Posted on 03/13/2005 9:46:36 PM PST by Zivasmate
A LAND OF LAWS Oscar Night 2005
I wonder which Jude Law took more offence at on Oscar night: Chris Rock’s affable riff in his opening monologue — 'Whassup with this Jude Law guy? It’s like he’s in everything, man. He’s the hero, he’s the villain, he’s British, he’s American,’ etc., which has a grain of truth in it; or touchy Sean Penn’s portentous riposte to the throwaway gag later in the evening — some three hours later, but evidently it still rankled — that, au contraire, Jude Law was a great artist and we should honour him as such. All it needed to seal the moment was Yo-Yo Ma to come out and do some mournful cello arrangement of ‘I Fought Jude Law (And Jude Law Won)’ over a montage of Chris Rock’s non-Bush gags bombing.
I haven’t had the opportunity to perform a forensic examination of the Sean Penn puppet in Team America: World Police, but it would be a marvel of marionation if he were thinner-skinned than the real Penn. One day Hollywood limousine liberalism will collapse under the weight of its own humourlessness, but till then Sean reserves his right to reply to any cheap cracks that are disrespectful of his fellow ‘artists’, and even if the viewers flee in their millions, what do those losers know? The Penn is mightier than the bored.
Ratings for the Academy Awards were down this year, though not as all-time-record-low six-foot-under down as the gloomy Iraq war Oscars of 2003. Still, there were no big movies in contention — Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, the supposed break-out hit, never quite broke out; Ray, as in Ray Charles, is a glossy formulaic biotuner; and the rest of the stuff — from sentimental movies about Che Guevara to sentimental movies about backstreet abortionists — reflected mostly the industry’s laughably cobwebbed radicalism. The boffo smash of 2004 was The Passion Of The Christ, but that got frosted out in the nominations. The Academy would have been better served to toss Mel Gibson a bone or two at the nominating stage and then shaft him on the big night. The show would have had something at stake, a grand over-arching narrative.
But, alas, a business built on storytelling couldn’t find one to bind together its biggest night of the year, so it fell back on that old favourite — racial breakthroughs. Look! A black man’s been nominated for two Oscars — the first time that’s happened since Steppin Fetchit got a Best Supporting Actor nod for Second Pullman Porter From The Left in Broadway Melody Of 1934 and a Best Supporting Negro nomination for Third Shoeshine Boy In The Second Row in Ice Follies Of 1934. Half a decade into the 21st century, Hollywood’s self-congratulation on race is just plain weird — like an Alabammy lunch counter bragging in 2005, ‘Enjoy A Tuna Melt In Our Now Fully Desegregated Dining Room’.
Still, it was a great night to be black, if one overlooks Renée Zellweger’s hair. (And how come, post-Bridget Jones, her breasts have shrunk but she’s had implants in her eye bags?) Personally, however, I thought the wrong black man won. Jamie Foxx is a very likeable fellow and was a very plausible Ray Charles. But Don Cheadle pulled off a much more difficult trick in Hotel Rwanda: as I said last week, this is the performance of his career, and in the kind of film where an Oscar or two would have made a big difference. And, for all Hollywood’s bragging about its social conscience, Hotel Rwanda was the only film dealing with a great question of the moment: when should the West intervene in failed states? All the rest — Che, Imelda Staunton’s abortionist turn — is ‘bold’ ‘courageous’ artistry in the service of causes won decades ago.
So, in the absence of any other controversies, they argued about the jokes. One of Chris Rock’s gag writers came up with this intro for Halle Berry: ‘Our next presenter has lost more men than the Iraqi army.’ But Rock couldn’t quite bring himself to use it, whether because it was disrespectful to the Iraqis or to Halle will be for future scholars to unearth.
Also, Robin Williams’s song got axed. Written by Marc Shaiman, it was a holy-rolling hot gospel number about the secret life of cartoon characters, bouncing off the allegation by a prominent minister of the Christian Right that Spongebob Squarepants is gay. That’s not exactly what the preacherman said, but let’s not let that get in the way of mocking these uptight Republican God-botherers. Williams had planned to sing:
Pinocchio’s had his nose done! Sleeping Beauty is popping pills! The Three Little Pigs ain’t kosher! Betty Boop works Beverly Hills!
