Four hours and several bottles later, The 70th annual Academy Awards is finally over. This years’ extravaganza was much like “Titanic”, the clear winner for the night; it’s over-rated and about an hour could have been cut out of it.
Marred by random tributes to films and celebrities, the event had the feel of a bong hit triggering acid flashbacks. What the hell was that “class picture review” at the end? Was Sean Connery taking a dump or something when he was supposed to be giving the last award? I think I’d rather keep the career-decimating musical numbers. Couldn’t Leonardo DiCaprio have done a duet with Cinderella or something? Throw him a bone, people.
What was up with the “King Kong” tribute? Billy Crystal pulls Faye Wray out of the audience and she didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on. It was some kind of “Price Is Right” moment.
“Titanic” managed to tie “Ben Hur” for most Oscars, at 11. However, it won in some technical categories that didn’t exist when “Ben Hur” was made, so I say it keeps the record. “Titanic” lost in only three categories. By the look on Kate Winslet’s face, can you tell what one of those categories is?
Speaking of, of the five nominees for Best Actress, three of them got naked. Thankfully, one of them was not Judi Dench. Helen Hunt won (guess “Mad About You” is going to get a little expensive next year), and was most gracious, except for a little missive at Miss Winslet. I say they wrestle for it.
During the endless “class review” segment at the end, when Marlee Matlin was shown, with her hair done up on top of her head, revealing previously unseen portions of her anatomy. “With ears like that, she can’t hear?!?” Thanks, Scott.
The only surprise of the evening seemed to be what music we were going to play over the ever dreadful musical numbers. The band, Spiritualized, worked quite well the blot out the taint of Celine Dion, though a “South Park” Mecha-Streisand storming through the Shrine Auditorium and stepping on Dion would have worked just as well.
Finally we had a moment of silence for the forgotten man of the evening, the man we most look forward to seeing each year. This year, there was no Best Song nomination for the master, Kenny Loggins.
Oh well, after party at Jack Nicholson’s house, ten more years of bad behavior.
