Well this year’s snubs n’ flubs season rolled around and I didn’t even realize it was Oscar night until Steve texted me instructing me to be at his house by 5:00. Like most sane people, I have a love-hate relationship with the Oscars that I would describe as 99% hate and 1% love, with a 1% margin of error. Perhaps once every tens years something delightful happens at the Oscars–an amazing off-the-rails political speech; Frances McDormand eschewing all thank yous to direct her remarks to everyone putting strong women in films; the time Silence of the Lambs swept the awards and beat Beauty and the Beast for best picture and I gloated loudly and for way too long over all the twee ding dongs at my high school who loved that classic Disney garbage pile and were shocked by all the face-ripping-offage in the former film.
Mostly, though, Oscar night is a parade of clichés and self-aggrandizing capitalist flamboyance performed by outrageously wealthy people who make millions of dollars pretending to be other people, in films that MAYBE 12% of Americans have ever even heard of. Also, the films actually up for awards are often utter drivel, which is depressing, because if we’re going to honor classy “best” films that only 12% of American snobs have seen, can’t they be the actually good films and not, like, American Hustle?
I do enjoy seeing celebs interfacing awkwardly with one another and with the human pieces of shit who make their living doing red carpet interviews. I enjoy seeing which celebs bring their moms as dates (never dads! what’s that about). I enjoy seeing a classy dress and commenting on it like I know what I’m talking about (“that’s a good cut for her”<---WTF). This Oscar night was marred ahead of time by the incredibly tone deaf Jimmy Kimmel bit where he really cruelly mocks the audience for being fat and stupid and poorly dressed and eating cheese-puffs with our hideous swollen fingers, as he simultaneously earnestly enjoins them not to make fun of Cate Blanchett's dress because these people worked really hard to make great movies and who are you to judge. I basically have never seen anything so off-point and insulting in my life. Millionaire fashion snobs shouldn't be made fun of by their own audience because said audience is fat. Thank you, Jimmy Kimmel, I continue to be completely uninterested in your career.
“The listener is not childlike, they are childish; their primitivism is not that of the undeveloped, but that of the forcibly retarded.” TW Adorno
As for the actual awards, I just heaved a huge sigh as I typed those words. Gravity, a horrible film, won a bunch of awards because it’s hard to make something look like it’s in space. The Somalian dude who co-starred with Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips did not win an award; I also found out last night that he was paid $65,000, total, for appearing in that film, even though he had equal screen time with Tom Hanks and was arguably the protagonist we cared the most about. Sarah says he’s been staying at a hotel out by the airport and his friend who is a cabbie has been driving him around LA. Basically I wish everyone in the world would die except that guy.
I guess the high point of the evening was Matthew McConaughey’s actually insane speech where he thanked God really profusely, described his father in Heaven drinking Miller Light and making jambalaya and dancing, and then declared that he is his own hero and isn’t that so awesome. He also failed to thank or even mention the man he portrayed in order to win the Oscar, who suffered and died so horribly. He also didn’t mention AIDS. I have been seriously digging McConaughey of late and this speech only increased my enjoyment of his work. It is interesting to watch an actual lunatic pretend to be a sociopath (True Detective) or a dying person (Dallas Buyers Club) or an aging stripper (Magic Mike). It goes without saying that his madness obviously infuses his performances with some sort of serious zing that you can feel through the screen. I also find it batshit that he keeps delivering his catchphrase from 20 years ago (“alright alright alright”) as though it is charming. Also, he is very handsome. I like cadaverous leathery McConaughey much more than I liked his old hunky persona. What an odd career arc that man has had. I also think he is faking his accent. Overall, I believe that had he not found an outlet in Hollywood movie making he would probably be a serial killer.
I really hate all the songs that are up for awards. It’s so depressing to look back through the “Best Song” category over the years. Freaking West Side Story was in that category! Songs from “Fame”?? “Up Where We Belong?” The freaking song from Flashdance?? The incredible Giorgio Moroder Top Gun love song? GIRL PLEASE. And now it’s just some dipshit meandering content-less bullshit from Frozen or that inane nonsense from Her where the moment it’s over you can’t remember a single thing about it. Music in movies is getting so bad. And nobody notices! Even friends of mine thought the songs in the Jason Siegel muppet movie were good but they sounded like they were written by a machine using an algorithm. I’M SORRY BUT I AM PISSED
I didn’t understand why Liza Minnelli didn’t sing “Rainbow.” What does Pink have to do with that song? No diss on Pink, who I like.
I liked Ellen’s bit about J-Law falling down, I thought it was well-delivered. I also liked her pizza bit. I liked when Brad Pitt kept throwing twenties in Pharrell’s hat. I liked when Lupita Nyong’o won and I liked how great she looked and I liked how she brought her brother as a date. I liked how Jonah Hill and his mom look absolutely identical. I would french Bradley Cooper’s face off. I am sick of Christian Bale and his whole deal. I am glad Martin Scorsese lost again, hooray! I would rather eat a cockroach than watch that movie.
Well there you have it
And American culture continues its slow decline