I yield to no one in my respect for Marc Shaiman. He wrote the all-time great Oscar song parody for Billy Crystal a few years back (‘The Tender Trap’, reworked for The Crying Game). But honestly — ‘Pinocchio’s had his nose done’? I’d have axed it on lameness grounds, but Gil Cates, the veteran Oscar producer who’s been doing the show for years even though he never gets it right, told Shaiman and Williams it was ‘too political’. So they rewrote it even lamer:
Pocahontas is addicted to craps! Josie and the Pussycats dance on laps!
And this time ABC objected to the ‘sexual tone’, and the possible offence to native Americans.
So in the end there was no song, and Robin Williams did an impression of Marlon Brando doing Elmer Fudd, which would have been cutting-edge comedy in the 1954 Oscars. And after everything else was rejected, the only material everyone agreed was wholly unobjectionable was Chris Rock saying the President is an idiot and his war is a stupid pointless waste of human life. After which, they dedicated the show to America’s men and women in uniform. Robin Williams pirouetting from Marlon Brando to Elmer Fudd is one thing, but Chris Rock lurching from Michael Moore to Betty Grable is far less convincing. The Spectator, March 5th 2005
He also mistakenly calls 'Vera Drake' a Hollywood film.
Cheadle was robbed and that's the truth.
I agree. He was doing genunine acting whereas Foxx was doing something a notch above sketch mimicry.
Still, he does make a point. These self congratulatory, award swapping 'Celebrities' are getting so wound up in PC that in the very near future they won't have a joke to tell that won't offend some artificially defined group's sensitivities. The same is probably true of screenplays. LMAO.
That Jude Law issue just proved once again that Sean Penn is the single most humorless person on Earth.
It's called reaping what you sow,or getting hoist with your own petard.
"Foxx was doing something a notch above sketch mimicry."
And you know, they could have given best supporting to Foxx instead, for "Collateral" which seems like a better performance by him.
Disclaimer: I've actually seen NONE of these movies, but I will make it a point to see Hotel Rawanda. But I just think that whole movie just got robbed, it shows what phonies they all really are.
All their posturing, and they can't wait to heap awards on Million Dollar Baby, a formulaic piece of liberal orthodoxy. Maybe they should be careful what they wish for, after all, it is in their world where not being a star is a fate worse than death.
I may have missed the reference you're correcting but I don't think he called it a Hollywood film; he refered to it as coming from the film industry, which it did.
I think Fox should have won for Collateral if he had to win, though I was glad Freeman won. In fact, Eastwood's performance will be remembered after 'Ray" enters that pantheon of winners who didn't REALLY deserve to win, now that we think about it years later.
Last year was an awful year for movies.
Actually, I didn't even realize this was a Steyn article until you mentioned it. Not quite the biting edge that he normally uses.
"Last year was an awful year for movies."
May have been the worst ever.Best little movie of the year I saw was "Paper Clips."
Eternal Sunshine was interesting, even though it swiped all its ideas from Philip K. Dick I enjoyed it. Before SUnset was painfully bad. Kill Bill 2 was one of the worst things I've ever sat through. Have no desire to see another Mike Leigh film. I was pleased with the wins Sideways and Aviator got, but found both to be lesser films from their makers.
The only movies from 04 that will join my alltime list were Million Dollar Baby and Collateral.
His curveball didn't have the sharp break in this one. Maybe writing about Hollywood so nauseates him, it knocks him off his game. A perfectly understandable reaction.
Or maybe he fell asleep watching,(who could blame him?) and had to fudge a little.
As to Before Sunset perhaps you're not a fan of Linklater's style. He has that laid back this-is-happening-now improv groove that leaves lots of people cold. One of the keys for me was that those two characters aren't all that interesting or nearly as smart as they think they are. The movie knows that. Lesser Scorsese is still better then most directors at their best. I forgot to mention 'I Heart Huckabees' and The Life Aquatic with Steven Zissou. Not entirely succesful but ambitious and honorable.
You have wonder why someone who dislikes movies would write about them at all.
I'm a fan of Raymond Carver (and of Lost in Translation), so character-centric stuff is fine by me. But these two people were so self-involved and lacking in anything that compelled me to watch that I was starting to get physically uncomfortable just sitting there listening to them prattle on about nothing.
I had that reaction to 'My Dinner With Andre'. If you ever get a chance see Linklater's 'Waking Life'. 'Before Sunset' with academics...and animated. I loved it but many find it sheer torture. :-)
Linklater's next is an animated PKDick adaptation, I'll be seeing that.
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