i've never seen but listen to frequently! or Milli Vanilli reincarnate? Tell me it isn't so Joe, tell me it isn't so]) well . . . you get it. Choosing the best comedian working to host was, IMHO, a fine start -- that is to choose the best comedian and not the best black comedian.

That there were five major nominees of color, one nominated twice, was about talent, not about color. And that is to the credit and betterment of cinema. Maybe, in some circles, just being American can finally be what it might should have been post-reconstruction -- a label without the need for parsing. Justice, after all, is about avoiding injustice to begin with; not in bandaging the damage. It is best then that talent has trumped the need (at least for now) for affirmative action. Caution still wonders why the arts (the motion picture arts anyway), so late in coming 'round, wasn't leading the charge instead of squatting behind the advance guard.

[From the New York Times: Asked to comment on the large number of nominations for black actors this year - five nominations for four actors - Mr. Freeman observed: "It means Hollywood is continuing to make history. Life goes on. Things change. They never stay the same. We are evolving with the rest of the world."

and

The year was a landmark one for African-American actors, the first time that black men won both acting categories. It followed 2002, another landmark year, when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won the two top acting awards, and suggested that blacks were gaining greater acceptance in Hollywood. Asked about the significance of his win backstage, Mr. Foxx said black people had too many negative images, and needed positive symbols. "In our music, our everyday life - why not have something positive, and stamp it with blackness," he said. "When I was watching Halle Berry, watching Denzel Washington it gave me inspiration, that I could do my thing too."]

And of the battle about assimilationism? What i saw in the performances i watched were characters of great personal strength (certainly heroic in some sense) but with flawed backgrounds -- no less than we would expect of any human of any color, much less such finely wrought personas. So no, no Aileen Wuornos-type was nominated, but then what performance, this year, qualified?

Indeed. I say it is a fine new step for the Academy, whether intentional or serendipitous.

Having sat through the evening with a fine bunch of friends -- actors/directors/fans Holly Riedel, Roy Burney, Marie Cearley, John Cearley, Aaron Hutto and Chad Varner -- and a wonderful feed (amazingly typical for the house of Riedel, assisted by the house of Cearley, for which i am most grateful) i found what you usually do in a gathering of aficionados -- some new nuggets of wisdom and knowledge. Perhaps most shocking was to find out that Best Supporting Actor nominee Thomas Haden Church lives just a couple of miles down the road from me/us -- literally in Ingram. Who could have known? Well, i guess everyone but me.

I also had read several times about Jamie Foxx's relationship with the grandmother who raised him, but somehow had missed the fact that he is a Texas boy. Not Ingram, perhaps, but you know Texas provincialism. So a toast to both. To Thomas homeboy for making the big show, and to Jamie for the win, and for the finest speech delivered tonight.

Now for my smugness. As you will note in the post way down below, i really didn't do picks so to speak, so much as publicly declare those films/actors/etc. for whom i would vote, had i a vote. With thousands of voters i fear sometimes that maybe these things might be ever so predictable -- though the professional critics seem to have a hard time getting it right. Maybe they're just being snooty so they can give snooty reasons later about the unwashed voting masses. Anyway, if this is a game, and if you're trying to win it, then i think maybe it's not that tough. I don't really know.

What i do know is this: Of the 8 categories i declared my picks in -- 7 of them won. I would have been 100% except that i chickened out in Best Director and picked two, knowing only one would win. At least the winner was one of those two. So sorta i got a 100%, or if you ignore the one i sorta cheated on, it's still 100%. Or whatever.

Here is my full disclosure part: While watching the show i actually picked favorites in 8 additional categories. I'll eliminate one of those in a category -- Best Foreign Film -- in which i didn't see a single film, but sheerly guessed the winner based on the intense buzz and attention given the film (is this a Miramax thing?). Of the remaining seven, i picked five right, and missed on two. So dropping the two "sortas" i was 13 for 15 (or 14 for 16, or 15 for 17; quibbles, my dear). Not too shabby. I haven't checked the critics scoreboards yet, but they'll be hard-pressed to match that percentage.

Below is the list of things i picked publicly a few days ago:
Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby
Best Actor: Jamie Foxx
Best Actress: Hilary Swank
Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett
Animated Feature Film: The Incredibles
Cinematography: The Aviator
Directing: Scorcese AND Eastwood

Tonight i picked:
Original Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Adapted Screenplay: Sideways
Foreign Language Film: The Sea Inside
Art Direction: The Aviator
Costume Design: The Aviator
Documentary: The Story of the Weeping Camel (won by Born Into Brothels)
Visual Effects: Spiderman 2
Film Editing: Million Dollar Baby (won by The Aviator)

My complaints -- few: Who were all the gnomes dashing around -- staff making up for lapses somewhere? Lots of stage noise. Hoffman unable to handle something.

I guess unlike most folks i've seen comment, i liked the lineup of all the nominees on stage at the announcement of the awards. I imagine were i sitting in the audience i'd like to see the major nominees do the same -- something not really possible (except by screenshot) when they're hunkered in their seats (and which seemed, and always has seemed, invasive and uncomfortable). HOWEVER, awarding in the aisles of the audience was cheesy, unprofessional and ungracious -- that needs to go.

And finally (and not a complaint, just an observation), i didn't pay close attention to the fawning red carpet pre-show (in which the host/interviewer was universally bludgeoned for his patronizing rudeness), but during the actual ceremony i didn't once see Harvey or Bob Weinstein. Is that right?? Or did i miss something?

[updated several times in the hours after the show]