Well, I assume you saw the Oscars Sunday night.  I certainly did.  I stayed up till midnight and somehow (I swear this is true, although I don’t know how) I threw my back out watching it.  Now I know that seems impossible, but it’s true.  I woke up the next morning with an aching back and vague memories of Ben Stiller in blue face (very offensive).

But it occurred to me that there may be some poor souls out there who did not get a chance to watch the telecast.  Or worse, some people who DID watch the telecast but didn’t have anyone to critique it for them (can you imagine?)

So it is for you poor souls that I dedicate this blog.

Let’s begin with the opening.  As you know (or heck, maybe you didn’t).  The broadcast was being hosted this year by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.

This was a fine idea, but they needed a big musical number to kick things off so they called on Neil Patrick Harris because….. well, somehow, he has become the go to guy for this kind of thing.  Sort of hard to say why that is exactly, but there you are.

Anyway, Neil did a big show starting number about how “No One likes to do it alone.”  Yes, it was really an exploration of that metaphysical need we all have for someone or something.  For instance, it included lyrics such as:  

You can’t take Julia Child from her Pies

Or James Cameron from his CGI

You have to share billing, you have to share fame

At least there’s someone to share the blame!

Yes, very clever.

Here it all is if you’re curious.

I mean, honestly, the lyrics are fine.  Nothing wrong with that, but don’t you think they could have been at least a little funnier?  I do.

Now, I’m not one to toot my own horn, but I think I could really help in this area.  Here are some lyrics I just jotted down in the last few minutes.

There’s no Mel Gibson without his Rants 

Or Matt McConoughey with his Pants

You won’t find Amy Winehouse without her Gin

Or Rush Limbaugh without his second chin

You won’t see Will Smith without a film in June

Or Miley Cyrus without her auto tune.

Just like Bono needs to save the earth 

And John Edwards needs a videographer

No one likes to do it alone!

That’s just off the top of my head.  Just think what I could accomplish with a little extra time?  (Honestly, rhymes for Zoe Saldana don’t just roll off the tongue: “Throw me a sauna?”  “Grow me marijuana?”  “Bro!  She’s a mama!”)

Anyway, let’s take a moment to talk about Oscar Fashion.

For my money, you couldn’t really beat Penelope Cruz’s beautiful crimson dress that looked sculpted on to her body.  But let’s be honest, no one really wants to talk about the dresses that looked great.  Let’s spend a few moments talking about those dresses that seem to have come from a deep sense of self loathing and momentary blindness.  

First let’s talk about Charlize Theron’s lamentable lilac laceration of all things lovely.

Ok, so, obviously there seems to be a little gentle, subliminal nudging for you to look at certain areas of the dress.  It most reminded me of the Herb Albert “Whipped Cream and other Delights” album cover (if you don’t know what I’m talking about….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipped_Cream_&_Other_Delights)

The thing that bothered me about this dress, is that she HAD to realize what she was doing.  It’s not like she would put this on, stare at herself in the mirror and not think that it looked like someone took all the extra material for the dress and wadded it up and glued it to her boobies.  

No, she had to see herself in the mirror, think, “Hmm, it appears that I have a dollop of purple sour cream on my ta-tas.  Yes, I think that looks good.”

Our next matter for concern is poor Miley Cyrus.  Aside from it not being entirely clear why she should even be at the academy awards, she seems to be conflicted about herself.

Now you read a lot in entertainment magazines and psych journals about how difficult it can be for a child actor or singer to transition to adult hood.  Well poor lil’ Miley seems to be having a worse time than most.

It’s as if she went and found a dress desgined for a 34 year old and then had it cut down to fit an 8 year old and then tried to squeeze her 20 year old self into it.

It’s truly a bizarre effect.

Her torso appears to be about 8 inches long and attached to a giant skirt.  How does that waist even hold the rest of her up?  Is she single handedly bringing back the corset?  And for crying out loud, can someone tell her to stand up straight and hold her shoulders back.  She looks like she’s auditioning for Quasimodo

There are other dresses I have concerns about, such as Vera Farmiga’s which looks like it was  unraveling as she walked, or Jennifer Lopez that had a very beautiful dress that seemed to be giving birth to another beautiful dress out of J. Lo’s hip.  

But it’s time to move on.

In general, I thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin did pretty well. I thought the humor seemed a little old and slapsticky (I kept listening for the rimshot) but, to be fair, Steve Martin is a little old and slapsticky and I have to admit to laughing out loud a fair amount (Meryl Streep’s Hitler memorabilia!  Hoo boy!  Gets me every time)

And, of course, there was the odd political moment when the people who did a documentary about saving Dolphins from slaughter and were awarded primarily because it was a documentary about saving dolphins from slaughter had the audacity to ask people to sign up to receive text messages about saving dolphin’s from slaughter.  

“Look here, Missy, we might award you for your politically correct film, but don’t try to accomplish anything on our dime!”  (Yes, holding up a sign that said “text dolphin” to some number was tacky, but not nearly as tacky as Charlize Theron’s dress which probably caused a lot more internet activity that evening than the dolphin sign)

There was also the crazy lady who ran up on stage during someone else’s documentary film to yell about something that no one understood.

Here’s my question, how did she get on stage?  Wasn’t there a guard somewhere to stop crazy people from getting up on stage?  I mean, we have all of our national treasures up there… our stars!  George Clooney!  Meryl Streep!  Nicole Richie!  Why that woman could have snapped Nicole Richie in half with her bare hands.  What would we have done then?

Then of course, there was the absolutely bizarre dance routine to the Oscar nominated soundtracks.  Now, the dancers were clearly talented, but it seemed an awful lot like someone had choreographed all of the dances before they found out which songs were nominated.  This would explain why there were people doing the robot during the soundtrack to Up and people spinning on their head for several minutes without stopping during the Hurt Locker theme.  It was very impressive, but….. wha..?

There were other moments that were nice.  I liked the John Hughes tribute although I didn’t understand why Molly Ringwald was so large, and appeared to have stolen her dress and hairstyle from a cross dressing community theater version of Cleopatra.  The whole thing was very sweet, but I couldn’t understand why all those actors look so old, when I still look so young and handsome.

The Oscar death montage with James Taylor was nice and well done, but it seemed like sort of a mean trick.  I kept looking at James Taylor who seemed oddly gaunt with his crazy old man eyebrows and giant forehead and I couldn’t help but think… “You’re next Jimmy boy.”

I thought the personal tributes to all of the best actor and actress candidates was very nice if not a little awkward.  It felt like we were at the wedding reception of some bizarre episode of Big Love.  And boy it kind of went on forever.  Of course nothing felt as awkward or like it went on forever as Jeff Bridges acceptance speech.  I don’t know if Jeff was high or of the rest of us just needed to be, but I’ve never heard the word “dude” muttered so much while someone was wearing a tuxedo. 

But here’s the bottom line to the Oscars.  It’s too long and it contains too much stuff that no one cares about.  You know, the week before the Oscars they have a separate ceremony with all of the really really boring stuff in it.  It’s called the technical awards ceremony (or something like that, no one really cares) and that’s where we need to stick all of the really boring awards that somehow snuck their way onto the Oscar telecast.

Well, I know there is some sound editor out there somewhere who is likely to cry when I say this, but no one cares about sound editing.  We just don’t.  We don’t care about you or your award.  None of you, not sound mixing or sound editing or film editing or cinematograohy and… I know, all of you are really important and without you there would be no movies or whatever, …

BUT NO ONE CARES!

We just don’t.  I’m so sorry.  We also don’t care about best foreign film, or anything with the word documentary in it.

I know.

We’re terrible people.  It’s true.  We’re shallow and insensitive and self absorbed, but we just don’t care about you.  Basically, we care about Best Picture, the acting awards and Best Animated Picture (because we love cartoons).  The atsty fartsy among us can work up a little bit of interest in the writing awards and maybe costume design.  The super artsy, super fartsy can bother to care about the best short film categories.

But that’s it.  Absolutely no one cares about any of the others.  Most of the audience sitting there in the Kodak theater doesn’t care either.  I am so sorry, but it’s true.  We’d rather have a category for best dress worn to the Oscars, than an award for best documentary short.  We’re very shallow that way.

You want to have a short pleasant Oscar telecast?  Axe all the boring stuff and ship it down to the tech awards.  I don’t mind if you award people, I just don’t want to see it.  That’s a solution that everyone could get behind except, the sad little sound mixers, but lets be honest.  Don’t you think we could take them in a fight if we had to?

So, there you go.  That’s everything you need to know about the Oscars and everything you need to know to make them better.  

If only they gave an Oscar for telling people what to do, I’d be a shoo in.

Of course, they’d probably give that out at the technical awards.